Invisible Lake Tahoe

I decided to return to Fresno by skirting the western shore of the famous Lake Tahoe. The lake is famous for the unusual clarity of its water and the impressive panorama of surrounding mountains. It was the long way back to Fresno, but I anticipated a beautiful drive. I was wrong.

When Mark Twain was in this area he accidentally started a forest fire. It would appear that someone else recently did the same, possibly in tribute, so that when I drove around Lake Tahoe the entire basin was filled with thick smoke. I couldn't even see the water. I could, however, see the cars of the zillion other people who were also trying to see Lake Tahoe. They were hard to miss, particularly since they were all driving incredibly slowly and badly in the hope of catching a glimpse of something scenic. They were disappointed, and so was I.

Driving in a convoy of Americans is frustrating at the best of times and, at the worst of times, can drive you completely insane. They seem to have some kind of national phobia about corners so that they will drive quickly on the straights and then drop to a crawl even for gentle, sweeping bends. It drives me nuts because I end up stuck behind people who are willing to bend the law further than I am to speed away on the straights, but for whom I am forever braking again when we get to a corner. I can never get around them because they burn away from the corners in reckless disregard for the law, but they're actually slowing me down quite a bit over all. You people love your cars more than any other nation in the world, would you please learn how to drive them? Or, just a suggestion, import cars that handle well and stop driving great big trucks and clumsy oversized sedans.

For me the words "Lake Tahoe" will no longer be associated with pleasant thoughts of boating and ski resorts, but with smoke inhalation and the vivid reminder that the people of California are, on average, terrible drivers.