Squaw Valley Vacation

Our family has not been able to get away for a vacation in quite awhile. So it was really nice to be able to escape for a few days and head up to the Lake Tahoe area. Our destination was Squaw Valley, the home of the 1960 winter Olympics. We were able to find a great deal online and stayed at the Village at Squaw Valley. It was like stepping into a Swiss village, very cute and quaint. It is a very family friendly resort with plenty of things to do with the family. The prices are what you would expect for a vacation resort, but there were some very good deals to be found. On Tuesdays, the resort has something they called "Bluesdays". They have special blue dot offers in the village at all the shops and in the evening they offer a free concert in the village square and all the restaurants offer special meals for under $10.00. We were able to stop into Waxen Moon and make our own candles. They also had a 2 for 1 mini golf course special that was spread out all around the village. Part of the fun was trying to find all the holes. I really liked the overall family feel of the resort. The boys were able to ride their scooters and skateboards around the village with relative safety. They also had fun at the arcade. I also really liked that at all the outside seating areas, they had games to play. There was Jenga, Scrabble, Candyland and others. There was also a good little cafe called Soupa. They had a good classic grilled cheese sandwich. If you have kids, you know how important that is. Best of all, it was only $3.00.

We also made it up to High Camp to swim and ice skate. Let me tell you about riding that cable car up to High Camp. That scared the "you know what" out of me. I am totally afraid of heights! You ask why then would you go on a cable car up 2000 vertical feet to High Camp? First off, I thought is wasn't' quite so far. If you look at one of the pictures, you see the cables going up the mountain. I thought, okay, I can grin and bear it for my kids and make it up that short way. No, no, no, it wasn't just up that mountain, but over several mountains. Not only was it a lot longer than I thought, but it was an extremely windy day. Once we got up to High Camp, it was beautiful. The view was incredible. The kids were able to ice skate in an Olympic sized outdoor skating rink. My two youngest kids were able to swim in the swimming lagoon, unfortunately, my oldest had stitches in his leg and was not able to get it wet. The cable car ride back down was a white knuckle ride. I sat in the back so I wouldn't have to look down. My two youngest kids were right up front loving every minute of the steep ride down. My oldest son, keep me company in the back of the car. The scary part was when we were descending at the steepest part of the ride and the cable car began to swing too much. They had to stop the cable car and we were suspended for several minutes just swaying back and forth. I absolutely hated it! I was never so happy to touch ground again. I did some heavy praying up there. Overall, we had a great time and it was nice to get away for awhile.




This was the view from our room balcony. It looked out onto the main square. It was a great location, especially on Tuesdays when they had free concerts in the main square.








You can see the cable going up to High Camp. It doesn't look too bad?


The cable car view leaving Squaw Village.


The view from High Camp. It is breath taking!


The boys getting ready to skate.




My little guy showing his prowess on skates.


The swimming lagoon at High Camp


I love this picture. They are in deep thought into how to make the next move.





Candles the boys made at Waxen Moon. It was very fun to make.