Lake Tahoe with parents

 8:00 AM - The hyundai santa fe rolled off the lot. 

Gas price would be a little high in the corral hollow gas station. One hastle less, a few dollars less, the van turned in. 

While I fill gas, Divya walked into the store to get water. I followed and bought our sandwiches. Equipped with gas, food and water. 

The music had started with the recent single "Run it up! by Hanumankind. To make the listen a little more palatable, I switched to Lata Mangeshkar classics. My father advised that such sleepy songs are unwise for driving. Switched to A R Rahman's Kadhalikku Neramillai. 

A litte into the drive, I felt hungry, and we decided to have sandwiches and finish up the breakfast. The burger that I got was not great tasting. I thought I had taken the wrong call to buy these from the gas station, but others liked their sandwiches. 

Divya unwrapped the first sandwich for me. I ate half of it, and was driving slowly. Midway she offered the other better tasting sandwich and shoved a piece into my mouth. 

The police bike with flashing lights. May be, he wants to catch someone else. I tried to give him space to pass, but he wouldn't. Then he motioned me to move over to the right. I was in a panic, and immediately swerved left off the HOV lane. 

He came over. What was the confusion about?  What are you supposed to do if you see a flashing cop vehicle. I said pull over to the left. Absolutely not, it is illegal to ever be on the left section of the HOV lane. You are supposed to go to the right. 

I was totally surprised because I thought I was being exceptionally gentle with my driving.  Camera intersection lights had disagreed for the reason that I had driven at 86 mph in a 65 mph. The cop then asked for the registration. I realized that the registration was in the USB. He asked me for the year. Luckily I remembered that it was 2017. He found the registration in the records, served me the speeding ticket and asked me to drive safe. 

When I restarted the car, it hazard beeped as if the car was telling the cop to save it. I clicked unlock and then ramped the car back into the road. 

The only way I know to drive a car at speed limit is in cruise mode. I employed that today, and enjoyed the pleasant easy relaxing drive. The cruise functioning was not exactly perfect. There were times when the speed would just keep ramping up. So I would reign it in.

We reached the emerald state park. Rest rooms were available only at the end of the mile or so trail. That sort of plodded everyone to walk down even while my mother had slight knee pain. 

Midway through the trail, I raised the suspicion that I might have not closed the car. So I walked back up, and as I walked up, I realized that the walk up is going up to be even harder for my mother and father. 

We had our snow shoes and we stepped gingerely on to the snowed ground, quickly gain faith in it. One step at a time, careful. 

I took my own easy time to catch up back with the group after verifying that the car had indeed been locked. 

Suddenly, I noticed that a man and Divya was helping my mother standup. I hoped that he had saved her from falling. But I was wrong. He had helped her back up after my mother had slipped on black ice. Black ice is super tricky. Even with Divya by her side every step of the way, the black ice beneath the running water had slipped my mother down almost like a devious warfare move. 

I was feeling tired, and was dragging myself. As soon as I saw that something had happened, there was a sudden nimble energy that rose. 

The restrooms were here. We took turns. And went down to the lake. A vast expanse of clear beautiful water.  We are going to take it super easy for the walk back. Rest at every spot. This is the only destination for the Lake Tahoe visit for today. The futility of check boxing spots had dawned on me on the 17th of October 2013. 

Mother sat on a wooden bench facing the lake. The rest of us were a little more mobile but around the vicinity. 

There is a building over there. I think that is the castle. No way, that is just a building. Does not look like a castle. Later on, Divya asked where I was coming from. I said the castle. Oh how confident you were? She teased good naturedly. 

One of the big things for Kittu was to drink water from the lake. I thought sure why not, and took a gulp and gave a little to him, and drank a little myself. I would not recommend this. 

We started walking back. That is when Kittu started to clean his shoes every now and then. At each of the spots that we stopped at, he would clean the sole of his shoes with a stick. Then I asked him why he is doing this? He said the snow is causing the shoe to get dirty. Ok in that case, let us wait for the last snow portion, and then he can do the shoe cleaning. He agreed, and the next stop was all the way at the top. 

My father and Kittu sat next to each other. And I took a snap. It was a special moment. Kittu did not have any screen with him - he was not watching TV, or iPad. A human touch moment. 

Meanwhile, my mother had found a stick and was using that to help walk. 

Next to one of the resting benches, I noticed a shaking old lady. I offered her space at the bench we were seating. She was a local and taught us how you should walk like a penguin on the ice for better balance. She also recommended the Rubicorn Trail for how nice it is to walk all the way along the lake, and how you should have two cars so that you can be picked up at the other end of the trail. 

We reached back at the car, and were starting to leave, but the car is not moving. That is when I realized that the engine had not actually turned on. I thought may be the engine is hot and opened the bonnet. The engine was not hot. I closed the bonnet, went back in, luckily the car started in a little bit and we continued our drive.

It was close to 4:00 by now. We found a dingy chinese place with bad food. We decided to drive back after the bad lunch. We reached back at 8:00.