Sometimes there’s nothing better than ditching your laptop and to do list and heading out of town for the weekend. I always end up a bit stressed when I have a weekend trip on the calendar – the downside of working full time and also blogging is that weekends are typically spent working on the blog and catching up on everything that’s fallen by the wayside during the week. Leaving town for the weekend means  a serious hit to my productivity but in the end, it’s always worth it.

Lake Tahoe has become one of my favorite places – the forests remind me of home and the mountains and lakes are completely awe inspiring. Living in a city for the past five years has really made me appreciate nature in a new way; growing up in a very rural area I always took the fresh air and quiet for granted but now a little time away from the hustle and bustle of city life always does wonders.

We made the drove up to Tahoe on Friday afternoon and checked into a new hotel in South Lake Tahoe, The Coachman in the evening. After dropping our bags in our room we immediately headed down to the hotel’s lobby area to grab a beer and make s’mores. Sitting outside by the fire instantly made the stress of the week and the traffic on our drive disappear and we were officially in weekend mode.

Saturday we woke up early to get make the most of our one full day in Tahoe and stopped at our favorite breakfast spot, The Red Hut Cafe, for pumpkin pancakes and coffee before driving to the Mt. Tallac trailhead to try a new hiking spot. We’re not quite expert hikers but loved the Mt. Tallac trails – they were difficult enough to get our heart rate up and make us break a sweat but never crazy enough to make us want to turn back. After a 2 mile hike we found ourselves at Floating Island Lake, a small lake in the middle of the forest – it was so quiet and peaceful!

After our hike we made a stop at Callie’s favorite place ever, Kiva Beach – it’s a really pretty beach along Lake Tahoe that’s dog friendly and always has a ton of pups running around and splashing in the water. She had a blast jumping in the lake and rolling around in the sand and then promptly passed out once we got back in the car. A tired pup is a happy pup!

We ended the day with burgers for lunch at California Burger Company and dinner at Basecamp Pizza – both restaurants were new to us and we’d definitely recommend them if you’re in the South Lake Tahoe area. Sunday morning was spent catching up on emails in the lobby of the Coachman Hotel while enjoying several cups of Stumptown Coffee and a waffle or two from their awesome continental breakfast before hitting the road back to SF. It was a short but sweet weekend getaway where the time away and fresh air was exactly what we needed.