Weekend on the Bay and the River in Tahoe

The bay half of the weekend first: we drove down the west shore to Emerald Bay and worked along the overlooks above the state park. From up on the rocks you can watch boats come around the point trailing their wakes, and Fannette Island sits in the middle of it all — the only island in the whole lake. The ruins on top are what's left of a tea house Lora Knight built. You can only get out there by boat; swimming to it is not allowed, which I suppose keeps the ruins from turning into a diving platform. We never got closer than the granite boulders above the Vikingsholm side, and that was fine — the bay reads best from up there anyway.

Then the river half. Back near Truckee in the evening, the Truckee River was running fast and low through the willows, haze hanging in the pines across the far bank. A quieter way to end it than the bay, and better for standing still. The water noise carried all the way up the slope behind us.