I'm at Lake Tahoe attending Family Nature Summits with my granddaughter. For a week, we'll be hiking, looking at bugs, flowers and trees and partaking in evening group activities. It's a real family camp with activities for all ages.

Yesterday, July 4th, we arrived in Reno, From the moment we got off the plane, we were immediately hit by slot machines. Talk about in your face! We had to wait an hour for our shuttle and I would have put a few quarters in the machines but Hannah was so adamantly against gambling that we played cards together instead.

Family Summits moves around every year and this year, it's based at the Granlibakken Resort at Lake Tahoe. You notice, I said "at Lake Tahoe", not on Lake Tahoe. We are at about 6,300 ft. above sea level and a mile from the Lake.

The resort is very swanky but has a lot of annoying problems from accounting to electronic keys. It took us over an hour from the time we got to registration to being able to get into our room. The mix-up started when I first made a reservation so they upgraded us to a studio apartment from a room. We have a kitchen, small living area where Hannah has spread out her books and drawing material and a porch where our pool towels are drying.

Because of July 4th, the resort had a complimentary barbecue.

As soon as we got to the barbecue, Hannah was greeted by Alexa, the girl on the right in the picture at the top. The girls started a parade with American flags and got over 10 people involved. Alexa is an experienced  Family Summitter from Ottawa and about the same age as Hannah. Her parents are hard-core birders; her father is the birding leader. He already led Hannah and me to a white woodpecker. 

We managed to stay up until 9 P.M. (midnight body time) and still I woke up at 4 A.M. Hannah slept until 5 o'clock. Tomorrow we'll make it to 6 A.M. Today, we're going to explore the lake and maybe put our feet in it. Then we'll meet the rest of the Family Summit gang.