The boys and I met up with everyone around 12:00, just in time for lunch. To nobody's surprise, The Lime suggested pizza and it was just his luck there was a pizza place nearby. Everyone was starving and filled their bellies before we made our way to the top of the mountain. I've been to Heavenly Village numerous times and have always wanted to ride the gondola. Thankfully, my parents have too so they treated us to this special experience.
The Lime wasn't so sure (another big surprise...he's afraid of most things, just like me) as we made our way up.
"What if it's too windy?" "What's that noise?" "I think we're going to crash!" He couldn't get out of the car fast enough when we reached the observation deck.
Holy cow, was it beautiful up there! Lake Tahoe is absolutely gorgeous and even more so when you're thousands of feet above it.
We walked around the deck and found this tree that was 250 years old! Even older than the United States! Amazing.
When we made our way back to the gondola, we heard a sort of alarm type sound. "What's that?!" The Lime wanted to know. So, being the guy that he is, my dad found an employee and asked if there was some sort of emergency. "There's a fire at the base of the mountain," he said. We had to get back on the gondola and get off again at the very top of the mountain.
There was a line already forming when we got there and the employees were packing everything up. (Side note: we were so impressed by how organized the staff were. Everyone was calm and knew exactly what to do and where to go.) Rather than standing in the long line and hot sun, we hung out underneath the park ranger's tent. My dad struck up a conversation with an employee who recently retired from CAL Fire. I noticed a familiar city on her name tag (all the employees have where they're from noted on their name tag, sort of like Disneyland) and told my dad to take a look. She said she was originally from Southern California but retired to Nevada. "Do you by any chance know Jesse ________?" my dad asked. She responded with "I know his parents. They live down the street from me." We were amazed! Out of the thousands of people on the top of that mountain, we conversed with someone who was neighbor's with an old family friend. Small, small world!
We were probably waiting for close to an hour before they deemed it safe enough to take people back down the mountain. In my dad's true fashion (he was always the last one off a flight because he'd talk to the pilot), we were the last ones to board the gondola and even got to have three employees join us. They were from Idaho, Kentucky, and Los Angeles. All very nice, even though they looked like prisoners in their orange shirts.
We could see the helicopter gather water from the lake and then drop it on the fire below us. As we got closer, we saw the grounds crew and more on the way.
Once at the bottom, we met back up with my sister and all headed to my uncle's house. They recently purchased a home in the area and it was lovely and soooooo peaceful. Doodlebug and I sat on the back deck while he napped and the others went for a walk down to the lake. All The Lime wanted to do all day was go in the water, even though I warned him it was icy cold.
My aunt prepared a delicious meal for us before the boys and I headed back on the road for home.
It was an exciting, eventful day and made me appreciate, even more, this beautiful land our Heavenly Father created. We're so blessed to live here!
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