Sunday June 19th

Started our day in Squaw Valley, where the 1960 Winter Olympics were held!








Ate a lazy late lunch at Jake's on the Lake in Vikingsholm. It was one of the best meals that we had! Started out with a layered seafood cocktail, and then split a piece of Beramundi (white fish from Australia) in a lemon butter and caper sauce with asparagus and a risotto cake!! YUMMMMMMMMMMMMM Here are a few pictures of our view from lunch.




Checked out South Lake Tahoe and then headed down to Zephyr Cove to get information about a cruise tour we wanted to take the next day. Found out that they had a cruise leaving at 11:30 am the following morning, meant we would have an early morning but we were very much looking forward to it!

We headed back to Soda Springs, stopping in Truckee to get Chinese takeout, and enjoyed a nice relaxing evening at the cabin!

Saturday June 18th

We had a lazy morning, I made Matt breakfast in bed and then we got ready for our day in Nevada!

Drove down to Reno, found a place to park and began to explore. We were able to walk under the famous Reno arch, "The Biggest Little City in the World."


We started our casino adventure in Circus Circus, then we headed to the Silver Legacy. We both had so much fun playing video blackjack and roulette. We didn't even lose all of our money!!





We then headed down to Nevada's capitol, Carson City. When we got there we noticed lots of people in the streets, they were having "A Taste of Downtown" street fair. Unfortunately tickets were expensive so we didn't sample the food but we did enjoy some live music and walked around! We checked out all of the casinos on the main street, but they were SHADY and didn't have the games we had enjoyed so much in Reno, so we did not gamble in Carson City.





Settled in for dinner at High Sierra Brewing Company, Matt tried a honey brewed beer that we both loved. I finally tasted my first risotto (lobster) and I loved it, and felt very Top Chef esque!

On our way back to Soda Springs Matt stopped to fill up the gas tank and I enjoyed playing a little more video blackjack.

Here our some BEAUTIFUL pictures from the sunset on Lake Tahoe coming in from the east side of the lake.

Friday June 17th

Started in Jackson and headed out on Old Highway 49, it was the trail of the goldrushers in 1849. We stopped in Sutter Creek for a walk down Main Street and had lunch at the Twisted Fork, the food was full of garlic and of course super yummy.




We drove through El Dorado National Forest on our way to South Lake Tahoe. We finally arrived and could see the BEAUTIFUL lake. Matt took the opportunity to take some wonderful pictures! We finally arrived in Soda Springs and were able to find T-Bar Court but could not find T-Bar Drive (where our cabin was located.) We decided to stop at the Hostel at Tinker Station and ask for directions. The girl working told us that they had just gotten 2 feet of snow last week and that the road we were trying to find was snowed in on one side, hence why we could not find it. Luckily there was another way and we were soon at the cabin! There was 4 feet of snow from where we parked to the front porch of the cabin, we had to climb the snow bank and just walk across it to the front steps.






By this point we were pretty hungry and decided to head into Truckee, Ca and eat at Zano's Pizza and Pasta (the girl from the hostel recommended it.) We had rock shrimp, spinach and artichoke dip and deep dish pizza with meatballs and gorgonzola cheese. It was all to die for!

After dinner we went and rented a movie, headed back to the cabin, snuggled in on the couch and enjoyed our evening!

Thursday June 16th

Today we took a different way into Yosemite. Our goal was to go on all of the roads that were open, today we came in Highway 41 to the south entrance. We drove through the Sierra National Forest right before we entered the park.

Got into the park and drove to Wawona, parked and caught a shuttle to take us into Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia Trees! In the grove we saw about 20 living giant sequoias. All of the trees were between 2000 and 3000 years old, and were 200-300 feet tall. Words/pictures cannot describe the enormousity or grandness of these trees.







The "famous" sequoias we saw were:

The Bachelor and 3 Graces- This is a large giant sequoia with 3 nearby slightly smaller giant sequoias.





Grizzly Giant- This is the tree said to have inspired Hometree in the movie Avatar. One of its limbs is 7 feet in diameter, it has a circumference of 96 feet at its base. It is around 2000 years old and is the 25th largest giant sequoia living today.





California Tunnel Tree- We were able to walk through this tree holding hands. In the early 1900's they cut a hole big enough to take old cars through the middle as a tourist gimmick to have the Mariposa Grove become a part of Yosemite National Park.





Next we drove to Glacier Point. We had a 270 degree view of Yosemite National Park, we were able to see Yosemite Village, Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, Nevada Falls, Vernal Falls and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We were told by many people that Glacier Point was a must see, and they were not kidding. It was breathtakingly beautiful and well worth the drive!

While we were up at Glacier Point we were able to throw some snowballs at each other, and have our 1st snowball "fight" as a married couple!








We finally made our way out of the park for good :( this time we left out of the only entrance/exit we had not seen yet; the Arch Rock Entrance. This was one of the first ways to get into the park and is exactly what it sounds like, a huge rock they used dynamite to blow a hole through to make the "arch."



The Merced River raging as we left the park, it was sad to see us go!


Later that evening we stopped in Mariposa, Ca and ate at the Pizza Factory. We had chicken wings and Hawaiian pizza, super yummy!

We did not check into our hotel until 12:15 that night but Matt was able to pull the honeymoon card and get us upgraded to a king bed with a fireplace in the room for our night!!