One of the chief troubles about a hotel like Tahoe Tavern is that it is too tempting, too luxurious, too seductive to the senses.  The cool, delicious breezes from the Lake make the nights heavenly for sleep.  With Sancho Panza we cry aloud:  “Blessed be the man that invented sleep,” and we add:  “Blessed be the man that invented cool nights to sleep in.”  And I have no fault to find with the full indulgence in sleep.  It is good for the weary man or woman.  It is well to make up arrears, to pay oneself the accumulated debts of insomnia and tossing and restlessness with an abundance of calm, dreamless, restful sleep.  Nay, not only would I have men claim their arrearage, but lay in a surplus stock against future emergencies, future drafts upon their bank account of “restorer.”

Nor would I find any fault with the allurements of the Lake, either for swimming, boating, “launching,” canoeing or fishing.  Indulge them all to your heart’s desire and you will not only be none the worse, but immeasurably better for every hour of yielding.  A plunge every morning is stimulating, invigorating and jolly.  It clears the brain, sets the blood racing up and down one’s spine, arms, fingers, legs and toes, and sweeps the cobwebs out of the brain.  A row is equally good.  It pulls on the muscles of the lower back, as well as the arms, chest and shoulders.  It drives away Bright’s disease and banishes asthma and lung trouble.  It makes one breathe deep and long and strong, and when inbreathing, one can take in power from Tahoe’s waters, forests, mountains and snow-fields.  It means a purifying of the blood, a clearing of the brain, a sending of a fuller supply of gastric juices to the stomach, of digestive sauces to the palate, and a corresponding stimulus to the whole body, which now responds with vim, energy, buoyancy and exuberance to all calls made upon it by the spirit.

So with walking through the woods, by the Lake, along the River Trail, up the mountains.  The results are the same until the man who hates and despises the poets shouts out with glee and exclaims:  “Them’s my sentiments!” when you throw out with fervor such lines as: 

Oh! the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver shock Of the plunge in a pool’s living water...  How good is man’s life, the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!

While all the conventional amusements are provided at Tahoe Tavern a large number of the guests, like myself, find much pleasure in feeding and making friends with the chipmunks, which have been so fostered and befriended that there are scores of them, most of them so fearless as to climb into the laps, eat from the hands, run over the shoulders, and even explore the pockets of those who bring nuts and other dainties for their delectation.  Children and adults, even