Avigail Goes to America- Lake Tahoe Adventures!

From TN I flew all the way to the other side of the America and I arrived in Cali! America is defiantly HUGE! It took about five hours to get to San Francisco, ya know I wouldn’t be in Israel if I drove in a CAR for five hours, not that I really want to go to any of the surrounding Countries. Hey! Jordan’s just 45 minutes down the road :). Anyways back to faraway America, I got to spend an incredible week in Lake Tahoe with some of my folks! My Aunt and Uncle and there two precious kiddos! Annnnd here’s the bestest part my Sabba (Grandfather) flew from Israel and we both arrived on the same day! Such fun! We had such incredible times together, biking, hiking, playing with my cute cousins,  swimming and checking out all the cool toys at the toy store. We found some awesome toys! Yes, I am so so so so BLESSED! Lake Tahoe is just BEAUTIFUL!! My Aunt gave me her Mom’s bike (such a nice bike!) and my Sabba (Grandfather) used my Uncles bike so we were able to go off and explore on our bikes! It was so much fun to pack our lunches and go and explore Tahoe on our bikes! Our first day exploring, we went to the Lake. Look at this Massive tree we saw on the way!

It was so funny while we were biking we went past some construction workers and we both were expecting to hear rough Hebrew or Arabic, we were so surprised to hear perfectly spoken English! Dah… we’re in America of coarse they speak English! The water was just gorgeous! Colddd but I was told that that’s the warmest the water ever gets! We went for a swim and had a yummy lunch while warming up in the sun! Isn’t this such a cute little spot?!

You know what I found at Grass Roots? They had this super yummy cultured organic cream cheese! Boy was it good! So I had that for lunch with veggies, flax crackers and boiled eggs! Yummyyy! The eggs were from My Uncles chickens! Aren’t they pretty hens?! The prettiest I’ve ever seen!Then we looked at some historical stuff at Lake Tahoe, beginning of 20th centry, that’s history?! Pottery is kicked around here like rocks:). I’m just joking around, it was cool to see the old kitchenware and stuff! We found this sign so funny! So in Israel it’s cats and in America chipmunks! Then we went back home and My Aunts Mom took me shoppingggg! She spoiled me rotten!! THANK YOU DIAN!! Had such a fun time! I like shopping:). So there’s day one, I bettah speed this up:).

The next day my Aunt took us to a Farmers Market, that was really cool! I got some really nice stuff. I loved all the fresh produce! We got some really nice strawberries and some other goodies! It was so weird eating fresh strawberries in the summer! We only have strawberries in the winter and spring. I love strawberries! I’ll happily eat them any time of the year! We got back home and then it started to pour! That is something I never got used to- rain in the summer! So me and my Sabba waited for the rain to stop and then we biked to the camping store and toy store! We had such fun there! The toy store had so many cool toy guns, rockets, air Plaines aaah it had EVERYTHING!  We could have bought everything in there! But we couldn’t so we settled on the wooden crossbow! Boy is that thing fun! Thankfully it made it through security:) We literally were jumping from excitement when we saw that cross bow, we just knew we had to fit some how in our suitcases! I had to put all my clothes in my carry on so I could make room in my suitcase for it (and for all the other presents I got! That’s all I had in my suitcase was presents pretty much, ya know I HAD to bring presents back for all eight siblings!) , everything was packed to the MAX of the MAX! I mean my suitcase was EXACTLY 50 lbs. and my carry on felt like it weighed 50 pounds! haha! My carry on actually was to big for the overhead but they didn’t charge me for it, Thank God! Anyway the next day we packed our lunch and headed out on a new adventure! We biked to the head of the Mount Tallac trail. On the way we stopped at a little Nature Reserve, so we looked around there a little and took a few pictures and then we decided it was too Nature Reservy  and left:). They said that Salmon swam through this river on there way to lay eggs,  sadly there wasn’t any salmon. I wouldn’t mind me some wild sushi:)

We continued and made it to the head of the Mount Tallac Trail, my Sabba wanted me to see the trail before we hiked it the next day! So we started hiking up the trial to find a nice spot for lunch, and oh man! Was I huffing and puffing! I could not figure out why I was breathing so hard (the climb wasn’t that steep). It was from the high altitude! I’ve never been in such high altitude. We found a spot looking at Mount Tallac. There she is!  Here’s a better picture of the actual mountain!There was even SNOW on there! After a yummy lunch, we decided to head back home since it looked like it was going to rain. My Sabba said I look like I’m trying to eat the tree!

On the way back home I stopped at the same river we were at before for a swim! It was colddd!! The moment I got out of the water it started raining! I quickly pulled on a sweater and we dashed back home! A couple hours later when the rain cleared up, so  we went on a boat Crouse with my Uncle!!

 

You probably can’t see, but if you look really close at my Sabba’s plate you’ll see there’s this green sauce on his veggies, you wont believe what it is- WASABI! So he sits down by me and he starts dipping his veggies in this green ‘veggie dip’ and he keeps coughing and saying ‘man this is spicy! like horseradish or something!’ I turned around and took one sniff of his green dip and told him that it wasn’t veggie dip, that he took the wasabi that was there for the sushi! Haha!  Funny thing is he loved it! He got up and got more! Too funny! I love wasabi too but not in those kind of amounts! We saw some incredible views from the boat! The clouds were just stunning!

Wow! We know have reached hiking up Mount Tallac! WHAT A DAY! INCREADIBL! Just incredible!

I’ve never hiked anything like this in Israel, it was so different! We started hiking around ten in the morning. Here we are at the head of the trail!

I was very relieved that I wasn’t breathing as heavily as the day before. I guess that little hike helped me get use to the high altitude! For awhile we walked by the side of fallen leaf lake, so so so pretty! Just look! It was just so peaceful and quite!

The Trail was fairly easy for the first hour or two, we passed two beautiful lakes!

Then after the second lake! BOOM! Up up up up up she goes! Suddenly I wasn’t at the head no mo’! I was Trailing behind my Sabba that was humiliating! I was moving so slow!  It felt like it would never END! After an hour and a half of just climbing up on a super rocky trail, I made us take a break and I fell fast asleep for a good twenty minutes! People on the trail said we had another 45 minutes to go! I think I can! I think I can! I was determined to make it to the top! No matter how long it took! The view was incredible on the way up but I actually only noticed the view on our way down! Hah! All I noticed on the way up was the trail going UP!

Isn’t it just magnificent?! SO BEAUTIFUL!

and then after a LONG 45 minutes I MADE IT!!! AHHH! Boy was I relieved! I was so relived and excited that I made it to the top that I just started screaming: “YES! I made it!! I actually made it!! Thank God!!” Yep I was happy indeed! Everybody looked at me kinda funny after my shouts of joy!

Oh and those black ‘leggings’ they are my Sabba’s long johns! Haha! I didn’t realize how cold it was going to be at the summit!! So he so very kindly offered his long johns at first I was like there is no way that those are gonna fit me but I was too cold to care! Somehow they stayed up, my skirt kinda helped:). OOh ya have’ta see the view from the top! Just just so beyond stunning!And the CHIPMUNKS! They ate from my hand PEOPLE!! AHH! It was so cool!! There just so cute!See?!? So awesome! I made my Sabba take this picture! He was terrified! Poor guy! I could hardly get him to take the photo, but here it is none the less. On the way down I noticed all the beautifull wild flowers! Ain’t them perrty?!Fun fun fun! And we continued the longgg way down! We stopped at this beautiful lake for a much needed coffee break! It was beautiful walking back just before dusk! As gorgeous as it was, we were all happy to see the car! Haha! We did it! We finally finished! Yah! I conquered that beast!

What an INCREADIBLE day it was! Such fun memories! The next day was Friday, so we mostly got ready for Shabbat butt I got to try my Uncles Paddle board.  Until it started hailing… I had about twenty minutes on it before it started to thunder and hail! Crazy weather switch! So we run back home. And had a wonderful cozy Shabbat with my cousins!

 

Miss these cuties! Saying Goodbye was hard! Somebody decided to help me pack:)So cute! And now we come to the end of our Lake Tahoe Adventure! Did I lose you there? This has been a pretty long post, ha? One week but so much happened! Now at the break of dawn I fly to the other side of America to Pennsylvania! Yep the fun just continuous with these awesome Great Uncle and Aunt!

To be continued…

Haha! I always wanted to write that ‘to be continued..’ Hold ya in suspense!

 

Anyways, have an awesome week!

Love, love love!

Avigail!