Back from a lovely week at Heavenly Valley in South Lake Tahoe.  Although Peaches and I missed Bubba being along with us this time, we enjoyed our treks together on the many trails in the area.  Our favorite area is and always will be Tallac Historic Site, which I mention in my books.  The last time I was there with Bubba, a year ago, he wanted to race up and down Kiva Beach, the only leash-free beach in Tahoe that I know of, or at least in South Lake Tahoe.  It's the same beach on which Cruiser discovers something very strange in "Embarking on Murder."  

I wish I had let Bubba run to his heart's content last summer, but he was so fast, even at age 13, and I was so slow running in the sand, huffing and puffing against the altitude, that I couldn't keep up.  Of course, being a basset he wouldn't come no matter how much I called him, and I worried he'd go so far I couldn't catch him.  Every time I tried to end our walk and leave, he kept wanting to drag me back down to the water's edge.  It was also the first time in all the times we went there in 12 years that I had ever seen him wade in the lake.  Bassets aren't water lovers, but he was fearless!  I think he must have sensed it might be his last trip to our beloved Tahoe.  He was right.

 I scattered some of his ashes in the water at Tallac Point, near splendid Mount Tallac.  I know he's running just as joyfully now on some distant "heavenly" shore.