I think all of us have those times when we chastise ourselves for being stuck in rut or a little resistant to change. We even do the whole inner monologue pep talk, where we tell ourselves that it’s time to break out of our routine or perhaps even challenge a well-worn philosophy that we’ve judiciously lived by. Recently, my husband and I did all of the above.
Together as a team we threw caution and, dare I say, wisdom right out the window and broke with our years-long tradition of never going on a vacation (and by that I mean basically not leaving the city limits) during a major holiday. It will be fun, we told ourselves, to be in Lake Tahoe, California, over the Fourth of July. Never mind that for years, as in decades, we had assiduously avoided the spot during any holiday.
At least for my husband, the first sign that traveling during a very busy time of year might have been a mistake was when Delta Air Lines changed our seats. We were both rerouted, if you will, to middle seats. For me this was no big deal.
I’ve made peace with the middle seat on airplanes. But my husband, “Mr. Aisle” hadn’t enjoyed the pleasure of being squished between two fellow travelers for “decades.
” His complaining about it was so dramatic I feared that we had switched personalities. Hello, I’m the one who treats my family to Oscar-worthy whining. I told him he needed to stay in his personality lane and deal with getting up close and personal with his plane neighbors.
When we landed, we found more signs. It was so hot I feared our plane might have accidentally landed at the portal to hell instead of the Reno airport. But we both agreed once we got to a higher elevation all would be well.
As in, get out that fleece hoodie well. Umm, sadly after reaching an elevation of 1.2 miles above sea level, the lower temperatures we were hoping for didn’t emerge.
Worse, a majority of vacation accommodations and even restaurants don’t have air conditioning in Lake Tahoe. This is because back when a lot of these structures were built you didn’t need AC, as it never got hot enough. Now climate change is wreaking its vengeance.
Of course, our lodgings didn’t have AC and we were on the second floor. This meant we got to experience firsthand how the law of thermodynamics works, which is that hot air does, indeed, rise. Complicating matters was that because of bears, mainly just one bear who had taken up flagrantly luxuriating in a tree on the property, leaving the windows open wasn’t advised.
This meant our condo felt like a sealed fortress on a solar flare. Our only viable survival option was living not at the lake but in the lake. At a “refreshing” 65 degrees the lake was a respite from the heat.
It was also a most unoriginal idea, since the rest of humanity at Lake Tahoe was also in the water. I’m not exaggerating. OK, I’m exaggerating a bit.
Well, let’s call it a mid-level exaggeration when I tell you that we basically lived on a two-person kayak for six days. I was in the water so much my skin, I fear, has permanently become crinkled. (Or at least that’s how I’m rebranding my wrinkles.
) But despite the heat, the crowds and the bear we still had a good time because instead of an ordinary vacation we had a bona fide adventure..
