Take This Tune - Love of Place

This week's prompt at Take This Tune is for Love of Place or, as Fairweather put it, "Where is the place where your heart is rooted, no matter how far away you’ve roamed from there? Start writing." I had to think about this for all of about ten minutes before I decided that it wasn't that difficult of a decision which spot to pick, a decision which then led me to my photo archives and the following pictures.










What can I say? My heart feels right at home in the Lake Tahoe region of the Sierra Nevada mountains and it's a place that I can go back to over and over and over again and never tire of. These pictures were taken last May when my friend Cyndi and I went for "a little drive" to see if Carson Pass on Route 88 was open during my short trip to California.

Described as "one of the most visually dramatic of the trans-Sierra highways in California", the 58-mile drive along Route 88 starts in the Sacramento Valley in California and ends in the Carson Valley in Nevada. Along the way there are views of ragged volcanic skylines, cool green meadows, beautiful mountain lakes framed by timber-covered slopes, and distant mountain peaks.  Pretty much everything that anyone could ask for!










From Route 88 we drove to Lake Tahoe itself for a couple of pictures and then back out along California State Highway 50 and through Echo Summit - which at an elevation of 7,382 feet is the highest point on Route 50. Parts of Hightway 50 run parallel to the American River, as pictured above, and there are just way too many places along the way where one wants to stop and take pictures - or at least this one did!  Poor Cyndi was convinced I'd end up stopping every half-mile or so but I did my best to restrain myself! 

I've driven Highway 50 to and from Lake Tahoe more times than I can remember and it has always fascinated me - not just the beautiful scenery but also the history of the roadway as long ago it was used by many 49ers who came to California during the Gold Rush as well as by riders of the Pony Express. Who knows?  Maybe in another lifetime I was one of the pioneers who came across the Sierra Nevadas in a wagon train to make my home in California and that's why my heart will always have a love of Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevadas no matter how long it may be between visits.

I really do love that place!