We made it this time.
Barbara met us early. She's decided to ride on the back of Lucky's scooter for a tour around Lake Tahoe, so we trailered the two scooters to Lucky's cabin just outside of Tahoe. This by far has to the best MPG I've gotten on this entire trip. We stopped in Placerville, CA also known as Hang Town (for obvious reasons) for brunch at the Buttercup Pantry, another home grown pancake/waffle house. My California Benedict: poached eggs, sliced avocado and hollandaise on an English muffin was to die for.
When Lucky bought this cabin several years ago, there was ski jersey mounted over the fireplace from the 1968 Olympic champion Spider Sabich. He made his offer contingent on keeping the jersey. The deal went down, and little did he realize at the time, this was the childhood home of Sabich. It's an incredibly restored cabin from the early 1930's. The cabin managed to survive several fires over the years, and is an ideal hideaway. A crumbling outpost of the 1860's Pony Express is just beyond this cabin.
We unloaded the scooters, and departed for our clockwise excursion around Lake Tahoe. It was cold and somewhat rainy on the climb up past Sugar Loaf to the lake. We ascended though the clouds, past Lover's Leap, and descended to the Lake for a gorgeous sun dappled view of the lake.Just past the California/Nevada border, we stopped at the CalNeva Casino, formerly owned by Frank Sinatra, for a late lunch. This was the stomping ground for many a celebrity in the day. There are tunnels underground from the stage to Frank's bungalo. Marylyn Monroe had a cabin here too. This was the Rat Pack's playground. It straddles the California Nevada border, with a line running through the swimming pool and through the grand ballroom. We sort of snuck into the theatre, but it was way too dark to see much. I wasn't interested in getting kicked out by turning on the lights.
We fueled up and headed towards the south side of the lake for Bill's Casino, mercifully the only non-smoking casino I have ever seen. I'd forgotten to get the cash I intended to lose earlier when we unloaded the scooters at the cabin and I realized I left the keys to my scooter back at Lucky's house in Sacramento. I was forced to use a casino ATM to lose my money. I had a spare set of keys so it worked out OK. My replacement American Express card chased me up the California coast, so my other keys can chase me across the continent.
The casino was not crowded at all. Lucky was not so lucky as he blew some cash at the Craps table while unsuccessfully trying to explain to me how the game works. I still don't get it. An hour or so of fun for me at the Roulette table left me lighter for cash. I wandered over to Lucky just as he was unluckily blowing the rest of his wad at a $5 minimum Blackjack table. I sat down with my last bit of cash I had earmarked to lose. I sort of staked Lucky, and he sort of advised me. Soon I had several handfuls of red chips and cashed them in for fewer green chips. I was excited to play with the just green chips. Lucky urged me to to leave when I had several handfuls of green chips before I tried to play with the blue chips.I did get to hold a handful of blue chips on the way to the cashier. We did well.
We drove though some rain and fog back to the cabin. Sadly I'm leaving the care of my social director for these last several days. I'm staying at the cabin while Barbara and Lucky head back to Sacramento. Barbara's got to be at work early in he morning, so we loaded up Lucky's scooter on the trailer.
No better way to end the day. Thank you Lucky for these last several days. You truly are a sweetheart, despite what everyone says about you on the interwebs. It's been a blast with all you Bastards.
A slide show from today:
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