First post....the hardest post....

I've been agonizing for a week about what to post on my travel blog. What kind of travel blog to make it? What type content? Include a picture or not? Its enough to make a girl crazy. So I thought I would start with my most recent trip to Tahoe.

South Lake Tahoe: May 28-20, 2010

My boyfriend John and I took a trip to South Lake Tahoe for his 32nd birthday. We live in San Francisco and Tahoe is easily accessible by car and only takes an average of 4 hours, depending on weather. We had naively thought that "hey its the end of May its going to be Spring". But no we were shocked to find snow not only on the ground but falling heavily on our drive up. Did we have snow chains? Hell no, its May. We stopped before hitting the pass to pick up snow chains but stupidly never put them on. We were waiting for the highway patrol or one of their signs to signal us to pull over but that never happened. Maybe the power was out or everyone was on vacation because we almost drove off the mountain a few times. At one point, I recall my calm level headed driving boyfriend saying with absolute panic in his voice, "I can't see the road." Luckily we were able to drive 2 mph and managed to find the road again before plunging off the mountain. As we arrived safely in Tahoe, the car in front of us, a 4-door Mitsubishi from the mid-90s started to fishtail out of control on the road. They gained control but that didn't happen until I had a mini heart attack. The roads were wet, icy and in dire need of a good salting.

"I need a drink" was the first word out of my mouth when we finally pulled up to Harrah's Lake Tahoe http://www.harrahslaketahoe.com/ in South Lake Tahoe, NV. I had never really been to the gaming side of Tahoe and was eager to see how this place lined up with Reno, Foxwoods and Vegas. We had pricelined (http://www.priceline.com/) the room and got a banging deal for $100 a night. We were excited as it was advertised as a 4 star, the biggest casino in Tahoe and had the best reviews. The rooms were clearly 3 star and the bathroom maybe a 2 star, pushing it. The TV in the bathroom was from the 80's and deserved to be in a museum. Priceline had lied to us (not the first time). I've since tried to write a review for Harrah's on priceline and the hotel and its sister hotel Harvey's Lake Tahoe have been removed from their site. I am assuming they received enough complaints or their contract ran out. Besides the bathroom, the other downside was the sad sad pool. The pool was advertised as this beautiful enclosed sanctuary but it was really depressing and smelled like the YMCA back in Scranton, PA. I was not looking forward to contracting Cholera from the luke warm stagnant water, so we skipped it. Overall, Harrah's isn't a bad hotel. Its a 3 star casino in a small gambling town. You should expect a little Reno 911 mixed in with some minor Vegas highlights (free cocktails if you gamble). Remember its not the Ritz although it claims to be, the gambling is great and the people watching even better!