Fun With Richard & Cheryl

One of the more bizarre incidents that occurred during the week at Lake Tahoe slipped my mind when I wrote up my memoirs. So through the fog of influenza and a high fever I relate:

One morning Kev woke up scarily early and took off for a morning of golf. I bade him farewell, expecting to see him again at noon or so. My morning, which started a good couple of hours later, would be spent travelling with Kev's parents, to see if we could spot a mountain quail, a bird that inhabits only select areas in the US.

The three of us drove for at least 45 minutes up the windy mountain roads, stopping at one lookout point that towered above a township below. Cheryl and I enjoyed the scenery but Richard was clearly eager to keep moving, so we didn't stop again until we arrived at an information centre (unfortunately unmanned that day) where I saw my very first ground squirrel.



So while Richard and Cheryl kept a lookout for the mountain quail, my eyes were trained on the bouncy little squirrels that flitted quickly across roads and up hills and over rocks. So cute!

As we drove further up the hill we spotted a quail in the distance, but it disappeared into the scrub by the road. Richard hunted for it, but no luck. We continued on, ascending higher and higher, but as we neared the top of our chosen peak we decided to turn back. The distant sighting was enough to be claimed as such, but it was not the preferred method for bird-watchers.

As we returned to the original spotting area, luck was on our side and another quail appeared on the road. We stopped the car and watched through the binoculars as it continued to cross to the other side of the road, away from the scrub. We crept quietly forward in the car, and the bird jumped up into a tree, sitting on a prominent branch. We pulled up closer and closer, until we were right alongside the cocky bird. Richard was silently in bird-watching bliss as he snapped photos from every angle. Once he was satisfied, we headed home.

We drove for less than 30 minutes before we were stopped by backed-up traffic. All that could be seen was a long line of cars stretching ahead of us. Cheryl hopped out of the car and walked off ahead to find out what was going on. She returned with the news that there had been a fatality - someone had driven off the road and down the side of the mountain. She hadn't made it to the front of the line, there were hundreds of cars in front, but news was being passed back. As we waited in the car, other vehicles gave up waiting in the line, shouting "2 hour wait", "Won't let us through til 1:30", "2pm", "3 hours"... I wanted to turn back and go and sit in the small restaurant we had passed (which must have had booming business that day, with all the cars we saw give up the wait). Richard wanted to stay put so we wouldn't lose our place in line, in case they only let dribbles of cars through at a time. We called Brian to say what was happening.

Fortunately for me I had brought both my Drama and English readers along for the ride, so I read oh-so-interesting articles about how to teach poetry and how to use teacher-in-role to teach Shakespeare. The Time. Just. Flew. I think I put in a solid hour of reading before my ears started bleeding, so I tried to snooze. Richard was more successful at this than I, as proved by his subtle yet grating snores.

Every now and again cars would shift forward, causing frenzies of excitement, when really they were moving to fill gaps left by cars who gave up. But eventually, the movement was unbroken and we poured through the hazard zone, past a car whose poor driver was fast asleep. Would have loved to have seen his reaction when he finally woke up... The road was covered in emergency vehicles, but we spotted the break in the low rock 'fence' that ran along the edge of the road. The break was quite close to the lookout we had first stopped at - let's hope the car didn't fly out far enough to land on the township below. From the way the emergency services were positioned, it looked like the vehicle must have landed on the cliff face below. We hoped to see more on the news, but no such luck.

We arrived back at the Tahoe Keys some time before 2pm, and played croquet. Mmm.