Lake Tahoe - Friday, Day One - Part One

John surprised me for my birthday with a weekend get-away trip to Lake Tahoe to see Rascal Flatts in concert.  I was so excited!  My parents agreed to keep Nala for the weekend.  Friday morning we got up and did our last minute packing before my Mom came over to pick us up to go to LAX.  After throwing our luggage, Nala's stuff, and Nala in the car we were off!!  The drive was uneventful and luckily the airport was pretty deserted.  We got to check-in in the American Airline VIP section because of John's miles.  It was nice skipping the longer lines.  It's always kind of nerve-wracking when we check in because every time I'm afraid of going over the weight limit on my luggage.  It was just a weekend trip so I shouldn't have been worried about it ... but I was.  No problems though!  While we were getting situated John overheard a VIP escort say something about waiting for Heather Locklear to show up.  We were on the look-out for her but didn't catch a glimpse.

After we were checked it and made it through a very speedy security line, we were on the lookout for something to eat for lunch.  We were hungry!  Pickin's were slim in the terminal but we opted to got to On The Border for some Mexican food.  It was really good!

John checked out the AAA guide info on Lake Tahoe while we waited for our food to come.

Burrito and tacos ... yummy!!!

After a quick bathroom break we headed for the gate, only to find that our gate was in a whole different building!  We had to take a bus along the runways to get over there.  If we had known that we would have eaten faster and got their earlier!!  It turned out that we enough time though but I'm going to remember that the short "puddle jumper" flights leave from the other terminal in the future.

Cruisin' along the runways

There it is!

Since the flight from LAX to Reno is a short one we flew on a regional jet ... aka large mosquito.  There were 2 seats on one side of aisle and 1 seat on the other - tiny.  Luckily I don't freak out about these types of things.  I don't necessarily love flying because turbulence scares the crap out of me, but as long as my tummy's full and I don't get motion sickness, I'm fine.

Here we go!

As passengers were loading on and I was getting situated, Heather Locklear just happened to walk by and go to a seat farther back in the plane.  John was very excited.  I didn't see her until later when I glanced back but he saw her as she walked past us.

After a fairly uneventful flight, we landed in Reno, got our luggage, picked up the rental car, and set off!

 

There was a huge bridge being built outside of Reno

As we were driving we saw a bunch of very ominous clouds coming in and heard emergency broadcasts on the radio for flash flooding.

We saw some lightening but never any rain.  Thank goodness!  After some twisty windy roads and going up up up, we finally got a glimpse of this ....

Lake Tahoe!!