USA trip, day 7 - 30th January

We decided to take a day off. I was feeling off colour again (over the last couple of days, I’ve found myself gasping for breath – I’m pretty sure I picked up a chest infection from the guy sat next to me on the plane from Chicago). The lift passes for the ski areas only cover 10 of the 11 days we’re here; more cloud is forecast for today, so we might as well make it today. Amazingly, neither of us has fallen over when skiing, yet.

We drove a short distance around the lake, and away from the sprawl of South Lake Tahoe. It takes forever to drive from one end of town to the other, and is an appalling example of unregulated development in a beauty spot. I guess we can start to look forward to this if, as promised, the UK government opts to relax planning restrictions in greenbelt areas.

We parked the car off the main road near a recreational area called Baldwin Beach, and walked through the trees to the lake shore. In one area, where I could here a distant bird flock, I managed to pish in a considerable flock of birds. It was made up mostly of Pygmy Nuthatches, a couple of Down Woodpeckers, Mountain Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren, Bushtits and I could hear, but not see, a Red-breasted Nuthatch.

The lake shore was deserted of people and beautiful in the calm cloudless sky (so much for the weather forecast). I had hoped to see Bald Eagles, which congregate near here in winter apparently, but had no luck. We did see a beautiful drake Hooded Merganser on the lake, along with Buffleheads, a couple of Common Goldeneyes, and the inevitable California Gulls.

After this, we went to a small shopping mall full of factory outlets. There were some real bargains there, especially with the pound so strong against the dollar. We returned via a supermarket – it doesn’t matter where I am in the world, I love to see the food that people buy. However, we were there for much more important reasons – our gin stocks were getting dangerously low back in the hotel room.

George was feeling under the weather in the evening, so I got a meal to go for the room, and we watched a subscription film again – Infamous. It had an interesting cast, including excellent performance from Toby Jones (as Truman Capote), Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig and Juliet Stephenson. The trailer hailed Gwyneth Paltrow as one of the leading actors, yet she sang a song at the beginning (admittedly very well) and that’s all. This was an excellent film, but it doesn’t seem to have got any Oscar nominations. Perhaps Capote’s success last year screwed things up for Infamous.