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A trip to Tahoe

We decided to take a trip up to Lake Tahoe this weekend with my in laws. My wife’s aunt has a place up there on the California side, not too far from Meek’s Bay. It’s really nice and it’s great to be able to stay there once in a while, especially in the winter, since it’s really close to great skiing such as Squaw Valley and Heavenly. I keep kicking myself that I haven’t been able to go there for skiing yet, even though I’ve lived in California for over 4 years now. One of these days I’ll go. Maybe even this year. The excuse so far has been that the kids have been too young, but that’s not the case anymore. I think it would help if my wife liked skiing as well, which she unfortunately doesn’t. I’m hoping that the kids don’t follow her footsteps. Indoctrination to follow.

The weather wasn’t great, but sometimes bad weather makes for pretty interesting pictures. We had a great time anyway, exploring the area and eating out. No gambling for me this time. I have really hard time to justify that these days…. especially since I’m saving up for a new iPod…

Here’s one thing that really annoys me when driving in the US. Even in bad weather people don’t switch on their headlights making it really difficult to see them driving in the rain and fog at 70 mph. I wish that it would be mandatory to drive with the headlights on, just like it is in Sweden.

Well, we’re back in Sacramento now. And luckily, the weather is great with a nice 25 C temperature.  Winter is still absent.

7 replies on “A trip to Tahoe”

Well, if it’s a law, not many are actually following it. In Swedenall cars sold have the headlights go on automatically when the engine turns on. Some cars here have that, but that’s an extra feature you have to pay for on most models and is standard in Sweden. So, as a result, all cars drive with headlights on ALL THE TIME making them easier to spot nomatter what weather. If it’s not automatic, a lot of people will be forgetting it, even if it’s the law.

We have the same problem here in central Europe – many people drive around without headlights on. There is no reason whatsoever to drive around without lights on, and it has also been scientifically proven (no shit) that having people drive with lights on in daylight clearly reduces the number of accidents. Around here they even had governmental campaigns encouraging people to turn on their headlights during daytime.

The weird thing is that it ought to be so simple for the authorities to get it sorted, without trying to encourage people to switch their lights on and off manually. Any fairly modern car can be configured to have the lights on all the time. The authorities in Sweden have decided that the lights should always be on, so all cars imported to Sweden get configured that way, while the same car imported to Luxembourg gets another config – no lights on. The car dealer can easily reprogram this. Even the Germans who usually know their shit when it comes to traffic don’t seem to have implemented the same regulations as Sweden had for ages.

At least I don’t think German police harasses Swedish tourists for the lights any more. My in laws once told me how German cops made dem cover their headlights with scotch and paper while driving through Germany in the eighties. 🙂

I remember driving through Poland in the 80’s and almost everyone coming towards us kept flashing their lights signaling that we had them on and we should turn them off. No one made us cover them up though 🙂

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