My God. This place is beautiful. And we aren’t going to be here much longer. Should’ve picked this one for a full week. Wow.
A view from Zephyr Cove, Nevada, Lake Tahoe in the morning is really impressive.
From the million dollar homes with the billion dollar views to Lake Tahoe’s shorelines that are sure to please any eye that meets it this place is beautiful beyond words.
Like I mentioned, we’re only here until tomorrow morning when we roll out back to the California central valley, Red Bluffs, to be exact. It’s a halfway point for us as we travel over the weekend to Crescent City, California, home of redwood forests and more pacific coast wildlife.
After seeing the amazing Sequoia National Park in Three Rivers, CA, earlier this week, the beauty of Tahoe the last few days, Crescent City has much to live up to – and I’m sure it will.
Still the beauty of these places almost always leaves me in awe.
I remember a trip my brother and his two children made about four years ago and another trip made by brother-in-law and his family out to colorful Colorado to visit us.
Each visit we planned a trip to the mountains to see the state’s spectacular views, wildlife view without the fences, snow in the middle of June. Each visit the children were a little less than impressed by nature as much as the adults. I’m sure this is common. I am also sure that my blossoming family will not be exempt from this phenomena. After all, I really don’t recall much of seeing “Mount Mushmore” and the “Bad Hills” when I was three, I can’t possibly expect my 15.5 week-old daughter to be an overachiever and recall the details of this 3-month trip.
The southwest corner of Lake Tahoe hosts this jewel of a bay. Lined with boulders for walls and long, tall pines, Emerald Cove is quite the wonder.
Sophie won’t remember any of this trip like her parents will. Especially this moment as I’m typing and she’s off-the-chain upset at something, which woke her up in her sleep…less than 30 minutes into it.
But we’ll have plenty of digital photos to share. I can see it now: just like those days at grandma’s house looking at Kodak slides projected onto the wall. She’ll be bored out of her gourd. I’ll have to wait until her first boyfriend comes over to start this.
I must have been a strange kid. I loved the photos my grandparents would show. I still love looking at other people’s photos and listening to the stories of their journeys. I also lived off Velveeta grilled cheese sandwiches, Oscar Mayer hot dogs (no buns necessary), Kraft Mac & Cheese, chocolate ice cream, bananas, green grapes, and McDonald’s hamburgers (just the burger, plain please) and french fries (leave off the ketchup). Oh, and I didn’t eat pizza until I was 21-ish. That alone is odd.
This is what I hope my daughter will pick up from me. Not my early-childhood to early-adult picky eating habits, but a desire to hear stories. And if they don’t come with photos then to be able to imagine what scenery would color in the blind spots.
Stories, read or told, is fertilizer for children’s imagination. The beginning of wonder, the seed of discovery, the ignition for the flame of desire to see new things. Dr. Seuss‘s Oh, the Places You’ll Go is a favorite. Then there’s Shel Silverstein. Despite his freak-a-delic mug on the back of his poetry books, The Giving Tree, is a timeless classic. And, of course, being an ordained minister, there are several parables and Old Testament stories that I love to hear from different voices – each bringing or adding a new dimension to a two thousand year old or more story.
What to say about this other than if this tree could talk it would share some great stories about this lake with a view like this.
Countless generations orally passed along some of the greatest stories of our times. Several more generations wrote them down and read them frequently to their chidlren. Jacob and Esau. The Prodigal Son. Even this one from the Old Testament as told only as Hollywood could tell it – David and Bathsheba. I never knew David could play the lyre like that nor did I know that Hollywood could glorify extra-marital affairs like they did this one (King David comes off pretty clean after committing nearly all 7 deadly sins in a little less than 2 hours or, scripturally, less than 20 verses). Each individual voice can cast any one of these stories in a different light – which makes them come to life. (Beware of this last link – I also didn’t know Lego’s were capable of some Biblical literalist atrocities…this guy has WAY too much time on his hands – check out Leviticus stories…they’re pretty amusing. That’s all I have to say about that.)
What stories do you have to tell? How would you tell them? Do they have photos to accompany them? Should they have photos to accompany them? If you have a story, I’d love to hear it – if it has pictures, well, that’s just a bonus. Leave a comment – leave a story. Pass it on. Oh, by the way, mommy has successfully calmed the raging storm that is my daughter…at least for the moment. But that’s another story.
A picture is worth…
A good walk in the fresh air always…um…makes her fall asleep.
The Journey. Rev. Greg Larsen 