The Wonderland Journal

Sam is off work today! Yay!

This means we get to pull out the bikes. 

Fortunately, Dad is a cyclist. He’s good with fixing bikes, so he patches them up and we’re off!

There is a nice bike path in Tahoe that we ride on. It’s a smooth path with occasional cracks — I’m on a very slender bike, so I try to take it easy on these. 

Sam is on a mountain bike and Dad is on a heavy beach cruiser. 

We cruise through tourists and roads. Riding through Tahoe is fun! It’s nice to be on a bicycle and not walk. I’m going so fast I can’t quite take in the scenery! 

Walking allows for more scenic intake. Cycling, you can go fast. 

I feel like I’m riding through the Sierra on the PCT. It’s funny, for the previous hundreds of miles, I felt like I was hiking through Tahoe trees. Now I feel like I’m back on trail. It’s funny how things flipped. 

“Let’s go this way. I’ve never been here before,” Sam says. 

We bike through a wooded path and land in a historical site. The lake is full of people and the sun shines brightly. 

We ride around on the semi-flat ground. It feels good to be on a bike! Even if this one is a little wobbly. 

We stop for ice cream. We’re suppose to go on a boat later, to wake surf or wake board. 

This ice cream shop doesn’t do samples! I stare blankly at the menu for a minute before I realize I’m holding up the line. 

I finally get a salted caramel chunk and coffee ice cream.

We sit outside. There are a ton of other people here, the picnic tables are covered in sticky ice cream residue, and the smell of garbage wafts towards me. 

The ice cream is creamy and leaves a film on the roof of my mouth. My cone cracks and I’m digging into the ice cream to prevent it from dripping on my hand!

No use. 

“We’ve got to be at the boat at 2:15,” Sam says. 

Oh yeah. 

Dad is almost done with his mint chocolate chip ice cream as I furiously attack mine. 

Last time I ate a pint of ice cream, I had a massive stomach ache. 

Fortunately, I was only charged for one scoop, so I eat the caramel scoop (my favorite of the two) and toss the coffee scoop. Then I eat the cone.  

Ready to go!

We hop back on the bikes. It should be about a twelve mile bike ride, but as I’m riding, the bike goes THUNK as I go over one of the big cracks that runs horizontally over the road. 

A minute later and my bike is vibrating madly. 

“I think I have a flat tire,” I call to them. 

I was worried of this. I was trying to be gentle over these cracks, but the tire may be dried out. 

We get off. Dad checks it out. Sam goes ahead to get his truck. We’re only two and a half miles from home. 

Dad works on the bike for a little bit. I watch a woodpecker go ham on a tree. 

“I’ve never seen this before.” Dad pulls the liner out from the wheel. It broke in half. 

He gets a message from Sam that his master steering just broke. Oh no!

He fixes it up enough with a flat rock for me to hop back on. 

But I hit another bump in the road and it’s flat again. 

We pull over and Dad pumps it up again. “Ride gently,” he says. 

I do. Very gently. I hear a little thunk and the tire goes flat. 

We pull over into the dirt again. 

Sam shows up a few minutes later. We load up. 

“I think I’m going to sit the boat out,” Dad says. “I don’t feel well, and that ice cream didn’t help!”

“Maybe we can reschedule it to tomorrow,” Sam say. He gets on the phone with some friends. 

“Katy, do you want to go to a Macwood Fleet concert tonight? It’s a group that does covers for Fleetwood Mac. My friend has extra tickets.”

“Um…” I don’t really, but it might be fun. 

He gets on the phone with another friend. 

“Hey Katy, what about a comedy show? My friend has tickets to see Nate Bargatze. That’s so funny! I’ve never been offered tickets to see a comedy show and you were just saying how you wanted to see one!”

“Yeah! That’s sounds great!”

Ooh! I get to see a comedy show? How cool! I have been wanting to go to one! Sam and I were just talking about how comedy shows are better off in person and watching a rerun isn’t the same. 

We get gyros at a Mediterranean place, and my food is really good! Yay!

We all stop by TJ Maxx so I can get some real clothes for this evening. 

I walk in on a mission, but I still find myself at the jewelry section when Sam hurries me up. “You almost done? Dad is in the truck because he felt like he was going to pass out.”

Man. I hate that Dad isn’t feeling well. 

I check out then head on home!

Meanwhile, Rafiki and Luxy go to the pool. They also have a rowing competition that humbles them both. We may be great backpackers, but our cardio is shot! They meet Bumper for cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory.

Before we leave for the show, Sam says, “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“Yeah, I think it’s better if I just rest here,” Dad responds. 

I’m ready to go. I’ve been bouncing on my feet for the past hour. Sam and I head out. 

I meet some of Sam’s friends, some are friends of his friends. 

Derrick Stroup is a comedian who is a big guy and looks like a Dad of young teens. He talks about family, his weight, and I like him quite a bit. 

Ray Romano is a surprise guest! He was on the show Everybody Loves Raymond and is a voice actor for Ice Age 6.

“How are we on Ice Age 6?” he says. “The real ice age didn’t even last this long! But my wife looked at how much money I would make and said, ‘You’re doing it.’”

He talks about marital problems after being married for over thirty years, his son who still lives in the house and is a two-word ninja, and later informs all the ladies in the room that is son is single and doesn’t have a job. But his dad is rich, so, you know. 

Then there is Nate Bargatze. He’s in a new movie called The Breadwinner that I want to see. 

He’s talks about family issues including his 14 year old daughter slumber parties and his wild little sister. 

“When boys have sleepovers, things get broken. When girls have sleepovers, lives are shattered. When my daughter has a slumber party, I hear them whispering. ‘Speak up!’” he shouts. “They can’t be allowed to whisper and break off into groups!”

And, he reads a thread from his family group chat. His sister got into a fight on a vacation because a lady through a drink in her face. But now her and her husband are on hotel arrest. Nobody will call the police though, because if they do, everyone will get in trouble. 

“That sounds like somebody made that rule up to settle things down!” Nate says. 

It was a fun show. 

Sam and I later go out for drinks and dancing, and I get to meet all of his friends! It’s really cool when I meet two of his friends’ girlfriends. One owns her own pottery business and pursues that art. The other traveled the world for seven years in a van!

All in all, it was a great day!