Placerville to Sacramento, 47 Miles.  This is a well-known road, via Diamond Springs, 2-1/2 miles; El Dorado, 6 miles; Shingle Springs, 11 miles, and Folsom, 25 miles.

The elevation at Tallac is 6225 feet; at Echo, 7500 feet; Strawberry, 5700 feet; Kyburgs, 4000 feet; Riverton, 3300 feet; Pacific House, 3400 feet; Sportsman’s Hall, 3600 feet; Camino, 3000 feet; Smith’s Flat, 2250 feet; Placerville, 1830 feet; El Dorado, 1610 feet; Folsom, 198 feet, and Sacramento, 32 feet.

A well equipped auto stage is run daily between Tallac House and Placerville.  Experienced and careful drivers and first class cars only are used.  They are owned by the Richardson Garage, of Pasadena, Calif., long known to the exacting population of that city as a thoroughly reliable, prompt and efficient house.

CHAPTER XIV

TAHOE TAVERN

Swinging around to the south from the course of the Truckee River on to the Lake, the railway deposits the traveler at Tahoe Tavern, preeminently the chief resort for those who demand luxurious comfort in all its varied manifestations.  Yet at the outset let it be clearly understood that it is not a fashionable resort, in the sense that every one, men and women alike, must dress in fashionable garb to be welcomed and made at home.  It is a place of common sense and rational freedom.  If one comes in from a hunting or fishing trip at dinner time, he is expected to enter the dining room as he is.  If one has taken a walk in his white flannels he is as welcome to a dance in the Casino, the dining-room, or the social-hall as if he wore the most conventional evening dress.  Indeed, visitors are urged to bring their old clothes that they may indulge to the full their penchants for mountain-climbing, riding, rowing, fishing, horse-back-riding, botanizing in the woods, or any other out-of-door occupation where old clothes are the only suitable ones.

The building itself is completely embowered in pine, cedar, spruce and firs of differing ages, sizes and qualities of color.  Though far enough from the Lake to allow of a large untrimmed grass-plot where innumerable swing seats, reclining chairs, “lazy rests,” etc., invite to lounging and loafing, the trees have been so trimmed out as to give exquisite glimpses of the dazzling blue of the water from every hand.

The Tavern is especially appropriate to its surroundings.  It is three full stories high, with many gables relieving the regularity of the roof, which is steep-pitched, to throw off the winter’s snows.  The whole structure is covered with shingles, stained or oiled to a dark brown, and as climbing and clinging vines have wreathed themselves about every corner, and up many posts of the veranda, and there is a wealth of cultivated wild flowers banked up in beds around it, nothing could be more pleasing and harmonious.  Roads, walks and trails radiate from the Tavern in all directions, except directly across the Lake, and numerous boats and launches make this as accessible as any other direction.  Near enough to be interesting is the wharf, with its daily bustle of the arrival and departure of trains, launches and steamers.