After twenty minutes of breathtaking views and scaling up monstrous rocks, we began to head back, the only problem was that we didn’t know how. The sun was starting to hide its warm rays behind the mountains on the other side of Lake Tahoe and we both knew that if we didn’t rough our way through the forest that we might be stuck up there for the whole cold night.

I walked out onto the balcony, felt a cool breeze that was just enough to give me a little shiver and dry off what little water remained on my sun damaged skin, from the terrace i could smell the bakery down the street and the coffee shop next door. It was truly a breathtaking view.

“Aye Adam, Alex pop up, we gotta get some breakfast” I said sleepily. Our parents had already been downstairs eating scrambled eggs and ham for about thirty minutes. We hurriedly went and got in line for the Do-it-yourself waffles and then proceeded happily to the fruit and pastry portion of the buffet. After breakfast we ran back up to our rooms and packed up phones, go-pros, food, water, and money for the day. We walked about a mile to the Lake Tahoe Marina where we contemplated between jet skis, paddleboards and kayaks. The jet skis were automatically vetoed by our money source and since it was wavy, we decided on the yellow ocean kayaks. We went out to the middle of the lake and gawked at the crystal clear water that was deeper than the Empire State Building was tall.

By the time we finished racing around it was at the temperature where you could run and shead only one drop of sweat or swim and not have the slightest shiver while getting out of the water. Shortly after we paddled to the rocky shore we made our way to the nearest McDonald's and filled up on sweet tea and Big Macs while our parents went out for dinner at Mr. P’s Taphouse Grill. After our parents finished and my mom went back to the room, we decided to go on an adventure with the few hours of sunlight left.

“Hey you see that mountain?” I said to adam “I wanna climb it too get to that ledge” I said while pointing at a sheer rock ledge protruding from the side.

We jogged to the 7-Eleven so that all four of us could restock on water and snacks and then cut our way through parking lots of casinos and hotels until we found a trail leading in the direction of the cliff that now seemed way bigger and further away. While hiking we found large boulder fields which we joyfully hopped on, and abandoned houses which we strayed away from because we had watched The Ring the night before. Just as about an hour had passed we saw it, well some of it, it was so large that the side we could see was about two times as tall as the dead tree lying against it. I hurriedly made my way over to the tree with my brother Adam while Alex and my dad walked back to our place. It seemed sturdy enough to climb so my brother and I traversed the tree and then continued onto a small rock ledge until we reached the top. The view was the most overwhelming scene I had ever laid my eyes upon, the bright sun reflecting off of Lake Tahoe lit up the town like a Christmas tree and the light fog rolling over the far mountains on the east side of the lake made it look like someone had placed a giant blanket over them. After we took hundreds of photos, we decided to head back, the only problem was we had been wandering for so long that we no longer knew the way back. Although we did eventually make it back through a different trail, the moral of the story is don't ever let tradition or a trail keep you from happiness and no matter how far you stray to find happiness there is always a way back, even if it is totally different.