I had just one county left: Alpine County. It's a tiny place just south of Lake Tahoe, with a population of less than 1,200. But with two little kids and a pandemic, when would I get a chance to go?
Well, yesterday. During the pandemic, we learned that a loved one has a serious medical issue. It has been extremely stressful and distressing. At some point, I needed to take an entire day off from work and the family and just drive. That was yesterday.
The drive there was uneventful. I've driven to Lake Tahoe via Highway 50 dozens of times. Alpine County is on Highway 89 just a few miles south of 50. It got its name because it resembled the Alps, but I thought it looked more like the forests of southern British Columbia.
The county seat is Markleeville. It is barely two blocks long. I went in the courthouse to check it out. It has one courtroom. One!
The area has a hot spring, but it's closed. So I went to a park, sat next to a creek, ate a turkey sandwich, and read an issue of Road & Track.
The trip definitely helped me decompress. I did not reach any epiphanies, but I came back more grounded. The drive back was beautiful and tense. I took Highway 4. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Highway 4 is a traffic clogged suburban freeway. But in Alpine County, Highway 4 is tough! There's a 9,000 foot pass. The highway was 1-1/2 lanes wide. None of it was marked with a stripe down the middle. Parts of it didn't even have stripes on the edges. And the edges-- sheer cliffs with no guardrails.
So now what? I am done with the California counties. It looks like the rest of the world is not welcoming American tourists.
On my To Do list:
- Yakutsk to Magadan by van
- All five -Stans of Central Asia
- Trans-Siberian Railroad
- Mongolia
- Singapore, Hong Kong, Macao food trip
- Sardinia and Corsica
- Portugal
- San Sebastian
- North Korea
- The Lost Coast of Northern California
- Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana
- Circumnavigate the world by container ship
I just realised I drove through Alpine county in May 2008, on a family road trip in the Western USA.
ReplyDeleteWe visited friends near Mt Aukum, and then we drove on Hwy 88 across Carson Pass.
On the other side of the pass, we turned left onto Hwy 89 towards Lake Tahoe.
I remember it well because we drove through a heavy snowstorm - on May 26th!
I just realised I drove through Alpine county in May 2008, on a family road trip in the Western USA.
ReplyDeleteWe visited friends near Mt Aukum, and then we drove on Hwy 88 across Carson Pass.
On the other side of the pass, we turned left onto Hwy 89 towards Lake Tahoe.
I remember it well because we drove through a heavy snowstorm - on May 26th!