John and I headed to Lake Tahoe this past weekend. It was our first time there, and well, the place made a good impression but boy, it sure was dead. something about it being the “shoulder” season?? I don’t know: the weather was great (60s to 70s) but oddly enough, most everything was shut down. And I was prepping myself for some serious shit too, like the ziplines and gondola rides and kayaking. Nope. All of it closed. Damn resort towns.

We stayed at the Marriott Timber Lodge. Marriott never disappoints. Of course the evening temps dipped down to the 30s but leave it to Marriott to maintain the monster heated pool PLUS four hot tubs. Having had my community pool shut down after October 15, I was thrilled to have water access again. John and I didn’t do too much: we walked along the beach in South Lake Tahoe and then did a couple of short hikes around Emerald Bay and Lower Echo Lakes. I sure wish the pups got to come along: they would have loved the cool temps and outdoor adventures.

On Monday, we hit the town of Placerville on the way home. Had a tasty quiche for lunch at Sweetie Pies. We had gone there hoping to get a pie for take-home. Little did we know, their homemade pies have to be ordered days in advance. Total bummer. To get our sweet fix, we hit the Candy Strike shop downtown. Saw candies I hadn’t seen in years. Seriously folks. All kinds of licorice plus Now and Laters. Holy shit, right? Now and Laters bring me WAY back to Clover Hill in Frederick, Maryland. Like concession stands and the Little League ball game. Crazy. There were also taffies, atomic fireballs, banana split chewys… a lot of shit I thought was long banned or deemed dangerous for consumption. Nope, still available apparently in specialty shops. The shopkeeper rang us up, and we were totally done and then he offered us some samples of his homemade fudge. That was our Achilles heel. Ended up ordering a box of fudge and suddenly, our receipt was double. Oh well, that dark Rocky Road fudge was delish!