Pianeta

Lake Tahoe

The Pool

Piper's Patisserie

Monday 28 June 2004

Auntie Pamela has a student whose family owns a home in Truckee-Donner, and it was offered to her for a family outing. So, after a small amount of planning and even less packing, we're off on a road trip.

It's not a long drive from San Francisco, perhaps four hours including a stop in Davis at Redrum Burger (for the most excellent milkshakes). [Quick directions: heading towards Sacramento it's the first Davis exit, Richards Avenue. Head west one block. Heading back to San Francisco, take the Olive Road exit. It's a few dozen feet further than the stop light. Eschew the ostrich burger, or at least beg them not to soak it in mustard.]

Then it's higher and higher, up to 7000 feet, over Donner Pass and we're off the highway in Truckee. The directions the family has given us are great, and a left here and a right there and we're at a huge house.

The kids are most impressed with the bunk bed room. Both pledge to sleep here, but Lila succumbs to the lure of "Mama's milk." Around each bunk bed is a multi-colored string of lights, which the kids are calling 'Burning Man lights'.

Here's Auntie Pamela posing in front of one of two or three fireplaces on the two-floor structure. Each seems to be a gas-powered fake, rather than the soothing wood-burning type. So it goes.

For lunch we head to downtown Truckee, the historic district. In the middle of the one-block shopping area we find Pianeta, an old-world Italian restaurant. Great ambience, really good carpaccio, but everything else more complicated seemed less excellent, not just-cooked, with the balance of spices a bit off. Even their cappuccino was a bit on the bitter side, with that don't-know-how-to-use-the-espresso-machine feel.

At the end of a long, hard day of being a tourist, checking out the old train station, running up and down the old town, the kids are more than ready for bed. Here are Isaac and Lila getting ready to brush their teeth.

The next days starts early for Isaac and me, at a casino on the CA/NEV state line.

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