Playing in the Smoke

 After two days of being lucky and getting to play outside, the smoke has finally returned to Lake Tahoe with a vengeance. Ash was falling from the sky in our campground as we loaded up this morning. We're learning that this smoke can be fickle and can come-and-go. So we checked the air quality web site to see that South Lake Tahoe was better than where we were in North Tahoe this morning. Since we haven't explored the east side of the lake, we decided to head that direction. Lake Tahoe is situated on the border of two states, so our drive today took us into Nevada. As we drove, the wind shifted, and the smoke found us here as well. 

After eating lunch indoors in the town of South Lake Tahoe, it was obvious that we wouldn't be doing any outdoor activities here today. So we found a place called "Tot Spot" for some indoor fun with our granddaughter. They have all kinds of toys set up for children, and this is a great place to play grocery store, 

or take care of the baby dolls in the climbing blocks.

One of our favorite activities was the trampoline, and we used up some good energy on this indoor day.

This is by far the worst smoke we have encountered so far. As we walked back to the pickup, chunks of ash were falling from the sky like snow. We have been watching as the air quality changed from yellow (moderate) to orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups) to red (unhealthy) to purple (very unhealthy) to burgundy (hazardous).

As we drove out of the town of South Lake Tahoe, we snapped this picture of what hazardous air looks like.

As we drove back towards the motor home on the east side of Lake Tahoe, we noticed the fickle smoke was clearing in front of us. We had hoped to stop by Sand Harbor Beach this afternoon, and we joked that maybe the skies would be clear by the time we got there. Can you believe that we were so blessed that it did clear up? Can you also believe that as we waited in a long line to buy a parking pass to go into the beach, someone coming out handed us their all-day $15 pass? We feel doubly blessed!

So we walked to the end of the beach area to find a less crowded spot of sand. Perhaps we should say that everyone except Carter walked to the beach. She was riding on Grand-dude's shoulders, giving him a very happy face massage.

Even though it isn't perfectly clear, we're glad to get to spend some more time in the water at Lake Tahoe.

We know that Mark likes to climb on rocks, and so does Luke. 

It looks like Carter is a rock climber too!

While we have enjoyed having our son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter meeting us here in Lake Tahoe, we all recognize that this isn't a healthy environment. We feel so sorry for those people that must live in this smoke! We met a family at Tot Spot that had just been forced to evacuate from their home south of Lake Tahoe. We are glad that we can be mobile, and we decided that it would be smart to cut this vacation short by a day. The smoke forecast is in the purple range for the next several days.

So even though we will be sad to miss even a minute of fun with our family, we are glad that they were able to find an earlier flight to get them back home to healthy air. We'll be following closely behind them as we leave our week-long reservation early as well. We'll be glad to get out of this smoke!

P.S. If you watched the national news, you saw that several days after our visit, the town of South Lake Tahoe was evacuated. The winding route we drove this day was clogged with traffic as so many people were trying to get out of the area. We were glad we made the decision to leave early!