Walking In a Winter Wonderland

So I've just returned from a three-night sojourn to South Lake Tahoe. Sort of an end-of-semester getaway, to celebrate another completed school season and take a needed break from the extreme busyness of the last few weeks.

It was not the trip I expected.

Of course, booking six weeks ago, who could tell what the weather was to be like? I had originally considered going back to San Francisco, to my usual go-to decompression destination. But the hotel rates were higher than I wanted to pay. So I thought, why not Tahoe? I hadn't been there in awhile, and it's full of nature and beauty. And fresh, clean air. So I went. And it snowed.

It was like being in a Christmas song, waking up each morning to a winter wonderland of snow. So unexpected for late May! I was fortunate to be driving up there in between the unseasonably late storms, so the roads were at least clear. And actually it was sunny and clear for the first full day, so I made use of the time and took a drive up the eastern shore of the lake, stopping to hike around Spooner Lake and to explore the incredibly beautiful Sand Harbor. Both of which were new to me, and picked simply by virtue of being a little dot on a map from the rack of brochures at my hotel.

After that, it was cold. And the world was bathed in white. But I liked it. I didn't grow up around snow, and frankly have spent very little time in it. None, really, as a child. Though winter stories always painted pictures of it. I walked through gentle flurries, caught snowflakes on my tongue. Just like a holiday tale full of wonder and nostalgia, though for me a first time experience. It was nice. It was beautiful. It was a photographers paradise. It almost felt like Christmas. A Christmas I never experienced.

I decided to let myself live a little, which is a fairly rare prize for me to offer to myself. I took in a comedy show. And a magic show (that was more comedy than magic). I dined at a different location for every meal. I bought cookies and chocolates and had more than a dozen cups of cocoa (the hotel had free cocoa in the lobby; what a dangerous thing to offer). I did no fast food, only sit-down dining experiences. To rest, I read by the balcony window of my second-floor hotel room while watching snow gently float down unto the boughs of trees and the ground below. I bought presents for my son, who was back in Sacramento with his mother. I gambled a little, at three different casinos, and came out $23 ahead overall (which for me is quite a lucky streak).

It was a nice trip, full of explorations and experience. It was also a little lonely. As trips these days can be.

But now I'm back home, and tomorrow it will be back to work. Though, at least with the semester finished it will be quiet. Tranquil. In that way not unlike my little vacation. But without the 30-degree temperatures.

But when I look out the window tomorrow, the winter wonderland will not be there, beckoning to me. If I take a walk it will still be through a forest, of sorts, but without the satisfying soft crunch of snow beneath my boots. But maybe I'll close my eyes and remember what it was like to walk in a winter wonderland.