By Samandra

When you see these pictures, you could never imagine that I hated cats while growing up. Yes, using the word hate is undoubtedly the right word to describe how I used to feel about these animals… I didn’t like cats because I was mainly exposed to feral cats, and they were not nice to me. So I based my experience on that, and my feelings towards them only changed when I met a lovely kitty that came to my door.

We fed him, and he kept coming every day to say hi. Something funny is that I took a bunch of pictures and videos on my camera. Later I was at the airport, and I saw a Brazilian celebrity, Serginho Malandro. I asked his assistant to take a picture of him and me. His assistant said, “the card is full.” I had to quickly decide to keep the cat’s pictures or delete them to take a picture with the Serginho, which of course, I chose to keep the cat pictures! LOL.

While living in Sao Paulo, my neighbor had this friendly cat that used to sit on the sidewalk. I often would leave a few minutes before my appointments so I could pet Nino.

Also, the internet cat’s memes got me loving them even more. That’s when I wished so bad I could have cats, but afraid of having an allergy attack, I stayed away from them. Then, I moved with some friends who had these cute kitties, I fell in love with them. She let me call them my babies, and I created an Instagram account for them to share some of the billion pictures and videos I take of them on my phone.

Cats now are my favorite animals! Who would ever guess it could happen?!

Wearing Lovestich Athena Top.

I saw this location on the Internet, and I really wanted to go because of these big rocks. There was only one uncomfortable detail: the Secret Cove is a nude beach. I don’t really feel comfortable seeing naked people, but I decided that I’d still go.

It happens that people were actually naked; I’d just not look at them again. Luckily, there was only one bare butt the first time we went there. There were a couple more on the second time, so we didn’t stay that long there. Besides this fact, this beach was one of my favorite locations in Tahoe!

There was a little hike, and later I found a shortcut that made it much quicker on the second visit.

Here are the coordinates for this location:
Park somewhere on the road by this coordinates: 39°09’22.9 “N 119°55’48.5” W

Stay on the side that you see the ocean, and start to head down on the trail. When you meet the crossing trail, take a left and keep going this way until you see the directions to the Secret Cove. It will show signs of “clothing optional,” which means you’re in the right direction. LOL.

Wearing Lovestitch dress.

Summer has been busy as I’m doing school, an internship, and trying to keep it all together. I went to Tahoe in the middle of June, right after finishing the Spring term at BYU. Different from all the trips before, I didn’t plan anything until I was there. That was certainly a bit uncomfortable because I don’t like wasting time on the trip doing that, but I also didn’t have time to plan for it before. But it was good to have done things this way, and I learned that doing nothing is also doing something. So I allowed myself to woke up and just be. I didn’t need to have a full schedule while at Tahoe. I just needed a break from the crazy life, and it was all so good and refreshing.

I did tons of research on Google to find information about the locations. Often, the information I found was unclear if the place was a hike, by a parking lot, or something else. I decided then to make this post as clear as possible so you can plan accordingly to your mood on the day. After all, we aren’t always in the hard-hiking-mood, ammright?

There are different places that you can see Emerald Bay Island. This was one of my favorites, and it’s a must-to-go location. The best of it all? All these pictures were taken by the parking lot! Not hiking required. From the parking lot, you can spot the island with a prime view.

If you are feeling in the hiking mood, go down the Vikingsholm Trail, that’s also accessible from the same parking lot. I have made only half of the trail, but if you decide to go all the way down, it’s a relatively easy 1.7 hike that will take you to the Vikingsholm Castle.

I like soft light images, so we sat on the rocks and waited for that perfect light that’s an hour before the golden hour. You can see that the light in these pictures doesn’t look the same, as they were taken at different times. If you don’t care much about how your pictures will look, any time should be good to go! Emerald Bay is always blue and beautiful.

It’s a good spot to have a picnic or just chill.

How to get there: Search on Google Maps for Emerald Bay State Park or paste these coordinates: 38.95434742509013, -120.10966981711792

Wearing Lovestitch dress.