Echo Lake
09/16/2009 at 23:45 from (38.844258, -120.065535)
We woke up early after a refreshing night's sleep on some of the most comfortable couches in the Bay Area. Ksenija, despite a long night of waiting on other people, was more than happy to get up extra early and drive us out to Echo Lake, where Wever was eagerly awaiting us. We skirted San Francisco proper and made our way through Altamont Pass, where Ksenija's aunt was once a fractional owner of some of the thousands of different turbine blades that gently turn in the stiff, warm breeze.
After winding through the loveliest vistas that Highway 50 has to offer, we pulled into Echo Lake's parking lot. While we were looking for a spot, I saw Dex shambling toward the chalet. I demanded that Ksenija swerve at him and, after an awkward few seconds where he thought we really wanted to kill him, he raced over with a broad grin and threw his arms around my neck.
Ksenija parked the car and we walked down to the dock with Dex, picking up where we had left off years ago. Wever and his parents greeted us at the bottom of the trail with their usual kindness and generosity. After hugs and thanks were exchanged, we hopped into the boat and teased each other across the lake, reliving Wever's furious ice cream, Goosey's whiny hike, my one shirt trip, and Dex's oar-muscling.
As we neared the shore, we could pick out the familiar outlines of a lounging Shu and a sleepy Keith. Eager to join them, we leapt from the boat, stashed our bags in the cabin, cracked open a few beers, and took up our positions in the chairs on the rock out front. Relaxation commenced immediately, the remainder of the beer chilling in mesh bags in the lake.
DIGRESSION:
Mesh lingerie bags have already proven themselves to be an absolute godsend. They are cheap, light, tough, see-through and (as Alton Brown would say) ideal multi-taskers. We use them to store food, separate our dirty laundry from the clean stuff (while simultaneously airing out the stink), hold our electronics, chill our beer, and perform a thousand other silly little tasks. At $2 per, they're fast becoming our most valued pieces of kit.
Aaaand we're back. Where was I?
Ah yes. Goosey arrived a little later. Nobody waved.
Once everybody was all settled in, formalities were conducted, and our supply of beer was sufficiently drained, we all scrambled up the rocks overlooking the cabin and took in the view in silence. As the sun began to set, we (meaning Wever) set about building a perfect bonfire. We fished out the roasting forks and cooked hot dogs and sausages over the open flame, amid jokes and stories and laughter.
As night closed in and the bats began to feast on the swarming insects, we retired indoors to continue the evening by candlelight. Wever, Goosey, and I moved some of the logs from outside into the fireplace, where they were soon blown into a warm, crackling fire. Cards found their way to the table and within minutes the cabin was filled with the pitched cries of battle. Euchre, a cabin standard, was the default game. But as the night grew longer, trešeta (introduced by the Croatian girls and lovingly dubbed "three shits" by the those unfamiliar with the Croatian alphabet) became the game of choice.
DIGRESSION II:
There is actually some debate, even within our own party, about the proper pronunciation and spelling of what I have here written as "trešeta". The game's roots are probably Venetian, as indicated by the modern Italian game of "tressete". Indeed, this name is much closer to the Dubrovnik spelling of the game, "treseta", which is Marijana's preferred pronunciation. However, because Ksenija is from Split (where the game is given a more Slavic spelling), and because Marijana is a wonderful diplomat, we chose to simply avoid any controversy and call it by the name it's known by throughout the rest of Croatia: "trešeta".
As we debated the vagueries of strategy and alternately praised and cursed our partners' play, people began to drift off in ones and twos to bed. Soon enough, only a few of us were left to keep the rest of the cabin awake. I capped off the night with a gratuitous display of gas and Marijana pitched in with a giggling session that kept Goosey and Hillary (his new girlfriend) up for almost an hour.
Early the next morning, I was the first one up. I dragged the kayak out to the rock, climbed gingerly inside, and went for a leisurely morning paddle along the shore. The towering granite peaks that ring the lake were all lit from below by the rising sun in vibrant pinks and oranges, like some surreal, staged geology show. I took it all in while vapor swirled off the lake around me. As I circled back toward the cabin, I noticed Keith on the bank, walking Pixel (his and Shu's pocket-sized dog). He helped me drag the kayak ashore and we sat and caught back up on the last four years of news, then made our way inside, out of the chilly morning air.
Back inside the cabin, everybody was in some stage of waking. I helped Wever (ever the consumate host) prepare a delicious breakfast scramble of eggs and spices and fresh vegetables. I say it was delicious only because I saw the looks of relish and delight on the faces of each of my comrades. Much like Milton in Office Space, I was left for last and then forgotten. I had to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (on garlic bread, yum!) instead. I was, obviously, perfectly fine with being left to go hungry while my friends feasted...
After breakfast, we bade a fond farewell to Shu and Keith (and Pixel), waving as Wever and Dex ferried them over to the far shore. I paddled out in the kayak to meet the guys on their way back, hoping to be towed homeward in their wake. I attempted to pilot the kayak whilst clutching the side of the dinghy as Wever drove, but that was clearly a stupid idea (even to me), so they convinced me to let go and paddle back home alone, cold and wet.
The sun rose high over a perfect day and we lost any ambition we might have had. We lounged around on the slab of heated rock jutting out into the lake, feasting on a lunch of beer, cheese, sausage, bread, and birthday cake. The hours crept by quietly, disturbed only by the chirping of birds and the soft giggles of Marijana and Ksenija as they chatted further up on the hillside.
When Goosey excused himself from playing cards to go read his book, we all dispersed. I made my way behind the cabin, lazily hacking at a log with a hatchet until boredom and curiosity overcame me and, intent on listening in on their conversation, I ambled up to where Ksenija and Marijana were seated. My presence forced an awkward, sudden silence on the girls. I attempted to strike up a new discussion, but lacked the will and, instead, collapsed on the rocks. We chatted in low voices until Ksenija and I trailed off, lulled to sleep by the warmth and peace of our surroundings.
We awoke to the thud and crack of Wever splitting firewood down below. I wandered down, intent on performing even a symbolic activity to justify the day's lassitude. Soon, all four of us were swinging axes, separating kindling, and piling up the firewood to dry in neat stacks. Sweaty and renewed after so masculine an act, I strode inside and whipped up a large, sodium-laden dinner of red beans and rice, with sausage and hot dog chunks sprinkled liberally throughout for added protein.
Our bellies once again warm and full, we all settled indoors for another routine night of cards and laughter. When the candles burned down, Goosey and Hillary wisely retired to the bedroom in the loft upstairs, leaving Wever to suffer alone my bean-powered rectal wrath.
The next morning, I again woke up early. I quietly dressed myself and shuffled out to the porch, where Dex was enjoying his tea and solitude. We chatted a little as the rest of the the house slowly shook off the bonds of sleep. We gently roused our spirits with a few hands of "three shits" to start the day off right.
Without a proper breakfast in our bellies, we all piled into the boat and set off for a greasy eatery in South Lake Tahoe. The food was, not surprisingly, far from the best we had enjoyed thus far, being the sort of diner fare aimed at delivering the most cholesterol per unit volume. The experience was a good one, though, in that my appreciation for the high quality of our diet was reaffirmed.
As the breakfast sat heavy in our stomachs, we drove on into South Lake Tahoe and parked near the state line. The sudden transition from small resort town to casino-pocked sin strip was striking. Casinos crowded the Nevada side of the border, seeming almost to lean over the line in their eagerness to extract a little more money from the suckers on the California side.
We took a few novelty photos of the state line itself, then poked cautiously around the Harrah's that dominates the border. Inside, we relived past drunken exploits that took place on that very property (damn you, Dollar Drink Night!). Ksenija gambled away $2 before she had seen enough to piece together a trend. We cast our eyes over the sorry mess of people pulling levers and feeding their savings to blinking machines at noon on a week day and promptly left the way we had come, thoroughly depressed by what we saw.
We did a little shopping after that, restocking our supplies for the cabin. After the drive back, and the boat trip across the lake, people peeled off into their own little groups. Some read, others slept, and Marijana and I contemplated a hike to the upper lake. Ksenija and Dex bowed out immediately, choosing instead to rest and read. I lost interest after reviewing the distance involved and the small amount of daylight remaining.
Instead, we chose to climb to Flagpole, the towering pinnacle of granite that dominates the lake's eastern flank. It's a short (as the crow flies) distance from Wever's cabin and commands an incredible view of Echo and, far below, Lake Tahoe itself.
Marijana and I hurriedly made preparations and set out with Wever at the head of our tiny party. He fairly flew up the steep slopes as we gingerly (and clumsily) negotiated boulder fields, scree slopes, and near-vertical sections of sheer granite. The altitude was such (and our conditioning was so poor) that my lungs were on fire before we had walked even a kilometer, and Marijana's heart rate was above 180 bpm. As we neared the top, we mounted one final lunge, a drunken scramble through thinning pine scrub and massive boulders that we tackled with all four limbs.
Once we had heaved ourselves up the final traverse to the top, we paused only long enough to take a few photos, fill our lungs with the thin air, and revel in the awesome vastness and beauty of the place. We congratulated each other on the feat, then swung down by a new route in an attempt to reach the cabin before five o'clock, when Goosey and Hillary were due to leave.
We arrived just in time, sending the pair off in style as we all waved from the shore. Once they had passed out of sight, I set about again preparing a thick meal of instant jambalaya and sausage. Our depleted party continued the now-traditional candlelight card tournament, but Marijana, Ksenija, and Dex quickly grew tired and each eventually made their way to their beds. Wever and I talked long into the night, until his eyelids, too, began to sink mid-sentence. We blew out the lamps and once again fell fast asleep to the gentle rhythm of Dex's snoring.
Our final morning at the cabin saw me waking up late, to a house already abuzz with activity. Wever busied himself making a glorious breakfast of pancakes and melon (some cross between honeydew and cantelope that was remarkably tasty). Marijana (fresh from a kayak of the islands of the upper lake) and Ksenija set to work sweeping and scrubbing and tidying up. Dex and I helped where we could, but were generally in the way, so we were sent outside to straighten things up. We raked coals and put tools back in their rightful places, to make Pete Wever's job of closing up the cabin a little less onerous.
As we finished packing up our bags and shuttling everything to the dock, Wever bestowed on me the singular honor of emptying the cabin's waste. He demonstrated how to open the valve and aim the hose so as not to spew filth all over the place. He filled one five gallon container before handing the duty off to me. I did the same, then closed everything up and hauled it to the boat for transport. Not surprisingly, Ksenija refused to be seated next to the waste cans, opting for a spot nearer the fresh air of the bow.
Wever locked up the cabin, then we all loaded up and motored out. On the far side of the lake, we all said our goodbyes, then Marijana, Ksenija, and I piled into her car and headed back to San Jose. We passed, once again, through Altamont, but this time we were forced to stop. Just ahead of us, a pickup had been driven under a semi, bringing traffic to a sudden halt. As we waited, we heard the thumping of a helicopter. Within seconds, a medivac chopper dropped down right onto the freeway in front of us, then ferried the pickup driver off to a hospital in Sacramento.
Pressed for time and nearly late for work, Ksenija called ahead and ordered some burek and čevapi topped with ajvar for pick up from her favorite Croatian store. Once we got home, Marijana and I munched happily on the meal while the girls rushed off to work. Karlo soon returned to the house and whipped together a mouth-watering meal of traditional Croatian soup and stewed beef, completely from scratch. We gorged ourselves again and sank happily into the couches, drifting off as we congratulated each other on how well this whole trip thing seems to have come together.
