Guest Post// Tracy's Great Adventure!

Today's guest is Tracy! We "met' via Twitter this past spring. Her husband also works in the realm of wildland firefighting. Whether she knows it or not, she has been a great support for me this past summer! Today she is telling the tale of her honeymoon adventure.

I’d never flown before. Being on our honeymoon was exciting enough. Add a first flight to the mix and I was ecstatic. I remember thinking it looked like we were flying over a giant sheet of toilet paper once we ascended beyond the clouds. Four hours later we pierced the clouds again to see Reno, Nevada stretching out underneath us.

We took our time driving to Lake Tahoe. Detoured through Virginia City to pan for pickers and play an old target shooting game. And, like a typical obnoxious tourist, I made my new husband pull over the second we caught a glimpse of the lake. The first day we got our bearings.

 On the second day of our honeymoon, we almost got divorced.

 My husband and I left our hotel (the Tahoe Seasons Resort) on a tour of the entire lake. We did some hiking at Taylor Creek before finding ourselves at Emerald Bay. From the look out, we saw a castle on the shores of the lake. A plaque told us about Vikingsholm, a castle built by Lora Josephine Knight to serve as her summer home in 1929.

We moved on and noticed they were giving tours of the castle. How often do you get to tour a castle in the United States? My husband pulled our rental car into the parking lot. Always the boy scout, he asked how much cash we had. More than enough, I was sure. He told me to grab another twenty just in case.

Meh, we didn’t need it. There’s no way a tour would cost that much. And if it did, I didn’t want to pay that much anyway.

So off we went. Considering we were well above the lake, and the house was on the shore, we had a long walk in front of us. Longer than we expected. Switchback after switchback of a narrow gravel road. It easily felt like two miles. Even though downhill was easy enough I started noticing people stopping to rest as they trekked back up the mountain.

At the bottom, the shore was beautiful. We walked the grounds for a little while, before checking into the castle. It was undergoing renovations but they were still giving tours. For $6 a piece. I only had $10. *Groan*

I had enough for one of us at least and told him to go on the tour by himself. I would wait outside. But he wasn’t having it. It was such a simple request, and I’d doubted him. No more than three days after our wedding. No amount of apologizing in that moment could undo it.

Needless to say, we made great time hiking the 2 miles back up the mountain. In silence.

I apologized profusely and he accepted when he was ready. We actually went on to have a great time on our honeymoon. Road tripped to San Francisco. Tried to see the Bonanza movie set. Stole two pine cones as big as our head. Walked along the beach at sunset. Truthfully, we were fortunate. We learned early on there are ups and downs in a marriage just like there are in… well, everything. And as long as you’re willing to hike up a mountain after each other, you’ll be just fine.