Well, that was quick....

Almost made it to tonight's hotel in South Lake Tahoe in time for breakfast!  In fact I would have if I hadn't cruised the Main Street shopping area before heading to the hotel.  A very short and chilly ride today. Started climbing almost immediately out of the hotel. Certainly a good way to stay warm. My preference is to dress minimally on the way up so that I don't sweat. If I'm wet with sweat then I get chilled and never get warm. Seems there aren't too many of us on this trip with that philosophy. Lots of layers on display today. They just look at me, shake their heads and chalk it up to the fact that I'm from Canada. It was a pretty climb - about 2200 feet over 8.5 miles. Not too steep and quite a few places where it levelled out for a while. Lots of wind, though, made it tougher in places than it should have been.

Reached the Luther Pass Summit at the same time as Sheila so had a photographer handy.

Put on a jacket and started down the 2000 foot descent toward Lake Tahoe. Didn't stop for many pictures as that would have required manual dexterity that I didn't have. Traffic was really heavy for about the last 8 miles or so. South Lake Tahoe is a resort town of about 25,000 plus visitors. Way bigger than anything we've seen in weeks!  We rode a tailwind into town. Thankfully the really big winds forecast for today didn't fully materialize. We have had a couple of snow squalls move through, though, later on in the day. The Tour of California pro cycling race was through here yesterday. As we came in we saw lots of tour support vehicles with multiple expensive racing bikes on top leaving town. I went for a little walk a few blocks over to the shopping district (and the Nevada State Line, so margaritas tonight!) this afternoon. That's by far the furthest I've walked since before I crashed on the way back from Mexico. Now back to bed for a few hours. Definitely a slow recovery!

Stats for the day:
44 km / 27 miles from Woodfords CA to South Lake Tahoe CA
2652 feet up
2027 feet down
Weather:  a tad chilly. Started at 5C, down to 1C and then back up a bit by the time we got in to SLT. But - there were a few snow pellets coming down when we came into town. Bright sunshine to start and just a few clouds later on. White caps on the lake. Winds today are forecast to be stronger than yesterday with gusts up to 60 mph (100 km/h).  So glad we got away about 7:30 and got in before the weather deteriorated.