Where do wishes go

Your whole landscape changes with a 4 year old in tow. Lexi and I spent many winters before our son came along on the slopes nearly every weekend. We've made the drive up to Tahoe dozens of times, but never stopped at Nut Tree Plaza. When you're trying to maximize your time on the snow while still getting home in time for some small shred of sleep before work, who has the time.

Now with our son coming with us, all those rest stop attractions are totally worth the stop. An hour break to prevent a meltdown in the car is fully worth it. The older and more run down the better. It's like wandering through a Tim Burton movie.

Not all of Nut Tree plaza is run down, but they built it much bigger than the current economy can utilize so there's whole sections that they've stopped maintaining to cut costs.

My son and I followed the forgotten little train tracks back to an empty plaza with a massive fountain that looks like it hasn't run in years. I explained that if there was water we could throw in a coin and make a wish, but the fountain is dry now so we can't. He asked me where the wishes went? I told him they went down the drain so they could come up into another fountain. Who knows, if water really does have memory, maybe that could happen. Though the wish water could easily end up watering a lawn or boiling pasta. I didn't tell him that though. It's hard enough to get him to eat dinner without him thinking his spaghetti was cooked in other people's wishes.