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Labor Day and fireworks.
Sep. 7th, 2011 09:15 pmWow, I guess it's been a long time since I posted about something other than anime or manga.
So for Labor Day I went to South Lake Tahoe with my family. As James puts it, we always want to go places at the same time as other people want to go. (I don't think I ever posted about Christmas at Disneyland. Such. a bad. idea.) Traffic was not as bad as I had feared, by which I mean it only turned into a parking lot once, for maybe 15 minutes, but there were a lot of crawling sections.
Most of Saturday was spent driving. We walked down to the lake shore, played on some swings, and then made a first pass at the casinos before a late dinner. I think this is the first time any of us three "younger generation" people had been to a casino since we were old enough to gamble, so a lot of it was just being wide-eyed and giddy. We tried some random cheap slots and lost maybe a couple dollars. We went back after dinner and experienced utter gambling fail: it was so crowded we couldn't find a free machine, and whenever we found one we kept finding out that our vouchers wouldn't work. Stupid paperless systems. So in the end we couldn't even manage to lose any money, much less win.
On Sunday, we drove out to look at more scenic parts of the lake, including Emerald Bay. We took some cliche pictures at the vista point and tried to hike to one of the falls that feeds Cascade Lake, but my parents gave up early, and James and I turned back a bit after because we didn't want to keep them waiting. I was amused that the other fork in the trail goes to Desolation, the most-used wilderness area in the U.S. (You need a permit to go.)
After that, we went on to the Vikingsholm trailhead, whose parking lot was totally packed. We got into a fight with a car full of Indian people who backed into the parking row we were squatting and tried to snipe our spot. We were in a stalemate with us standing in the parking space and their car right in front of us, but fortunately a couple minutes later another car left. (And this Chinese lady in the passenger seat of that car yelled at us for standing behind their van even though they had tons of space to back up.)
In the evening we had a dinner cruise out on the lake. It was very pretty, but not that photogenic. The clouds were gorgeous. I'm not sure if I've ever seen clouds tinted pink from below like that. Maybe you need the altitude?
One of the main reasons we took the cruise was that there were Labor Day fireworks (since when?) and the boat gave us front row seats. And it really was the best fireworks show I have ever seen. It was pretty long, and it was synched to music in a very artistic way, and there were a lot of different effects. My two favorite parts were: (1) to "Rocketeer" by Far East Movement, when they sing that drawn out "fly", they had these very gently cascading fireworks that perfectly capture that soaring feeling; and (2) to "Blow" by Ke$ha, whenever she sang "this place about to blow-oh-oh..." they had these super-cool fireworks that had the usual initial burst, and then all the sparks would suddenly expand out again, timed to the word "blow".
On Monday we went back to the casinos and failed a bit less at gambling. We found a giant slot machine that let you play 5 lines for a nickel, and we stayed there being all giddy and excitable. Two of us would sit in front of machine and one of us would pull the big lever. We had a really good round of free spins and were up for a while, but in the end we lost it all again and stopped when we ran out of money. Our excitement during the free spins caused people to come over to see what was going on -- they probably went off rolling their eyes when they found out it was a bunch of kids oohing and ahhing at winning $5. But man, those little add on things make it so exciting.
In the end, I'm not really a casino person, and I knew this all along. For starters, I'm risk averse. And I'm an intravert, which pretty much rules out the table games -- interacting with people is not my idea of entertainment. I could probably get stuck on slots, but I'm too risk averse to play the expensive ones, and after a while the small size of any possible gains drives me away from the cheapy ones.
So that was my Labor Day. All in all, a good trip despite the crowds. Never would have foreseen that fireworks would be the highlight, though.
So for Labor Day I went to South Lake Tahoe with my family. As James puts it, we always want to go places at the same time as other people want to go. (I don't think I ever posted about Christmas at Disneyland. Such. a bad. idea.) Traffic was not as bad as I had feared, by which I mean it only turned into a parking lot once, for maybe 15 minutes, but there were a lot of crawling sections.
Most of Saturday was spent driving. We walked down to the lake shore, played on some swings, and then made a first pass at the casinos before a late dinner. I think this is the first time any of us three "younger generation" people had been to a casino since we were old enough to gamble, so a lot of it was just being wide-eyed and giddy. We tried some random cheap slots and lost maybe a couple dollars. We went back after dinner and experienced utter gambling fail: it was so crowded we couldn't find a free machine, and whenever we found one we kept finding out that our vouchers wouldn't work. Stupid paperless systems. So in the end we couldn't even manage to lose any money, much less win.
On Sunday, we drove out to look at more scenic parts of the lake, including Emerald Bay. We took some cliche pictures at the vista point and tried to hike to one of the falls that feeds Cascade Lake, but my parents gave up early, and James and I turned back a bit after because we didn't want to keep them waiting. I was amused that the other fork in the trail goes to Desolation, the most-used wilderness area in the U.S. (You need a permit to go.)
After that, we went on to the Vikingsholm trailhead, whose parking lot was totally packed. We got into a fight with a car full of Indian people who backed into the parking row we were squatting and tried to snipe our spot. We were in a stalemate with us standing in the parking space and their car right in front of us, but fortunately a couple minutes later another car left. (And this Chinese lady in the passenger seat of that car yelled at us for standing behind their van even though they had tons of space to back up.)
In the evening we had a dinner cruise out on the lake. It was very pretty, but not that photogenic. The clouds were gorgeous. I'm not sure if I've ever seen clouds tinted pink from below like that. Maybe you need the altitude?
One of the main reasons we took the cruise was that there were Labor Day fireworks (since when?) and the boat gave us front row seats. And it really was the best fireworks show I have ever seen. It was pretty long, and it was synched to music in a very artistic way, and there were a lot of different effects. My two favorite parts were: (1) to "Rocketeer" by Far East Movement, when they sing that drawn out "fly", they had these very gently cascading fireworks that perfectly capture that soaring feeling; and (2) to "Blow" by Ke$ha, whenever she sang "this place about to blow-oh-oh..." they had these super-cool fireworks that had the usual initial burst, and then all the sparks would suddenly expand out again, timed to the word "blow".
On Monday we went back to the casinos and failed a bit less at gambling. We found a giant slot machine that let you play 5 lines for a nickel, and we stayed there being all giddy and excitable. Two of us would sit in front of machine and one of us would pull the big lever. We had a really good round of free spins and were up for a while, but in the end we lost it all again and stopped when we ran out of money. Our excitement during the free spins caused people to come over to see what was going on -- they probably went off rolling their eyes when they found out it was a bunch of kids oohing and ahhing at winning $5. But man, those little add on things make it so exciting.
In the end, I'm not really a casino person, and I knew this all along. For starters, I'm risk averse. And I'm an intravert, which pretty much rules out the table games -- interacting with people is not my idea of entertainment. I could probably get stuck on slots, but I'm too risk averse to play the expensive ones, and after a while the small size of any possible gains drives me away from the cheapy ones.
So that was my Labor Day. All in all, a good trip despite the crowds. Never would have foreseen that fireworks would be the highlight, though.
