Fake spring break day 5

It's fitting that I finish this little series today since it was a week ago today that it ended.

The final day of the trip started off great: we all slept in well past the time we wanted to leave. Instead we got much needed sleep and ate a wonderful breakfast prepared by Grant's parents. There were pancakes, scrambled eggs, juice, cereal and milk. I sure do love pancakes, even though just two days before I'd eaten some as well. Breakfast food really never gets old.

Once breakfast was eaten and the car packed up, on the road we went. It's interesting to see how quickly we could revert back into driving mode. We all had our sort of designated places and roles in the car.

The drive took us a little out of the way since we intended to visit Lake Tahoe before heading back to Utah. It was the best detour/side trip I ever could have hoped for. The scenery started changing gradually and eventually we were driving up and down winding roads through incredible trees and rivers and mountains. It was absolutely breathtaking. Just going through South Tahoe and the area around it was amazing. Trent was having the time of his life with his head stuck out the window as we blasted the soundtrack to the movie Spirit. It really was the perfect background music. All the windows were rolled down as we drove into Tahoe itself. Phillip was having the time of his life and repeatedly expressed his desire to be in something like a small little sports car instead of his Subaru Outback. I can't really blame him either.

So we ate pretzels and Cheetos and smiled and laughed and marveled. We made our way down into the valley area and stopped by Phillip's old house. Yes, he used to live in Tahoe. We parked the car on the side of the road and played around a little in his backyard. Well, it was mostly the boys who played. (These pictures were taken by the wonderful Emily.) Yeah, his backyard literally had a river in it. How awesome is that?

I ventured onto a rock you could jump to from the grass.

Then it was time to actually get to Lake Tahoe. The drive to the actual lake took perhaps another hour or so, but we cared so little about time. It was just too great a place to rush through. We stopped off at a lookout place to see Emerald Bay before we actually got to the lake itself.

Is that not one of the most beautiful places you have ever seen? Pictures hardly do it justice.

Then we actually got down to the lake! We sat in the sun for a while, much longer than we had planned, and eventually got up the courage to do what we had come to do: run in, dunk our heads, and run out. We didn't get any pictures during the act but it was great, definitely one of those moments we don't need pictures to remember.

The boys literally ran back to the car & changed afterwards,
which left Emily and I looking way more hardcore than them.

And once Emily and I changed back into normal clothes, we departed from the glorious place that is Tahoe. (I was already planning a return trip in my head, that's for sure.) So then we drove. We stopped outside Reno and got In & Out since Emily was craving a burger and I'm sure glad we did. I'm pretty sure In & Out there is better than it is here in Utah. From that point on we only stopped for gas. On the drive back we also watched movies 3-5 of Harry Potter consecutively. Since we'd taken our good ol' time at Grant's house and in Tahoe we didn't arrive in Provo until 2 am. It was totally worth it.

This was a fantastic trip and I'm so glad I was able to go. Road trips seem essential to college and this was by far the most awesome one I've been on. I've done little trips up to Idaho and other places in Utah but this was pretty legit, the kind of trip I'm pretty sure I'll always remember. Everything about it was wonderful; well, except for the not sleeping too much, but even that was totally necessary in some ways. What kind of road trip involving college kids involves getting good sleep every night? With how much stuff we crammed in it probably would have taken something like 12 hours of sleep every night to make us not tired, and even then it might've been close. So I wouldn't change a single thing about that trip, except to maybe make it longer.

(Also, you can find even more awesome pictures at Emily's Flickr account. Some of the pictures from these posts came from her. She's a great photographer)