National news program features Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe will be featured on this morning's "Good Morning America."

Emmy Award-winning ABC News Anchor Ron Claiborne was in the area last Monday to feature the destination for today's show.

The travel segment called "My Favorite Places" is expected to show the usual and the unusual. The usual represents the splendor of Tahoe as seen through the eyes of Claiborne.

"I've been coming here for a lot of years. To me, Tahoe is a special place. There's nothing like it, with the lake and the mountains. It's my favorite place in the world. There's not a lot of development, and the lake is still the No. 1 attraction," Claiborne said, while having coffee at Embassy Suites.

One of the unusual points to his visit was his mode of transit, when the Tahoe Queen paddle-wheeler gingerly docked at the Camp Richardson Resort pier to pick up his crew in shallow waters measuring 31Ú2 feet deep. A line in the sand below the boat marked the anchor dragging before coming to a stop.

Capt. Chris Gallup said it's not every day he gets to host "Good Morning America."

The sight drew a small crowd of curious onlookers.

"I wondered if it's deep enough to dock," South Shore resident Rick Bouck said, looking bewildered at witnessing the huge boat maneuver close to shore.

Kelly Domsky, who often visits from her home in Florida, also wandered out onto the pier to see the spectacle.

"It doesn't usually dock here," she said.

"We want the viewers to experience the beauty of the place," said Claiborne, who admitted earlier that television crews tend to draw the more curious sorts.

"People in cities tend to gawk more. People in small towns just tend to go on their way," he said. According to Claiborne, Tahoe falls somewhere in between.

With a Bay area childhood and connection as an adult, Claiborne has reflected fondly on his trips to the South Shore including a Heavenly Mountain Resort ski trip at age 12 with his mother, Marie Claiborne of Los Angeles.

Claiborne recalled wandering around Harrah's Lake Tahoe as an adult and catching blues legend B.B. King rehearsing at one of the bars for an upcoming show.

Another story like those he's planning to share involved a major snow dumping - a foot in 10 hours - in which it took him six hours to drive from the South Shore to the north because his chains were improperly installed on his vehicle. Claiborne ended up sleeping in his car, a hardship he hasn't needed to have since becoming an Emmy Award-winning anchor for his coverage of the Elian Gonzalez custody case in Miami of 2000.

For "My Favorite Places," the other three anchors feature Key West, Old San Juan and Big Sur.