July 4th
We hike the 5 miles to Echo Lake, stopping only at the Echo Summit parking lot where Gordon and Sue are handing our fresh fruit. The trail then follows within a 100 yards of highway 50 for a noisy mile and, crosses the pass and climbs to the lake and its small resort store.
After waiting awhile, we called our friend from San Francisco. It turns out that because of an ill wife he would be unable to meet us. While we were waiting, several of the unit, who had been stayng in a nearby home, returned to the trail head to start hiking again. South Lake Tahoe was rumored to be sold out and/or expensive due to the July 4th weekend.
We weighed the options of moving on or going into town, looked at other ways out coming up and called the South Shore Inn. They had rooms left at reasonable rates and could come pick us up, so we headed into town.
In a word – overwhelming. South Lake Tahoe has grown, even in the two years since we have last been here. And the promise of fireworks over the lake has swelled the town with overnight guests as well as those up just for the day/evening.
The owners of the hotel are great, very hiker friendly. The rooms are nice and we get to do laundry here .We find Mouse and his brother Jeff. We are able to return the hat to Jeff which we found about 50 miles back just after we last saw them.
We are walking distance to the Casinos and the hikers dream of all you can eat (ayce) buffets. We do our best to damage the one at Ceasers and leave feeling bloated.
At the beach, I don’t know which is more amazing, the fireworks or the huge throng of people crowded around to watch them.
