Lake Tahoe

I spent Wednesday, August 25, 2010, through Friday, August 27, on a relaxing company trip to Lake Tahoe. I'd never been to Lake Tahoe during the summer before.

The trip reminded me of my company's Hawaii trip, perhaps because we stayed in a resort along a beautiful beach. Lake Tahoe is pretty, like parts of Yosemite, definitely prettier than I imagined.

On Wednesday, the bus I rode on the way to Lake Tahoe broke down on the way up, but we got rescued quickly by another bus.

Dinner that evening was on a lawn near the beach. Yay, smores!

On Thursday, I helped run a small puzzlehunt for my coworkers. (Note that I didn't say short; no puzzlehunt is ever as short as advertised. We knew ours would run longer than we promised, so we warned everyone about the realistic timing.) I designed two of the six puzzles and staffed the site with my most difficult puzzle so I could help teams as they struggled.

The puzzlehunt went well. We got a lot of positive feedback and the clue I developed was the hardest in the hunt but also the favorite. (I think people enjoyed it because it referenced a lot of internal company knowledge, often in a funny/punny way.) I'm proud of the experience we provided.

We had a bbq lunch in the early afternoon, again at the same place near the beach. I loved the dessert, a great strawberry shortcake. Okay, well it wasn't strictly speaking strawberry shortcake--it was pound cake with whipped cream (vanilla or passion fruit flavored) and a mixed berry compote.

After lunch, I went wading in the lake and also threw around a disc for a while on the beach. This caused me to get really dusty. I was outside so much (the afternoon on the beach and the morning on a totally exposed field manning my puzzle) that I thought I might have gotten burned through my shirt. Luckily, I didn't, and I wore sunscreen everywhere else.

Dinner was at a banquet near the resort's pool. During dinner, inspired by a puzzle clue (that I didn't write), I tried a lemon drop drink and liked it. After dinner, I also discovered that my boss's boss makes good margaritas (or whatever it was that we was mixing).

Given my crowd of friends and coworkers, I mostly played games after dinner, mainly Dominion and Liar's Dice. I also played games the previous evening.

Over this trip, I met some new coworkers and bonded with some old ones. Overall, I had a good time and left feeling very relaxed and refreshed.

Sorry, I don't have pictures to share. (The only pictures I took were of teams solving my puzzle, and neither are of general interest nor give a general impression of setting.)