day 5 // kings beach

The morning started off slow with some tasty breakfast burritos-- everyone here has a day to claim the kitchen and make breakfast/dinner [and be in charge of cleanup], and since J, Jam and I made breakfast yesterday, it was nice to just sit back and chow down.

After breakfast finished, we piled in the car and made our way to Kings Beach, right on Lake Tahoe. We were a bit starving after the loooong 40 minute journey so we hit up Jason's Beachside Grille [mildly amusing because it shares namesakes with J] for some loaded burgers. Highlight also was finding a "Jamie's Silk Pie" on the menu, a shared namesake with Jam as well. [I left my camera at the house so I had to use my phone for pics, bear with me:]

Once we'd filled our bellies with medium rare patties smothered in ketchup, molten cheddar, onions, bacon, lettuce, and tomato, we hit the beach. 

I was not prepared for a number of things: 

1. The sheer number of people. Though I can't really blame them, it was a gorgeous day out [apparently it hails a lot there sometimes...?]. The shore to the lake was pretty chock full.
2. The HEAT of the SAND. Like oh my god. I looked down to see not just brown grains but also some black-- I'm wondering if that had a lot to do with heat absorption and all that... When I wanted to leave my towel for the water, I had to SPRINT to the water so as to be on the sand as little as possible. I tried. Later on I saw this poor older woman struggling to get to the parking lot in her bare feet... it was painful to watch. If you're going there on a sunny day, do wear shoes. You won't regret it. 
3. The VIEWS. Sure, there were lots of people on rafts and floaties and pontoons in the way, but the lovely blue-green of the water stretched out into a panorama of snow-capped mountains in the distance. It was also crazy to think "oh, hey, I totally climbed one of those yesterday!"
4. The water temperature. Jam warned me earlier in the trip that Pacific coast water is nowhere near as warm as Atlantic coast water. So when it came time to me wanting to take a dip in the lake, it was mildly painful. Physically and mentally. I was not ready.

As much as I wanted a really picturesque view, there were so many people-- I tried to get a closer shot of the mountains from the moving car but as you can see it was a bit blurry.

After we finished our lake shenanigans and scalded our feet for a third/fourth time, we headed to the car to hit up a shaved ice place along the Tahoe strip before heading back to the house. I smelled of lake, sweat, and sunscreen and really wanted a shower. 

I write this as a clean, mildly sunburned, and exhausted human ready for sleep to claim me.

EDIT: Little did I know while writing this that I'd be persuaded to the hot tub we have on the back deck of this house before slumber. We climbed into 101 degrees and messed with the hot tub lights, finally deciding against them as people were already asleep and we didn't want to disturb them.
It's a blessing we left them off-- otherwise we wouldn't have been able to see the myriad of twinkling stars above us. The sky was relatively clear and lended itself to stellar views of the galaxy, and included a few glimpses of shooting stars. Four, to be exact. It's hard not to look up at the sky and wonder just how far apart the stars are from one another. This stemmed a conversation about the relativity of time, how er we humans made our surroundings to fit into our mental spaces, when in reality it's almost like we have no idea what day it is, how late it is, or if we're alone underneath those balls of live [or dead] fire. Like walking into an amazing feat of architecture, it's hard not to look up and kind of gasp inwardly, aware of our being and our place in this moment in the lifeline of the galaxies.

I'm glad I did.

Until next time,

xx

steph