Stupendous Man

We went to Napa Valley / Lake Tahoe over the last weekend. Napa Valley disappointed us, but Lake Tahoe was simply beautiful! I wish we could spend a few more days, which I am sure we will in near future.

Here are some pictures from the trip.

The sterling vineyards, one of the few which has trolley system to go up their vineyard. We were not sure if paying 20$ worth all the effort. And add to it we actually bought some too, so I guess we should have got some discount hehe!

The highlight of this trip for us was the wide angle Canon 10-22 lens that I had rented out. I was quite amazed by this lens and the amount of coverage it got. However the lens was not very sharp at many places, and at many places we felt zoom would have been better. The end result: We think the wide lens is amazing, but its clearly not enough for a trip.

Shot above is the place where they store barrels of wine.

View from the vineyard. The picture also shows the power of 10-22 wide angle as well!

This was taken by Anu while driving towards Lake Tahoe. I am very impressed here because this was taken while in motion and I thought 10-22 wouldn’t hold up. But the colors came through excellent with very little or no distortion!

The wide angle in all its glory. This was right in front of the lodge we stayed. The views of Lake Tahoe from anywhere are quite breathtaking!

My favorite shot from the trip - this photo has a sense of magnitude and I am sure only a wide angle lens could convey this.

View from a vista point overlooking snow clad mountains. It was surprising, but there was quite a bit of snow scattered around… and this is late May!

Wouldn’t be nice to be sitting on a beach overlooking a snow clad mountain?

And Anu’s favorite shot from the trip. Obviously it has me in it, that’s why!

The water in the lake was very very clear. In fact when we were boating, we ventured quite some distance and we were able to see the floor. Apparently you can see up to 60 feet in water - its that clear!

This was at a sister lake called Fallen lake which is at a higher elevation than Lake Tahoe. Now there was a point in our drive up the hill when the road curved and all you could see was just water all around. It almost gave a feeling of our van heading into water -it was scary and absolutely thrilling at the same time. I wonder how would a view from top look like - a Lake on top followed by a lake below. Might be some sight!

Needless to say this lake had its own breathtaking views. The drive up this lake is treacherous but was worth it.

That’s about it for now. Regular readers will know where to find more pictures from the trip ;). Needless to say we had a great time, and we’ll definitely be heading back to Lake Tahoe again!