Shakespeare by the Lake, Take Three

This weekend marked our third annual trip to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. Though we were excited about the trip, we were also somewhat taken aback that this is our third summer in California—doing something once or twice seems somehow less “permanent” than being around for an annual festival for the third year in a row. We also calculated that this was our sixth trip to Lake Tahoe. Our claims of not really living here grow flimsier by the day.

Anyway, we had a fabulous weekend. We got to the lake before lunch on Saturday and spread out on the beach, with our books and a cooler of lunch. It was pleasant in the sun, but soon grew hot, and we did something we hadn’t done in all our previous five trips: we swam in the lake. And it was amazing—cold, but not numbingly so like the other times we’d attempted it. Being pregnant, I am generally uncomfortably warm all the time, and the water felt fabulous. I stayed in far longer than shivering, non-pregnant Andrew. The lake is the ideal place for swimming—a firm sandy bottom, crystal-clear water, and very shallow; you can walk quite far out and still be only waist-deep. It was pure bliss to marinate in the cool, clean water and gaze out at the mountains and fir trees surrounding me.

After checking in to the Cal Neva and dressing in warm clothes, we set out for the Sand Harbor park to see Measure for Measure. We got there early to set up our chairs and have our picnic before the show started, then enjoyed watching the play while the sun set over the lake. It’s an incomparable setting for Shakespeare, and the play was well done as always, if perhaps less gripping than last year’s Richard III.

Back at the Cal Neva, we changed $10 into quarters and settled in to Hit the Big Time at the Triple Sevens slot machine. After using up all our quarters, we took our winnings and played through again. We wound up with $9.25. We decided to go ahead and once again go through all the quarters, winding up ultimately with…$9.25. Once more we gambled through, winding up with $3.50, which we carried in a Cal Neva bucket back to our room. We may not have the $30 million required to get the Cal Neva out of bankruptcy, but $6.50 was the least we could contribute to its fiscal health.

Sunday found us back at the beach—and once more in the lake—for a few hours. We had a late lunch at a local burger shack called the Char Pit, then headed down the mountain. Our swim kept us cool for most of the drive; though eventually, as we neared home, the car’s thermometer began climbing from Tahoe’s pleasant 76 to over 100.

It was a perfect summer weekend, and—I’ll say it!—I do feel lucky to be living so close to such an amazing spot. It really is one of our very favorite places out here.