Washington's Birthday, February 22, 1967
This day started out as one of the most beautiful days we had during the most uncomfortable winter in California during December 1966 that continued into 1967. Joyce was off from school for this Washington Day holiday and I was off from all my navy duties.
We decided the night before that we would take a day trip to Lake Tahoe. It was a 3-3-1/2 hour trip from our base house on Skaggs Island in Sonoma Valley of California.
We packed a great picnic lunch and loaded it into my Pontiac Lemans, Overhead 6 with 3 speed on the floor. Back in the sixties, I had occasion to drive from New York to California on Interstate 80. At the time, there were no speed limits and there were many straight roads that went for miles. I managed to get the LeMans up to 110 miles per hour until fear struck in. When I dropped back to 70, it felt as though we were moving slowly.
Back to the trip...we took Highway 37 heading for Interstate 80 that was totally snowbound at the higher elevations days prior to our trip but had been cleared. We went through Donner Pass that was named to honor the Donner Party.
The Donner Party (sometimes called the Donner -Reed Party) was a group of American Pioneers led by George Donner and James F. Reed. who set out for California in a wagon train in May 1846. They were delayed by a series of mishaps and mistakes, and spent the winter of 1846-47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Some of the pioneers resorted to cannibalism to survive. Of the 87 members of the party, 48 survived to reach California, many of them having eaten the dead for survival.
We arrived at at Highway 89, the exit off I80 that takes you to Tahoe.
Our drive up was uneventful and we arrived at our destination, the Coast Guard piers at Lake Tahoe.
We were greeted with huge mounds of snow surrounding the piers but found a pier that was blanketed with a layer of fresh fallen snow.
We found a dry spot at the end of the walkway leading to the pier and set up our lunchtime feast!
As the sun was setting over Lake Tahoe, Joyce and I headed back to Skaggs Island.
