| Breakfast is an important meal in the States, it
tends to be a hearty offering and our first on at
Pat's Cafe, just
around the corner from the Columbus Motor Inn in Columbus Avenue proved
to be a real favourite of ours. The coffee was superb, the service
relaxed but efficient, and we resolved to use this as our breakfast base
on our return to San Fran. |
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Indeed, it now does evening meals too
which are terrific value. It gets our full
recommendation!! |
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This was my first breakfast there, a San Fran
omelette as I remember! |
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We leave San Fran heading east towards
Lake Tahoe
over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay bridge. |
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For our lunch stop, we chose Sacramento
, the capital of California. We wandered through parkland full of orange
trees towards the city hall. |
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It's wide open to visitation and there were many
school kids in line as we entered. |
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The governor's office (remember Arnie?) is behind
these doors. Indeed, we had heard him addressing the state on the radio
as we approached the city. |
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Some of the rooms in the building had been restored
to their 19th century glory.
Word processing by typewriter. Remember those? |
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We continue our journey climbing from
the plains to a height of almost 10,000 feet before descending to Lake
Tahoe at a mere 6500 feet. |
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We stopped at the visitor centre where a very helpful
ranger (Mike) gave us lots of info on how best to spend our 36 hours on
the banks of this great lake. |
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| As far as lake Tahoe was concerned, it
was still spring as the winter snows had not long melted. This after
all, California's ski-ing area. Here are
some of the flowers that I saw in the woods near our accommodation: The
Fireside lodge. |
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a pretty birdy... |
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'From little acorns do great oaks grow' |
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| The lake looked pretty wintery in the last shot, but
the geese don't look too unhappy.
Here, some gulls are looking for breakfast. |
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Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the
Sierra Nevada mountains.
It is the largest
alpine lake in North America. Its depth is 1,645 ft (501 m)
You can read more about the lake
here.
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I loved these bright pink flowers which appeared to
be from a fungus. |
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It had rained overnight as I set out on an early
morning bike (provided free by our accommodation) ride to explore. |
