Lake Tahoe/Reno Vacation Part 3

Our last day at Lake Tahoe, we had reservations on the Tahoe Queen.  And here she is:

She's a diesel powered paddle wheel boat.  Click HERE for the website.

We were on the Emerald Bay cruise, which took us across the southern half of Lake Tahoe.  The scenery was beautiful with mountains and pine trees in every direction.

Here's the view as we are preparing to enter Emerald Bay:

My sisters Sue and Janet on the boat:

As we entered Emerald Bay, up to our left was a bald eagle's nest.  This was the best shot I could get, on maximum zoom:

As we circled Emerald Bay, we were given a history of the bay over the loudspeaker.  One of the biggest tourist attractions in the bay is Vikingsholm Castle.  It was difficult to get good pictures of the house, as everyone wanted to get pictures of it, plus there are a lot of trees around it.

As you can see, it's a popular place to sit on the beach and soak up the bright sunshine.  What I thought was most interesting about the castle, was the round room on the left.

The Vikingsholm link above gives you not only great history about the building of Vikingsholm, but also about Emerald Bay itself.

Once we had circled Emerald Bay, we crossed back over Lake Tahoe to finish the cruise.  Total time was about 2-1/2 hours.  Because of the elevation and the fact that it was another perfect cloudless day at Lake Tahoe, all four of us ended up sunburned mostly on our left arms and necks.  None of them were bad enough to ruin the vacation, but enough for us to notice.

After the cruise it was time to start the drive back to Reno.  We took the scenic route, around the lake, and got a great view of Emerald Bay and Fannette Island in the middle of the bay.

A little further up the road was a scenic overlook spot, and a parking area for those wanting to hike down to Emerald Bay.  There was some road construction going on, which had traffic backed up a bit.  Sue and I wanted to jump out and take a couple quick pictures, and just as we were doing so, we heard a loud screech and crash out on the road.  Apparently, two cars were wanting the same spot of road and decided to mash their bumpers together.  It looked like no one was seriously hurt, but the cars sustained some decent  dents.  Here's one of the pictures Sue took of me at the scenic overlook.

The drive around the lake was beautiful, typical mountain winding roads, with lots of trees and forests on every side.  We even had a discussion about the difference between the woods and a forest.  How do you know you're in a forest and not just "in the woods"?

Next, the 4th and final part of my vacation, Reno and The Peppermill.