The first mile or two from the Tavern is through avenues of second growth timber just tall enough to be delightful.  In turn we passed many of the choice residences that are making Tahoe growingly popular as a summer home, and then crossed Ward Creek and Blackwood Creek.  This latter is one of the principal trout spawning streams of Tahoe, and to prevent fishermen from catching the fish that seek the stream at the spawning season the Fish Commissioners have placed a buoy out in the Lake, some twenty-five hundred feet away, within which bound it is illegal to catch fish.

While many trees have been logged from this region there are still enough to make it forest-like, and as the road winds and turns it affords glimpses and full views, sometimes for only a moment or two, and again for a minute or more, of the placid-faced blue Lake on the left, or the snowy mountain summits straight ahead or on the right.  What rich contrasts of color, what revelations of majesty and sublimity each new turn affords!

The first eight miles is fairly level road and close to the Lake, but eight miles out, just before reaching McKinney’s, the new portion of the State Highway begins, and it has been engineered to give scenic and romantic effect all along the way.  In road building no longer is it necessary to consider the cheapest and nearest way.  “Give us the most scenic,” cry the motorists, “we’ll pay the bills and our machines will speedily eat up any extra distance we may be required to travel to obtain the best scenery of the country.”  From now on the whole trip is one of carefully engineered surprises and revelations.  Colwell’s Moana Villa, and Pomin’s new and beautiful place are passed and then we ascend, and suddenly Meek’s Bay is revealed to us, a glorious symphony in blues, deepening and richening into pure amethyst, with lines, patches and borders of emerald and lapis lazuli.  Beyond rise hill-studded slopes leading the eye higher and higher until, anchored in a sky as blue as is the Lake below, are the snowy-white crowns of the Rubicon Peaks, with here and there a craggy mass protruding as though it were a Franciscan’s scalp surrounded by pure white hair.  Up and down we glide, the soft purring of the motor as we run on the level changing to the chug-chugging of the up-pulls, or the grip of the brake as we descend.  Every few feet new vistas of beauty are projected before us.  The moving pictures are all exquisite.  Indeed, after many studies of this incomparable Lake Tahoe I verily believe there is no more beautiful spot on it than Meek’s Bay seen from this road.

To get its full charm we stop the machine for a while.  Looking back we discover that the curve where we rest is a marvelous outlook point.  We have ascended to a good height and look down upon the Lake.  There are light blue, emerald green, deep blue in patches and in long irregularly shaped points.  Here are Como, Maggiore, Lugano and Windermere all in one, though as yet free from the houses and artificial gardens on the slopes.  But Nature such as this needs none of man’s adornment to make it perfect.