Change up......

7:59 am - Thursday - And you thought Wednesday was another day off, right?  Not so fast!  Since we are taking off Friday (a normal workday for us) to drive south to Mammoth Mountain so I can play in the mountain bike park on Saturday (normal workday) we switched with a couple of folks to work their Wednesday shift, so off to work it was for us at 3 pm Wednesday.....

Of course, there was more to Wednesday than work, so let's start with the beginning.....we began our day watching a men's semi-final match between Brazil and Honduras which was won handily by Brazil 6-0.  The second match began at noon time so I decided to take a bike ride in between the matches.....the second match would be between Germany and  Nigeria.  Lately I begin my rides not sure of the route I will take and just make it up as I go.....I intended to just ride the Lake Tahoe Blvd/Sawmill bike path, but felt good from the beginning so I added an 'out and back' on the Camp Richardson bike path, plus and 'out and back' on the Myers bike path making my total ride distance come in at 21 miles.  I arrived back at the coach right at 12:30 pm, about 30 minutes into the Germany v. Nigeria match.....Germany was already up 1-0, and the score quickly became 2-0 early in the second half, and that is how the match ended.  So, it will be Brazil vs. Germany in the Gold Medal match on Saturday.

We reported for work just before 3 pm, and decided early on that we would clock out by 11 pm.....the park is down to 50% occupancy, and there have really been no noise issues the past few nights, plus with the park so empty there is not as much to keep us busy all 8 hours.  Another benefit of having less to do is there is time once again for me to fix a few things I have noticed over the past few weeks, but have just not had the time to focus on in our afternoon/evening shift.  One was to fix a split rail fence near the bathrooms in Section F.  

Other than that minor repair the evening was very laid back in every way.  I was finished mopping the office/store/lounge/laundry by 10:30 pm, and then TLE and I finished our bathroom inspection tour just after 11 pm.

Yep, things are beginning to wind down here at TVC, and we are getting the departure dates from our various workampers.....Deb and John will be leaving August 30th, Gordy and Carol are leaving September 9th, and one of our teen workampers left August 16th for another job in Oregon.  

Life is good......it has been, and continues to be a good summer, and we still have 6-8 weeks before we haul anchor and head for SoCal for a few weeks.....thanks for stopping by!

Serenity now......

9:36 am - Wednesday - Went to bed at 11:30 pm, and got up at 9:06 am.....again.....so very quiet again last night.  

Tuesday we spent time watching two Rio Olympics women's semi-final soccer matches, the first between Sweden and Brazil (Sweden was the team which beat the USA women), which once again went to overtime and then 'kicks from the mark'.  Sweden once again won and now will play in the final.  The second match was between Canada and Germany, and Germany won easily in regulation 2-0.  The second match ended just after 2 pm at which time we decided to take a bike ride over to El Dorado Beach and spend the afternoon sitting in our beach chairs on the grass enjoying the view, the breeze and just generally being lazy.....

 Para sailors (not us)

.....it's just over 4.5 miles to El Dorado Beach, and it is one of our favorite beaches here in SLT.  Obviously, you can go down to the beach and sit in the sand, or you can sit up near street level in a nice grass covered area under the shade of large ponderosa pine trees.  As I have written previously, there is something about gazing north from El Dorado Beach.....the view is just enormous and serene.  It is a great place to clear one's head and gain perspective.....I never tire of the view.  

A little after 5 we rode two more blocks over to one of our favorite local micro breweries.....Sidellis Lake Tahoe Brewing.....to have a couple of brews, an appetizer and then split a French Dip sandwich.  We love their beer garden.........

.......alas, all too soon, it was time to begin our ride back to TVC.....we arrived back home just after 6:30 with large smiles on our faces....it was an afternoon well lived.  

TLE read whilst I watched some more Olympic coverage finally heading for bed around 11:30 pm.

Thanks for stopping by!

'The Trouble with Harry.....'

10:51 am - Tuesday - At last!  I slept in until after 10 am this morning.  It was soooo quiet last night, and that is pretty much what describes Monday.....

The park continued to empty out Monday morning increasing that ghostly feeling I described in yesterday's offering.  We idled about our site most of the day.....I spent some time cleaning dust and grime off the passenger side of the coach, which is fully in the shade of our patio awning.  TLE and I spent some time mapping out our personnel needs for next summer, reviewing resumes and interviewing applicants......we're just about set.

We reported for work once again at 3:30 pm.......I spent my usual half hour policing the grounds around the office/store for litter and then retrieved a golf cart and radio to begin my rounds.  I was semi shocked at how much emptier, indeed, the park looked and wondered what I would do all afternoon/evening to stay busy.  Not that I'm complaining......we've spent the last 7+ weeks going from one task to another wondering how we will possibly get everything done each shift, so this is welcome change.

Near dusk I decided to take a tour of the fire road that runs along the perimeter of TVC along the Upper Truckee River meadow.......

......my friend Harry and I cut this track last summer to reconnect both ends of the fire road.....this middle section through the meadow had been allowed to become overgrown and was not passable again until last June......now it is once again.  Harry and I spent a lot of time working together last summer....he taught me a lot about the intricacies of TVC, and a lot about our electrical systems.  He still lives in the area, and comes over on occasion to help me with one thing, or another.  We have become good friends, and I value his help whenever he is available.

The rest of the evening was pretty routine other than that fact that we clocked out just after 11:30 pm......there was really no point in finishing the shift all the way to midnight as there was nothing else to do.....now for a wonderful off day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ghostly.....

8:36 am - Monday - Again, why so early?  Well, this is my last day of work until Thursday afternoon, and then we are off to Mammoth for two more days off!  The sky is clear, blue and the sun is out.....another typical August South Lake Tahoe day!

Sunday the park emptied out with gusto........it was as empty as I have seen it since the 4th of July weekend.....in fact, it was soooo quiet it felt eerie.......almost like a 'ghost town'!  No doubt part of this is due to many California schools being back in session already.....there are very few children here right now....other than the wonderful weather, it feels more like May.  Am I complaining?  No......we are enjoying this brief respite from the 85-90% occupancy we have experienced since July 4th.

We were invited by the retirement party folks over to the group site for breakfast Sunday morning, so we walked over about 10 am.  They had their own grills set up to cook scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, etc.  They had a full coffee bar with wonderful coffee, as well a fruit of all types.  These folks go first class!

 Alfresco dining at its best!

We spent about an hour enjoying pleasant conversation, food and weather before heading back to the coach to watch more Rio Olympics coverage.

We reported for duty at precisely 3:30 pm, and once again were struck by how quiet it was.  I usually spend the first half hour sweeping off the front of the office/store, and around the playground, as well as picking up trash before getting a two way radio and a cart to begin my afternoon patrol.

Since things were so slow I spent time talking with some of our long term customers, and answering questions from a number of our short term customers.  A number of folks mentioned they had seen bears wandering through the park the night before.....it is a rare evening lately when the bears are not seen foraging for food.  Fortunately they are not very aggressive and usually limit their foraging to our dumpsters.

We actually punched the clock about 11:40 pm, which is early, but due to how quiet the park is we were able to finish our nightly tasks ahead of time.  However, we did receive a call about 12:07 am advising we had some noise coming from a site in Section A.  We responded quickly, quieted the customers down, and were back in our coach by 12:20 am.

Thanks for stopping by!

CHiP's........

9:00 am - Sunday - I'm up way, way too early......oh well, I wake up when I wake up.....there are always naps.  We didn't get to bed until after 2 am.....why you might ponder?  Well, read on......

As has been the case this week we did very little Saturday morning/early afternoon except watch the Rio Olympics.  Other than dumping our black tank, which must never be delayed, I was pretty much a slug all day until we headed for our evening shift beginning at 3:30 pm.  I spent my time taking naps and preparing mentally for what I knew would be a long afternoon/evening.  

We had a large retirement party scheduled for Saturday for a CHP (California Highway Patrol) officer, Wayne Tillman, who was retiring after 35 years on the job.  We first met Wayne and his wife Cheryl as customers of TVC in the summer of 2014 and became friends.  Cheryl began planning Wayne's SURPRISE retirement party last summer, and Saturday was the culmination of 14 months of stealth planning.  We pretty much turned over the entire Group Site area, plus our large tent to Cheryl and her entourage for Friday and Saturday.

By the time we clocked in at 3:30 there were close to 250 people in the Group Site, and by 5:30 pm when the festivities began there were over 600.  This is and was the biggest group we have ever had at TVC since I have been working here.  The surprise for Wayne was complete.  They had a sit down dinner (BBQ'd beef and chicken) for all the attendees (judges, state senators, and a lot of California law enforcement).  By 7 pm the party moved to the tent where a DJ provided music for dancing and just general entertainment.  

By 10 pm, the beginning of our normal quiet hour, the party was in full swing and there was no way we were stopping it until it ran its natural course.  They did turn down the volume of the music at my request at 10 pm, and continued to lower the volume until I finally asked them to turn it off at 11:15.  Since there were so many people needing to use the bathroom facilities in the lounge we left it open until 11:30 pm which, of course, put me well behind in doing my nightly janitorial duties.

The party organizers did a wonderful job of putting every back in order in the tent, as well as removing all evidence of their presence......all trash cans emptied, and all trash removed from the tent area.  Of course, since we were so late in shutting down the party I could not really patrol and ask anyone else to quiet down, so that did not begin until close to midnight.  By the time TLE finished with her office tasks and I had quieted the campground down, and mopped out the office/store and lounge, and we had made our final bathroom inspection it was close to 1 am, and now you know the rest of the story.

Thanks for stopping by!

Off task.........

9:09 am - Saturday - Clear blue skies greet me once again this morning.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a nice rainstorm just for the change, but then that would mean our tent campers would be miserable, so I'll just try to endure the wonderful, balmy, cloudless weather for a little while longer.

Friday was an odd day here at TVC.....nothing went as expected.....the heavily favored USA women lost their quarter final soccer match to Sweden in most shocking fashion....I am still stunned.  They just never seemed to have any rhythm, and when they ended up tied after 120 minutes (including two 15 minute overtime periods) they failed to execute their 'kicks from the mark' losing to Sweden 4-3.  Just goes to reaffirm that the future is not yet written....anything is possible.

We reported for work at 3:30 pm where things continued to take an odd tack the rest of the evening......I was called out to a site in Section F where a gentleman and his son were riding unlicensed motorized dirt bikes back an forth on the fire road down into the meadow and back raising dust and creating a lot of the attendant noise.  When I approached him he claimed he had permission from Miguel, our head ranger, and from Adam, our maintenance manager, to do so.  I pointed out that there must be a misunderstanding as the rules clearly state in our brochure which says "Motorcycles and mopeds: May only be operated by licensed drivers, and only used to enter, or exit the campground.  ATV's are not allowed to be operated in the park."  I later spoke with Miguel and Adam to find that they had told him exactly the opposite.  I have been a little disheartened to find how often customers will embellish the truth, or just outright tell a fib hoping you won't find out the truth.  I run into this pretty much every single day.

I found out we were showing a movie Friday night in our big tent, but apparently whoever changed the movie night from Saturday to Friday didn't make arrangements to have someone on duty to set things up and actually show the movie, so that task fell to me.  I felt like I was off task all evening.  

Things were extremely busy in the store and I had to go in several times to help run the POS station while TLE and Victor handled people checking into TVC.  We had a lot of late arrivals, and by late I mean after 10 pm.  I'm at a loss how anyone in good conscience can arrive at a crowded campground after 10 pm knowing that their loud, idling diesel pusher will wake folks up, or disturb the peace of those still awake as they attempt to get into a site that would be a difficult task if done in broad daylight.  There were numerous problems with noise Friday night which required me to revisit several sites after 10 pm to get them to quiet down, and several phone calls to the Ranger phone about a bear roaming around.  Nothing we an really do about that, but just give the bear room, and don't corner him/her.  

Everything seemed to take longer than expected and by the time we punched the time clock it was close to 12:30 am.  I was in bed by 1:30 with TLE following a short time later.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunshine, on my shoulder....

9:30 am - Friday - Slept in until 9 today.....was in bed by 1:30 am this morning.......got up just in time to watch the start of the USA women vs. Sweden in Olympic soccer........we had planned to ride the tandem up to Camp Richardson (California side) to catch the water taxi over to Round Hill (Nevada side) and then ride back to TVC, but TLE awoke with a bad sinus headache so we stayed close to home girding ourselves for another work day beginning at 3:30 pm.

Thursday was the first day in over a week in which the temperature hit 80 degrees once again.  As you might imagine the overnight low temps have been rising again, too, into the high 40's, but the long range forecast call for temps to drop back into the 70's again.

We reported for work precisely at 3:30 pm and slipped quickly into the workflow of the day, which was light.  Our last 'tent meeting' group has departed.....all the 'tent meeting' tents are down and packed away in the semi trailers, and the campground has taken on this slightly empty feeling, although we are still over 85% occupancy.

All in all Thursday was a rather routine day with little to report.  On a side note we are planning to run down to Mammoth Mountain to play in their Mountain Bike Park for a couple of days later this month.......kind of a vacation from our vacation.  Other than that just one sun shinny day after another.....it hasn't rained in a long, long time.

From sunny Lake Tahoe......thanks for stopping by!