Splendid Lake Tahoe weekend: boating & partying; getting there: JSX flight to Reno, like catching a bus; liver punishment briefly postponed; Tahoe Beach Club; oysters and filé gumbo at Oyster Bar, Stateline Nevada; living it up on the lake with Eric and Renée; Steve, the Cold Plunge Hero of Emerald Bay; exactly why Fun Ain’t Easy; Vesper martinis to die for (or from); The Lucky Beaver and The Naked Fish; Lest we Forget add-on: Solo in Durban: my solo trip for Julie’s 60th Birthday; Up Next: Singapore and Bawah Reserve, Indonesia, yay!
Lake Tahoe Weekend
Our friends Ellie and Steve have a fabulous holiday home at Tahoe Beach Club on Lake Tahoe, Nevada. To surprise us while we were spending a week with them in California, they had booked JSX flights from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport – a small airport conveniently close to their Newport beach condo – to Reno, Nevada.
Getting to Tahoe
Limited to 30 passengers per flight, JSX is described as a “semi-private jet experience that is designed to be more comfortable and convenient than traditional commercial flights”.
It definitely was that. Payton Campbell – who unfortunately had to work this weekend – dropped her parents and us off a mere 15 minutes before the scheduled 9.55am departure. Like catching a bus… albeit a luxurious bus.
So, did Roy or I succumb to a cheeky Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream or a gin cocktail during the flight? No… and that turned out to be good thing, the way our livers were set to be horribly punished. (Much more on this below.)
From Reno airport, it was about an hour’s drive up to Lake Tahoe in the Land Rover that Steve and Ellie keep up here. South Lake Tahoe, where we’d be staying, is in the state of Nevada, apparently preferred by home-owners for a slightly less punitive cost of living than in California.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am – stuck in the middle with you (Stealer’s Wheel, 1972)
For Portlanders: California is to the left of the state line that runs down the middle of Lake Tahoe; Nevada to the right. (And for the Portlanders reference, due credit to Jeff Childers, the author of my favourite newsletter: Coffee & Covid.)
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Splendid Lake Tahoe Weekend: Boating & Partying Day #1
Tahoe Beach Club
The Campbells’ condo is lovely – huge and spacious – and, as owners, they have automatic membership of Tahoe Beach Club’s beautiful clubhouse with its bar, restaurant, wine cellar, gym, yoga room, pool, jacuzzi, water-sport equipment and more.
Lake Tahoe Beach
Steve and Ellie’s good friends – and now ours, by osmosis – Eric and Renée joined us for lunch in the club restaurant. Everyone else had a light salad-y thing, while I tucked into yummy, sticky ribs.
Oysters at the Oyster Bar
Dinner was at the Oyster Bar at Golden Nugget Casino, until recently owned by Hard Rock. It’s one of four major casinos in Stateline, Nevada.
Though I dislike casinos, this was a fantastic experience. Excellent Canadian oysters – a dozen for Roy, six for me – followed by clam chowder for Roy and gumbo* for me. This was my first-ever gumbo and it was great: a savoury broth full of small shrimps, slices of andouille sausage and diced okra.
(* Here’s the thing: if I had to spend three days with Jambalaya (on the Bayou) as my recurrent earworm – “Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filé gumbo” – then I feel that you should, too. At least I spared you “Do You Know the Way to San José”, right? Or maybe not.)
Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and filé gumbo; ‘Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma chère amio; Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-oh; Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou (Hank Williams, 1952)
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Splendid Lake Tahoe Weekend: Boating & Parting Day #2
Out on Lake Tahoe: Fun Ain’t Easy
Steve and Ellie take delivery of their own new boat next weekend. For now, we were lucky to be taken out on the water on Eric and Renée’s 34-foot Chris Craft. Having previously suppressed a shudder on being shown a video of this mean machine blasting across a benighted stretch of water somewhere, I wasn’t sure how much I was looking forward to this boat-ride.
Luckily, it all turned out wonderful. Heading off at about 1pm from the clubhouse jetty, we cruised gently across to Emerald Bay on the other side of the lake, sipping Prosecco and nibbling nibbles. Even when Eric opened the throttle on the beast, it was a comfortable ride and a whole lot of fun.
Why Fun Ain’t Easy
Speaking of fun, Fun Ain’t Easy is Eric and Renée’s entirely appropriate motto for their boating endeavours – or maybe even for life in general. They’ve even trademarked the phrase.
Think about it. For guests like us on a day like this, it’s an unalloyed pleasure. But for the boat owners, the whole business of getting the craft to where you need it when you need it there (in this case the jetty at Tahoe Beach Club), setting it up, stocking it with the necessary bubbles and nibbles – not to mention ongoing cleaning, fuelling, maintenance, mooring arrangements etc. – involves a lot of time and plenty of sheer physical effort.
Thanks, guys!
So, here’s Roy sporting his new Fun Ain’t Easy cap. I got one, too. Thanks, guys!
Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe
Needing to pee was the only possible niggle. Especially with today’s water temperature in Lake Tahoe being just 3 degrees Centigrade: dipping one’s bottom in water that cold is almost guaranteed to paralyse the urethra and related sphincters, which would make peeing a challenge even in the absence of an audience.
But once we’d crossed the lake and anchored (we did anchor, right?) in Emerald Bay, it had to be done. I’ll spare you the photo.
No problem for Steve, who jumped in heroically and even swam around the boat several times. After peeing, presumably. (Or perhaps it took three laps around the boat for the relevant sphincters to relax? I omitted to ask.)
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Saturday Night in Stateline, Nevada
I have to say it, but our friends have way more stamina than I do. Maybe I’m just out of practice.
The evening started with Roy’s Vesper martinis at Ellie and Steve’s and went steadily downhill from there… in the best possible way, of course.
The Lucky Beaver
The Lucky Beaver Bar and Burger is something of an institution. There’s this branch in Stateline Nevada, and another has been opened in Reno, too.
I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s huge, and the walls are covered with framed photos of party people. If you sit at the bar, you’re obliged to play the machine that’s in front of you. What’s more, the joint is open for business 24/7. We’re told that they don’t even know where the keys are.
Presiding over The Lucky Beaver is its gorgeous general manager Tiffany Sargent, a friend of Eric and Renée’s who makes sure they never have to wait in line. When she heard we’d been on the Vesper martinis and might wish to imbibe more of the same, she swiftly sent out to Darts Beverages down the road (probably also open 24/7) for a bottle of Lillet Blanc. So, of course, it would have been rude not to order a round (or two) of them.
We did eat, but more to mop up the alcohol than anything else. I ordered the Sample Platter: spicy wings, onion wings, calamari fries, corkscrew shrimp and jalapeño poppers, with dipping sauces. Jeez, no wonder my clothes don’t fit.
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Splendid Lake Tahoe Weekend: Boating & Partying Day #3
Memorial Day Holiday
It’s not only casinos and bars. Though we got off to a unsurprisingly slow start, I still had time to walk down to the beach, circle back into the forest and find this exquisite constellation of boulders among the tall pines.
Tahoe Beach Club, Memorial Day
As it was Memorial Day the next day, Monday (to honour and mourn US Armed Forces personnel who die in service), and this was a holiday long-weekend, there were a number of casual campers with RVs and tents dotted near the shoreline and under the trees. But not too many, and I felt lucky to be all alone in this perfect spot. (For the sharp-eyed who spotted lovely Ellie in the slide-show above, I took that photo a couple of days ago.)
Tahoe Beach Club held an event on Sunday afternoon: Brews and Blues, with a live band on the terrace, beer tasting and a late lunch of smoked ribs with mac ‘n cheese and jalapeño corn bread.
After drinks at the Club bar – and much boat-related activity that thankfully didn’t include us (Fun Ain’t Easy, remember) – we converged on sushi bar and restaurant The Naked Fish, Tahoe’s other top party place. Again, I’ve never had such yummy sushi: Roy’s salmon and tuna nigiri paled next to the sashimi sliders, soft-shell crab rolls, crispy rice cakes and a lot more that everyone shared. We also shared the delicious magnum of sake that Eric ordered. (That’s right, a magnum.)
When chuck-out time came, we were shoo-ed to the “speakeasy” bar at the back, but it was so full we ended up back at Ellie and Steve’s… where again, Roy and I faded miserably while the staunch party-people continued. No, Fun Ain’t Easy!
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Lest we Forget: Durban, June 2025
Just for the record, here’s a quick overview of my 12-day solo trip to my hometown, Durban, at the end of June. We’d barely been back three weeks from our two-month Holland America cruise and Canada/USA jaunt, so Roy was off the hook.
Anyway, this was one for the girls. BFF Julie Simpson was celebrating her big birthday on 29 June and my sister Dale was making the trip from the UK in honour of the occasion. We’re mutual BFFs, so it was unthinkable for me to miss out.
What’s more, my god-daughter Kaela would be there; and her equally gorgeous older sister, Jemma, was coming up from Cape Town especially.
On Umhlanga Beach
Birthday Lunch at Delphi
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Up Next?
Well, this is the last of a whopping 12 posts on our May 2025 travels from Vancouver, Canada through to Seattle WA; exploring the Washington Coast by car; from there to Portland OR, and by train to San José, California; driving south via splendid Californian towns like Santa Barbara to our friends the Campbells in Newport Beach; and finally being treated by them to this unforgettable long weekend in Lake Tahoe.
Next up, we leave on Monday, 1 September for Singapore and the fabulous Bawah Reserve. And this shivering snow goose cannot wait to escape a long, cold, wet Perth WA winter to revel in some sticky tropical island heat. Watch (as they say) this space!
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