On my last day in Tahoe, I didn’t have to leave for the airport until after dinnertime, so I had a full day to have fun. So for the day, we decided to head to Donner Lake to enjoy some time on the water.
We went to the exact same beach that I went to last summer. But besides bringing the raft with us again, we also brought our 2 kayaks to the lake!
We decided that my mom and Kate would each take a kayak out and my dad, Tucker, and I would go in the raft. Tucker had been in the raft one other time the week before and he did ok then. But this time, he wouldn’t be with both my mom and dad so we were a little unsure of how he would do.
We got my mom and Kate in the kayaks and into the water first. Tucker watched from the shore and yelped a little that my mom was paddling away. He didn’t want to get into the water so he stayed on the very edge of the shore. Then I got into the raft and my dad picked Tucker up and placed him in with me. Then my dad got in and he took over the paddles (he’s way better at it than I am).
The kayaks are pretty easy to maneuver, so my mom and Kate were off and going around the lake. My dad refers to the raft as a bathtub so we paddled away from the shore and pretty much just floated out there.
But I have to say that Tucker seemed to really love it!
And yes, he’s wearing Dante’s old life vest.
Tucker spent his time in the raft people and dog watching and then just leaning back on either my dad or I and enjoying the sunshine. But his favorite thing to do was to lick the water off of the paddles.
You can tell from that photo how giant his ears are! And you can tell that he’s a bit of a redhead too!
When my dad and I got back to shore, there were a few other families with their dogs near where we set up our stuff. The dogs were jumping in the water and swimming and Tucker was mesmerized by that. We thought that maybe if he watched other dogs swim, he would try it too.
The owner of the other dog wanted to help us get Tucker to swim, so she kept throwing toys into the lake for him to get. But again, he refused to swim. He got very close, but when he realized that he couldn’t put his foot onto the ground, he backed up. But even without swimming, Tucker had so much fun.
My mom and Kate kayaked back to the shore then and my mom wanted to see if Tucker could kayak with her. So my dad got into the lake with Tucker and got him on the back of the kayak. My mom paddled in the shallow area incase Tucker fell off, but it turns out he has amazing balance and managed to stay on!
We spent a good few hours at the lake, and eventually it was time to head back to the condo. Kate and I wanted to watch the World Cup game and my mom was going to make a nice early dinner.
Around 6pm, Kate got into her car to make the drive back to the Bay Area and my mom, dad, Tucker, and I got into the car to do a little walking around before I had to get to the Reno airport.
It was a gorgeous evening at Lake Tahoe and I was sad that my vacation was coming to an end.
At about 7pm, we got back into the car for the drive to Reno. Airport security only took me 5 minutes from the time I was dropped off, so I spent a lot of time looking at all the tempting ways I could spend my money in the Reno airport.
I managed to keep all my money in my wallet and just read my book while waiting for my delayed flight home.
I’m so glad that I was able to do this trip to Tahoe this summer. Even though I got to go last summer as well, I haven’t been able to go up as often as I’d like. I talked to my parents about me going up this winter since it’s been a few years since I’ve been up in the snow. Hopefully we can make that happen.
I’ll see my parents again in about 2 months when they come to LA. We are all going to a show at the Hollywood Bowl together. And I’ll see Tucker again at Thanksgiving. There’s a small chance I might be visiting my sister-in-law at the end of the summer when my brother is working out of the country, so I might get to see everyone then as well.
But for now, I’m just grateful that I got to spend a nice long weekend with my family (and chosen family as is the case with Kate).
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