4 Weeks at SLT*

Who can get tired of this view?

Friday marked the end of our first 4 weeks here in *South Lake Tahoe.  Frankly, it does not "feel" that long, especially when we realize we have over 11 weeks to go!  After a month we are only more certain we made the right decision to spend the summer here.  We love the SLT* vibe, and the eclectic and diverse community.  We have met so many interesting, and amazing people.  While we have not officially started working yet, the rate we are paying is so good we both agree we could just live here the whole summer whether, or not we ever start working, however, we know we will be working before 4th of July, so we are just enjoying our life of leisure until then.

Friday's World Cup schedule had three games (9 am, Noon and 3 pm) and we watched every minute of every single game, and in between the U.S. Open.  The farthest we ventured away from our site was to take the trash to the dumpster, which is about 100 yards away.....otherwise we just sat outside enjoying the cool breezes, reading, and watching soccer and golf.

U.S. Open

The temperature took a dip Friday....it barely got to 68 degrees, and overnight it got into the high 30's again, and actually got down to 56 inside the coach.

Around 5 pm we changed the channel to NBC to watch game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals between our L.A. Kings and the N.Y. Rangers.  Following form, this game went to overtime just as the previous two King home games have gone.  The Kings took an early 1-0 lead, but fell behind in the 2nd period 2-1, and were fortunate to score the tying goal late in the 3rd period on a power play.  Ultimately Martinez, a defenseman for the Kings, scored the winning sudden death goal off a rebound late in the 2nd overtime period to give the Kings the championship.  Frankly, even though the Kings won this series 4 games to 1, it was a much closer series than that with 3 of the Kings 4 victories coming in overtime......any of these three overtime games could have easily gone to the Rangers.  After 4 and a half hours of watching this game we were wrung out, but so happy the Kings won their second championship in 3 years last night.

Thanks for stopping by!

* SLT = South Lake Tahoe

Sports Thursday....

Thursday felt like Saturday to me, not just because it is 4th Saturday, which, of course, it is.......no, it felt like Saturday because of the sports cornucopia that was on tap.  Let me recount.......1) The U.S. Open golf championship on TV all day, 2) The first game of the World Cup (soccer) on at 1 pm, and 3) Game four of the NBA playoffs at at 6 pm.

All that being said, before I spent any time watching sports on Thursday, I spent a few hours, starting at 9 am, helping set up the entertainment tent here at TVC*.  It is in this tent that weekly karaoke parties are held, and movies are shown for the benefit of the campers.  If the tent is going up that means the summer crowds are about to descend upon TVC*.

By 11:30 we had the three roof panels installed, and secured, but they needed to sit in the sun for at least a day before we could stretch them out properly, so I headed home to watch the first game of the World Cup between Brazil and Croatia.  There was only one game Thursday, but Friday there will be three games on tap, and for the next month there will be soccer pretty much every day.  Then, just as the World Cup wraps up the Tour de France will commence on July 5th running until the end of July.

TLE and I sat outside the rest of the afternoon watching soccer and the U.S. Open with a little reading thrown in for good measure......yep felt just like Saturday to me!

I love my life....

Around 4:30 I got a text from Debby (of Bill and Debby fame) asking if we were interested in going to play pool that evening around 7 pm, and we accepted.  We met up at their motorhome just at 7 and walked over to Classic Cue to play some "9 ball".

Debby taking her shot

TLE, Debby and I have conceded that it is basically "us" against Bill.....sure, we try hard, and win a game here and here individually, but Bill is the pool shark in the group.  I did improve over the first outing by winning the first and the last game, and TLE and Debby won a game, or two, but Bill was much sharper than the three of us combined......:D  Fortunately, the basketball game between the Spurs and Heat was on the TV right by our table, and I was able to watch the Spurs, in between shots, dismantle the Heat once again to take a 3 games to 1 edge in the best 4 out of 7 game series.  The Spurs need one more win to clinch the championship.

Thanks for stopping by!

* TVC = Tahoe Valley Campground

A Tahoe State of Mind

Wednesday, for the first time since mid February I broke below 190 pounds coming in at 189.6!  All that hard work is starting to pay off again, and my conditioning is getting back to where it was before my hernia surgery.

Now that the weather has warmed up and seems to be staying warm we decided to visit the beach again Wednesday, but before we headed to South Lake Tahoe Beach we headed out about 10:30 on another bike ride up the Camp Richardson bike path.......I don't know if that is its official name, but that is what I call it.  TLE rode to the end of the bike path just as she did the day before, and I continued on to the Emerald Bay overlook.  Once again I was not trying to best my previous best time, but that day will come again in the not too distant future.  

I arrived back at the coach around 12:45, took a shower, had some lunch, did a little reading and then around 2 we loaded up the VW with our beach chairs, umbrellas, towels and books for the drive over to South Lake Tahoe Beach to spend the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the beach atmosphere.  Unlike our first trip to the Tahoe Keys beach, there were a lot of people at the beach, and in the water.

South Lake Tahoe Beach

I was not ready to go in the water this day, but maybe the next time.....this time of year (early June) the water is still pretty cold.    We sat reading and just enjoying the long view looking north up towards Tahoe City until 4:30, then it was time to head to Raley's to pick up a few items, then home in time to watch game 4 of the NHL Stanley Cup finals between the Kings and Rangers.  On the evening's menu for dinner were regular hard shell tacos chased with a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy.

If the Kings had played as good as those tacos tasted they would be celebrating their second Stanley Cup finals win in 3 years, but alas it was not to be......they lost a very closely fought game 2-1........twice in the 3rd period the puck stopped just short of crossing the line.....it was like there was a force field at the line stopping the puck.

Picture courtesy the internet

We closed out the evening watching another episode of "So You Think You Can Dance".

Thanks for stopping by!

On "The Edge of Tomorrow....."

We are on the "edge" of starting our jobs here at TVC*......our names are now on the work schedule beginning Thursday.....woot....woot!  Our life of leisure here at TVC* will not be as evident 3 days a week now.....it will be like a "long weekend" in reverse.....now we will work 3 days, and have 4 days off each week......isn't that the way it should be to begin with?

Around 11:30 TLE** and I decided to take a ride up toward Emerald Bay....for TLE** the end of the bike path would be her turn around point, and I would continue up to the overlook doing my normal ride.  Just before Camp Richardson TLE** advised she would proceed at a slower pace, and bid me farewell, so I kicked it up a gear and stretched it out.......at that point there was no chance of improving on my prior best time to the top, so I just concentrated on keeping my RPM's at a high, sustainable level.

By the time I returned at 12:50 TLE** had already showered, so I was able to cool down, take my shower, and then relax outside reading another good book, all the while continuing to enjoy the balmy temperatures.  I know I must sound like a broken record when it comes to the weather here, but that is one of the reasons we decided to spend the summer in the Tahoe Basin.

We had decided the night before that we would go to the movies Tuesday afternoon, and we decided on "Edge of Tomorrow" and the 4:30 3-D showing at the Heavenly Village Cinemas over at Stateline.  I found the premise of the movie intriguing, and was hoping the trailers we had seen on TV were not the best moments in the movie.  For TLE** and I, at least, this movie lived up to its billing.  If you are a science fiction buff you will definitely like the movie.....I especially liked the surprise ending.....I'll leave it at that.

The drive home along the southern shore of the lake was beautiful.........there is something about the late afternoon/early evening light and the way it hits the trees and shoreline that just makes it seem magical.  We arrived home just about 7 pm to find the San Antonio Spurs up by 25 points over the Miami Heat in game 3 of the NBA finals.....wow, I was not expecting that.  They went on to win the game by 18, or 19 points.  TLE** prepared some crab cakes and a salad for dinner, which we ate while watching the basketball game.

In a few more days we will have been at TVC* for a month....hard to believe, but the summer is still young!

Thanks for stopping by!

* TVC = Tahoe Valley Campground
** TLE = The Lovely Elaine

The Postman Always Knocks Twice......

TLE needed to do pick up a few items at Raley's so she headed out relatively early Monday morning walking to the store with a small shoulder bag.  She figured to combine her walking with shopping, and managed to log another 4 miles before returning "home".  On her way by the campground office she stopped in to see if there was any mail for us.

Monday is the first time we have been able to receive our forwarded mail in over a month.....as it turns out we had two large envelopes of mail to sort through.  One item I had almost forgotten about was the small padded envelope which held the LED license plate lights I had ordered for the new rear bumper on the Newell.

You will recall that due to the location of the pre-cut holes for the license plate lights being lower than on the original bumper I could not re-install them because a steel bar which forms a part of our receiver hitch was smack dab in the middle of the hole.  There was no way I was going to even consider modifying that steel support, so I had to come up with a new idea.

After a few days of searching online for something that would fit the space, I came upon these LED license plate lights from a seller on eBay.....they were $6.99 delivered.

I thought if I fabricated two aluminum disks  to cover the old holes I could mount the new lights by drilling a hole in the middle of the disk, so now that I had the lights I set about fabricating the aluminum disks.  First I drilled a hole in the center of each using my suction cup vise to hold them while I drilled.

Then I installed the new LED lights, one in each disk.......I also drilled two additional holes in each disk to fasten them to the bumper with stainless steel screws......

So far, so good......now it was time to install the new lights..............I think it came out pretty good.  I have mentioned before that I am always trying to keep the exterior of the coach as original as possible, but sometimes that just doesn't work out.

By the time I finished the installation of the new LED lights it was after 2 pm, and time to clean up......I always forget how dirty the rear area of the coach gets when we have travelled a few thousand miles, and a lot of that accumulated dirt transferred to my person during the installation of the new lights!  While I was installing the LED's TLE was busy vacuuming out the coach with my Shopvac.

We both sat outside enjoying the balmy afternoon air reading, and for me a short nap.....at least I think it was short, and before we knew it 5 pm had arrived and it was time to turn on the NHL hockey game between our L.A. Kings and the N.Y. Rangers.  For the first time in two weeks this game was decided in regulation time with the Kings winning 3-0......the game was over by 7:30!  One more win and the Kings will be the Stanley Cup champions!

We finished out the evening watching "Masterchef", "24", and "Longmire"......the weather continues to be "warm" with Monday's high hitting 85......we'll see a small cooling trend over the next 9 days with temps dropping back into the mid 70's.

Thanks for stopping by!

Anatomy of a Sunday

It's Monday morning about 7:30 am, and it's time to do the autopsy of our Sunday in South Lake Tahoe (SLT), or more specifically in Tahoe Valley Campground (TVC), because we never left the campground all day.  On the surface, and you would have noticed this if you had walked by site #426, nothing really seemed to be happening.  And, frankly, nothing really even happened below the surface.....nothing except total relaxation.

Over the past few weeks TLE has been shaping our TVC environment slowly, but surely.  Every day, or two she adds another touch that really makes it easy to just hang out.

We started out with just an awning mat and the patio awning out..........kind of stark looking, huh?

Then she deployed the sunscreen/privacy screen and the lounge chairs.........followed shortly thereafter by the two brown ground tarps that extended the patio area on either side of the awning mat......

Next she suggested we get a folding table to set the BBQ and Coleman stove on giving us more surface area for eating at the picnic table........followed shortly thereafter by the outdoor stainless steel frying pan (sitting on top of the stove)....

She picked up four new solar lights like this one to add a little night time ambiance to our site....

And just a couple of days ago she finished installing the "screen door" in our coach entry so we don't have to keep the door shut all the time to keep the bugs out.....

Last, but not least, she added an additional sun screen to the corner of the patio awning to keep the afternoon sun out of our patio area......

I said all that to say this........TLE spends a lot of time thinking about how she can make our environment more comfortable, and more functional, and that becomes more important with each passing day as the temperatures begin to warm up enabling us to spend more time outside cooking, eating, and just plain relaxing like we did Sunday.  She has a lot of great ideas about how to utilize our space, and I greatly appreciate the time she puts in thinking about how to make it better, especially when we have the chance to spend several months in one location.

Around 10 am we decided to cook breakfast outside.....I cooked up a few pieces of nitrate free bacon, and TLE added some fried eggs with a few pieces of sourdough toast.....there is just something about the smell of cooking bacon outdoors that makes life seem just a little bit better.....I know you know what I mean.

After cleaning up from breakfast prep I was back outside by 11 am in my recliner, reading a good book, and listening to the "Siriusly Sinatra" channel on Sirius/XM Radio (71), and that is how my day went with the occasional nap thrown in for good measure.....of course the outdoor TV had the PGA golf tournament on with the sound muted. 

Now you know what I mean when I say there did not seem to be much going on Sunday....above, or below the surface........and that is because of the work TLE has put in over the past few weeks improving our patio area making it possible for us to just hang out, and do nothing but enjoy our little environment, and the outdoors.

Thanks for stopping by!

Big Meadow

If it is Saturday it's time for another epic mountain bike ride with Michelle (Doug) and Mark.  I met them at the trailhead in Christmas Valley around 9:30 am where we were joined by another of their friends, Kat (Katrin) for the 9.5 mile loop.  I know, it doesn't seem long by last Saturday's standard when we rode over 20 miles, but this was a very technical climb and descent.  In some sections, climbing and descending, we had to get off our bikes to traverse especially difficult, impassable rocky sections.  The climb itself had 1,600' of elevation gain over 4.7 miles.

The first part of the climb saw us riding up a narrow paved road for about 1.5 miles to the beginning of the dirt trail.....after another 1.5 miles we came to the beautiful meadow....this was the easy part....:D

At the 4.5 mark we reached the top of the trail, so we took a short break before beginning the crazy descent through trees, boulders, 3 foot drop offs.  I haven't ridden anything this technical in a few years, but the skills necessary to negotiate this type of terrain are deeply ingrained in my mind, and muscle memory.

After a few times of having to get off my bike and walk it through some very rocky sections, which, in retrospect, I knew I could have ridden, I just decided to trust my ability, trust the bike, and ride through the difficult sections.......and that worked 99.9% of the remaining 3 miles of trail......until I had a small mishap when I stalled out going over a small doll head sized rock and fell over at less than 1 mph scraping my arm on a large granite boulder.

I've been riding mountain bikes, and "donating" blood on the trail since 1989, but I haven't shed any blood in a long, long time.  It really looked worse than it was as you can see in the picture blow a few hours after I returned home.  No stitches required.  I really didn't realize I had hurt myself for another mile after I fell when I felt something running down my arm, which turned out to be blood from the scrape.

We kept on ever downward and suddenly there we were.....back at the parking lot where the day's adventure had begun.  It was quickly decided to drive over to a local eatery called Sonny's BBQ Shack just north of the "Y" on HWY 89 for some food and brews.  Yelp gives Sonny's a solid 4 stars on 33 reviews.  I had the Jalapeno Poppers which were to die for, and a pint of and IPA called "Icky"....not sure if I spelled that correctly, or not.  I have never been a fan of IPA's, but this is the second weekend in a row that Michelle has suggested I try an IPA, and both times I have liked them.

We sat listening to "Blues" music playing in the background while recounting our adventure of the day enjoying the Tahoe air, the sun and cool breeze before heading to our respective homes.....I arrived at the coach around 1:30 with a big smile of my face......another great ride, and the summer is still young!

While I was gone riding TLE took a long walk around town, checked out a thrift store, or two, and got her hair styled.....no new books came home this day, but we are now the proud owners of a small ironing board.

After I showered, and let TLE dress my wound she and I sat outside reading, and around 4 pm I got out the "outdoor TV" so we could watch the L.A. Kings vs. the N.Y. Rangers in game two of the Stanley Cup Finals......it ended up being a 4 hour game as it went into double overtime before the Kings, once again, prevailed.

It was a great Saturday, and the weather is definitely warming up....got up to 82 again, and we were able to sit outside until almost 8 pm before the "cold" began to descend upon us and we headed inside to watch the end of the hockey game.

Thanks for stopping by!