A Slice of Scandinavia

8/7/2017

After yesterday’s rain coming in from California, I was a bit worried that my Lake Tahoe visit would suffer from poor weather as well. It wouldn’t have surprised me. You see, I’ve noticed that whenever my Dad comes out to join me for a leg of my road trips, it seems to rain. Call it Murphy’s Law, call it a curse, whatever you want – all I know is that when my dad’s around, the weather is sure to do silly things.

So I was pleasantly surprised and quite pleased to find that the day had dawned sunny and mild, if a bit hazy. We headed out to see some of Lake Tahoe’s best views before the weather changed its mind.

Our first stop was the renowned Emerald Bay, jewel of Lake Tahoe. This bay was set aside as a state park long ago and thus has resisted development, instead retaining most of its wild beauty. There are a couple of interesting man-made landmarks though. From the highway, the most visible is the teahouse on the island in the center of the bay.

Just liked the sediment plumes and eroded benches underwater. 

It’s inaccessible unless you’ve got a kayak (or if you’re willing to swim from your boat), but isn’t functioning as a teahouse anymore anyways, so really it’s just a little stone building. At one point in time, though, it was part of the Vikingsholm estate. Yes, you read that right: there’s a place called Vikingsholm in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, of all places. Dad and I made plans to tour it in the afternoon.

We wanted to take advantage of the best light (and minimal haze) to hike Eagle Falls and Eagle Lake. Eagle Falls is right next to the road, which is very convenient for hiking purposes and extremely inconvenient for human density problems. Man, there were people everywhere! But the falls were quite beautiful. Because there’s been so much rain and snowfall this year, they were flinging a huge amount of water down the cliffs to the waiting lake below – a far cry from the thin stream that my dad had seen the previous year, apparently.

 We spent a short time at the falls and then headed upstream towards Eagle Lake. It was a nice moderate uphill hike that had the advantage of cutting down drastically on the amount of tourists to a much more manageable level.

Upon reaching the lake, I found myself wishing that I had brought my swimsuit! There were a lot of other hikers swimming in the crystal clear, refreshing waters, and I was a bit jealous of them. Mountain lakes are some of the best natural places to swim. Cool clear waters, nice rocks to sunbathe on, no crazy animals to bite your toes, and a view to die for – what’s not to love?

I was also jealous of these ducks. I think I took too many pictures of them.

At least I got the rest of the lake in this shot of the duck.

We moved on after a light lunch, hiking back down the hill to the parking lot. Originally the intent was to move to a better location for the Vikingsholm tour, but we quickly scrapped that after seeing what the parking situation had devolved into. That’s kind of the problem with popular tourist destinations in the summer, especially when they have limited parking due to a combination of narrow roads, bodies of water, and cliffy outcrops. But hey, I’ve got legs and they work so I guess using them isn’t too terrible really. So we hiked on down along the road to the base of the lake, where the Vikingsholm estate is located.

I had never heard of this place before, but my dad raved about it so I figured it had to be good. The story goes that a somewhat eclectic widow had bought this land for a summer house back in the 1920’s. Emerald Bay reminded her of a fjord she had seen in her travels through Scandinavia, so she decided that should would build an appropriately Scandinavian castle… as her summer home. She spent some time traveling with her architect to gather building ideas, and then went home to Lake Tahoe and proceeded to have them build a massive estate combining a variety of traditional Viking and Scandinavian architectural features. It is noted for being one of the best examples of Scandinavian architecture in the United States, though I’m not sure how many contenders for that title there are, really.

The trail to Vikingsholm ends on the heavily forested shores of the lake. One of the most striking things about this home is that it is entirely built around preexisting trees, giving it a bit of an odd shape in some places. But it is nestled into the forest like it belongs.

 

But first, here's a picture of a cool flower I found.

Dad and I were fortunate enough to get tickets for a tour of the inside of the house, which is just as spectacular as the outside. Everything in this home is custom-designed and custom-built. The attention to detail is simply insane. We wandered around in the house for quite a while, relishing the beautiful architecture and its highly unusual integration with cutting-edge 1920’s technology.

 

The front door is a little imposing.

Some decorations on the roofline of the house

She wanted a writing room right here, apparently.

Detail above the back door.

The courtyard door (this house has too many entrance doors).

Dining room featuring an intriguing mix of Scandinavian decorations and 1920's china.

Thatch roof!

This house had one of the earliest gas pumps - for the ultimate in convenience!

Apparently, the woman had invested in Shell very early in their company history, so when she decided she wanted her own gas pump at her house, they said, "Well okay".

We finished off the afternoon with some ice cream and a walk along the trail on the lake. The trees there, though not considered “old growth”, were still gigantic. Some of the cedar trees were almost redwood-sized!

 

Awesome cedar bark.

This tree split and someone filled it with... masonry???

??????????

Tomorrow, I’ll see some more of Lake Tahoe and then head on into Reno for Hot August Nights. I can tell we’re getting close – I’ve seen a lot of classic cars puttering around the Tahoe area, and I know that thousands of them are just a short ways north in Reno. I can practically smell the unburnt hydrocarbons from here!

Until then, Kelly signing out.