'No smoking....'

7:29 am - Sunday - 42 F degrees, 66% humidity, clear blue skies, windless, projected high - 77 F degrees......awake too early.

Once again TLE and I reported for work at 2 pm in anticipation of a workload that never materialized.  We had a large group sponsored by an RV dealer in Reno, NV (Sprads RV).  Each year they sponsor a two day event inviting customers who have purchased RV's from them in the past, and they pay for one night.  Many of those who had signed up to come did not, so in spite of being 100% booked on paper, our occupancy was just over 50%.

Robert, our manager, gave me a task Friday that needed to be done by Monday.....we have one large propane tank near the cottages (we have over a dozen throughout the park) that did not have the required warning stenciled on its side....."No smoking, or open flames or other source of ignition permitted within 10 feet".  The State of California inspector who came to inspect our propane tanks a month, or so ago requested this be done.  I was able to find stencils in the maintenance shed, got Adam to buy a couple of cans of red spray paint, then went to work.....

......it took me a little bit to get my technique down, but I think over all it came out alright.  In all it took me about 3 hours as I had to do this on both sides, and didn't have quite enough N's, or T's to do it all at once.  I was able to do three, or four words at a time, wait for the paint to dry before removing the stencils and then move them to the other side before going to the next words.....there are a lot of N's and T's in this warning!

I helped Adam, our maintenance manager, fix a 'open ground' in a 30 amp pedestal, patrolled the park, helped the Sprad caterer ferry large platters of food they were keeping in our walk in cooler in the store over to the Group Site, checked a couple of cable TV connections (again, not our problem, but something wrong with the wiring in the RV's), helped a few folks into their sites, and used the bullhorn to announce our 'Live Music' for the evening......yeah, I know.....I thought we were done too, but Robert forgot to call the performers to tell them not to come.

I made a run with Victor (assistant manager) over to the local TruValue Hardware Store to pick up a few things for projects I'll be working on the next week, or so......quick connect shackles for the swings that never got installed, bailing wire to fix all the holes in our fencing along Melba Drive (that may take over a week all by itself), and street paint so I can finish refreshing all the street markings in the park.

We closed the store by 10 pm, and began our quiet hour rounds of the park, plus our restroom run.....we, surprisingly, had to stop at several sites to quiet folks down......in one the music was so loud I would have asked them to turn it down if it were broad daylight....why folks think playing music that loud in a campground is acceptable is beyond me.  Due to the number of people needing to be quieted down, and the need for us to go by a second time to be sure they quieted down, we didn't clock out until after 10:40 pm.

Sunday the Sprad group will depart the park, and we will be a ghost town once more.....thanks for stopping by!

Change is in the air....

9:12 am - Saturday - 57 F degrees, 40% humidity, wind 2 mph, sunny, cloudless, blue skies.  I see the high in my former hometown, Ontario, CA, will be 94 F degrees today......our high here in SLT will be 82 F.

Friday was kind of a 'carbon copy' of Thursday.....relaxed, napped, read.  TLE ran another load of laundry through the Splendide and then it was time to go to work.  We went in an hour early (2 pm) as we had a large group coming into the park and wanted to be sure we had enough people on duty to handle the load.

For the first 4 hours I went from one thing to another......dog barking complaint, propane, helped various people get into their sites, checked the cable TV reception at two sites, patrolled, checked a cabin to be sure it had been cleaned (it had not) for someone who came in a day early, cleaned up the water heater/janitorial supply room at the restroom in Section A (a new water heater had just been installed), closed down and treated the swimming pool, restocked the ice house conveyor belt with 7 lb. ice bags, fixed a leaking hose bib, checked electric at two sites (one gentleman had not switched the 30 amp breaker to the 'ON' position), delivered a portable fire pit to a site, emptied the trash cans in the maintenance yard.....let's see....have I forgotten anything.....nope....and that was before 6 pm.

Around 8 pm we got an email notification that our 'DigiRez' (reservations) and 'ACE' (cash register/inventory control) systems would be shut down at 9 pm (11 pm Central Time) for software maintenance, so we had to hurriedly do our end of day routine 2 hours early, which meant we could not sell anything after 9 pm.

We are at the part of the season when we now have no more entertainment (movies, live music, karaoke) in the tent, and no more pancake breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday.  We'll be taking the tent down within the next two weeks, and TVC will begin to empty dramatically.  The sun is now setting a little earlier each evening, and it is rising a little later each morning.  More of our friends (Gordy and Carol) are leaving Saturday as our staff continues to shrink.  It is a time for reflection, and a time to look ahead to next season......

Thanks for stopping by!

Winding down.....

8:40 am - Friday - 51 F degrees, 50% humidity, no wind, blue, cloudless skies......another great SLT day!

Thursday was a very laid back day.....very low TVC occupancy rate......very quiet.....balmy weather.....napping outside in the zero gravity chair......reading a good book outside in the zero gravity chair.  There is really not much else I can say to describe Thursday morning and early afternoon as far as what I did......on the other hand TLE washed multiple loads of dirty clothes in the splendid Splendide on the eve of the 18th anniversary of her 49th birthday....what a woman!

We reported for our shift just before 3 pm to a quiet office, and quiet campground and with the exception of a few clusters of RVers checking into the park it was a very quiet evening, which is a good thing since TLE and I were the only staff on duty Thursday afternoon/night.

Thursday was also the official beginning of the 2016 NFL season and featured  a rematch of the Super Bowl opponents Denver and Carolina.  Denver was down 17-7 at half time, but once again the Denver defense kept the Broncos in the game long enough for their offense to get going, and they won 21-20 when Carolina missed a 50 yard field goal attempt wide left with 4 seconds to go.

Trevor Siemian.....replacing Peyton Manning as quarterback

After closing the office and making our final bathroom rounds we were home by 10:35 pm and relaxing, and were in bed shortly after midnight.  Friday begins our last big weekend of the season.....we have three groups in the park which will bring us to about 50% occupancy.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sails.....

8:45 am - Thursday - 40 F degrees, humidity 63%, sunny, cloudless, no wind.  Slept well, woke up before TLE as usual. Temp in our room (with my window open) got down to 55 F degrees.

TLE walked up to the office mid morning just to be sure Sally (the only one on duty in the office Wednesday morning) was fine, and didn't come back for over 2 hours......:-).  While she was gone I finished cleaning up around camp from our beer tasting party.  The end result is that now all the beer that remains fits in the Norcold reefer once again.  I also set up our new 'Sail' sun shade.....as you can see below, the 'Sail' is a triangle with a 20' nylon ropes attached at each corner for attachment to some point.  I chose to attach two corners to each end of the awning, and then the third to a tall post (not pictured) on the edge of our site.

....it actually opens up the patio area much more than with our traditional sun shade.  We're thinking we may get a couple more to provide more shade in our site while we are TVC.

I spent the rest of the day off my feet.....my left heel is heeling, but after all the walking I did the prior couple of days it needed a break.  I spent my time in my zero gravity lounge chair reading and sipping sun tea, and just enjoying the relative quiet and emptiness of Section E.  We have three RV groups coming into the park this weekend, and things will get crowded one more time for a couple of days before the park really begins to empty.  

Around 5:15 pm we drove over to site 218 for Richard and Liz' annual dinner for TVC employees joined by Sandy and Phil.  Richard and Liz used to work here at TVC in the summers back before computers, so that is a long, long time ago.  It's always fun to talk to them about how things were at TVC 20 years ago......they actually had the job TLE and I have had the past 5 weeks.....night office and security duty.....

Left to right: Moi, Liz, Richard, TLE, Phil and Sandy

.....we had bratwurst and macaroni salad, and then chocolate cake for desert....the talking went on until 8:30 pm when the mosquitoes finally chased us home.

Thanks for stopping by!

First annual....

9:48 am - Wednesday - Cool, slept in until almost 10 am......weather: Clear blue, cloudless skies, 31% humidity, 57 F degrees, no wind.....I love Lake Tahoe!

Tuesday revolved almost entirely around our plans to have a beer tasting, chips and salsa party at our site for our fellow employees.  I've been collecting interesting beers for about a year, and have run out of room in our Norcold reefer for any more, so it was time to thin out the heard.  The party was TLE's idea.....I provided the beer, she did the rest.  I did, however, spend about 90 minutes detailing the ranger cart by cleaning the seats, which had gotten very grimy, cleaning stains out of the fiberglass gel coat, sealing the emergency lights cable against the weather, etc.

We haven't been down to Carson City in several weeks, and we needed a few things we get specifically from TJ's and Costco so we left around Noon, made the run up and over Spooner Pass, did our shopping and were back by 2:30 pm.

Our beer tasting party was scheduled for 5:30 pm, so we spent most of the next three hours getting ready.  TLE made up a batch of her famous salsa Tuesday afternoon, bought a lot small plastic cups for the beer tasting, and I organized my cache of beer, got the fire ready to light, and then relaxed until 5:30.  TLE took down our sunscreen for the first time since sometime in June to make room for everyone to gather around the picnic table.

One of our fellow employees, Morgan Morris, made up a batch of her famous cucumber/guacamole dip and brought it to the party, and Sandy Dittus (store manager) brought a shrimp/dip platter and a cheese platter.  In all we had about 7 fellow employees join us for three hours of fun, laughter and enlightenment.......I say enlightenment because many of our friends had no idea they would like some of the beers I chose......  

 Morgan, who took the picture below, is the redhead waving

Left to right: Sandy, TLE, moi, Phil, Carol, Dan and Gordy (Morgan was the picture taker.....she is pictured in the shot above (Victor, our assistant manager, missed the picture taking)

The lineup

.....in all we sampled 14 beers consisting of IPA's, ales, shandys, browns,  hefeweizens, stouts, porters and a lot in between.  There were jalapeno porters, chocolate stouts, and a chilebeso (which, by the way had a real chile bite at the end).  Probably the most popular, even among those who do not like dark brews, was the Samuel Smith Organic Chocolate Stout, which also happens to be my favorite of all time, still.  The second most popular beer was the Great Basin Cervesa Chilebeso (going left to right this is the 5th one), and the third was Leinenkugal's Summer Shandy.  The very large bottle pictured above (3rd from the left - Chipolte Porter) was a big disappointment in a big bottle, but otherwise all the brews were well received.

It was agreed all the way around that everyone had learned a lot about the different types of beer available, and that not all of the various classes are created equal.  There are great offerings within each class, but you have to try them to find the ones which fit your taste pallet best.

Morgan was kind enough to take a bunch of pictures, which I share with you now....

The.... 

....three.....

....favorites....

The spread

We called it a night around 8:30, and then TLE and I sat by the fire until about 9:30 before heading inside for the night.....yeah, Tuesday, was a great day!  Thank you to all our friends, who happen to be fellow workers (Morgan, Sandy, Phil, Dan, Gordy, Carol, & Victor), for making our first annual beer tasting event a success!

Thanks for stopping by!

It's over......

8:19 am - Tuesday - I know, it looks like I'm up too early, but actually I did not get up too early......but you'll have to read on to find out why.  Of course, the daily weather report for South Lake Tahoe......sunny, no clouds, 61% humidity, no wind......37 F degrees.

By the time we got out of bed Monday Section E was already a ghost town......we had 253 departures scheduled with just 20 arrivals.  Order has been restored, and quiet is the operative word.  While TLE made a grocery run I spent time cleaning up our outdoor area....sweeping, wiping off the picnic table, recliners, camp chairs, etc.  

I was working on 5, or 6 hours sleep and really wanted to take a nap, but kept getting distracted by one thing, or another, and before I knew it my watch said 2 pm, and we had to be at work by 3.....rats!  I did manage to get a 30 minute nap, but it wasn't enough by a long shot.

With the park back down to about 150 sites occupied there was not much to do but pick up the litter left behind by our weekend revelers, and there is a lot of it.  Once the sun set, which is now around 7:21 pm, I spent time inside helping TLE clean black magic marker off our counters with acetone, removed old Scotch Tape from the counter edges.....it was that kind of night.  We clocked out at 10:40 pm and headed for home, and were asleep before midnight.  

In about a week we will go back to working days.....there will be no need to keep the office/store open until 10 pm, and no need to patrol the park until after midnight.  The population of TVC will continue to drop until only Section G is open.  We'll begin winterizing each section by turning off the power, and water, and then draining all the water lines so they don't freeze over the winter.  We'll cut our weekly hours back to about 30, or less.

The Fall in South Lake Tahoe, or anywhere in the Tahoe Basin is a wonderful time of year.....you are between the summer crowds, and the winter ski crowds.  The day time temps stay pleasantly in the low 70's to high 60's even though it gets into the 30's most nights.....we are really looking forward to more down time, and more time to explore.

Thanks for stopping by!

Surviving Labor Day.....

10:21 am - Monday - Wow!  Didn't get to bed until just before 3 am this morning, and was awakened by a phone call from my boss at 7:30 am.....of course I couldn't go back to sleep.  On top of that I had to dump the black tank before I had my first cup of coffee.  So, how was Sunday? Let me tell you.....

I was awake far too early Sunday morning, but it's understandable.....I was put in charge of our annual Labor Day weekend horseshoe tournament the day before, and there was a lot of work to be done Sunday morning in preparation.  My mind was going 100 miles per hour processing all the things I needed to get done before 1 pm, which was the start time for the tournament.  I left the coach just after 9:30 am......six hours before the beginning of my normal shift....

 8 pits raked and ready

32 people, 16 Teams, 8 brackets, single elimination

 And they're off!

 The winners - Joey (left) and Robbie (right)....Joey was on last year's winning team, also.

......the tournament ended at 3:05 pm.....I took care of putting everything away, pumped some propane, turned off a leaking water heater, then clocked out for one hour at 3:24 pm, took a nap, and was back on the job for my afternoon/night shift at 4:25 pm.

I was in the maintenance yard cleaning my cart....it was filthy....when I heard a call on the two way radio requesting all rangers on duty report to the northwest corner of Section G for an emergency.  I immediately replied I was on my way......I found Ben, who had made the call, walking toward Section G and picked him up.  We arrived at site 166 to find a woman sitting in a chair with a bloody knee and a dog bite on her left hand.  She had been walking her very small dog when three off leash dogs came charging out of site 127 at her leashed dog....the lady scrambled to protect her dog and was knocked down by one of the three dogs (pit bull, bull dog and lab) and then bitten on her hand.....her small dog was also bitten, but not seriously........

Left to right: pit bull, bull dog, and lab

.....the people who owned the three dogs immediately accused the woman of being the cause, and did nothing to retrieve their dogs, or assist the woman and continued to yell at, and taunt the woman for several minutes according to the witnesses.  It was actually a pretty disgusting, disgraceful display of raw human nature.  After interviewing the woman I proceeded to site 127 to find the dogs (pictured above) in cages in the bed of the owner's pickup.  At first they denied the dogs were off leash, or that all three had attacked the woman and her small dog.  I then interviewed 8 other people in adjoining sites who advised the dogs had been off leash not only most of Sunday, but Friday and Saturday, too.....two of the witnesses being 'friends' of the people in 127.  I went back to site 127 to confront them with the witnesses' statements and they finally admitted the dogs were unleashed.  At first they denied one of the dogs was a pit bull, but finally admitted it.

The El Dorado County Sheriff was called along with an El Dorado County animal control officer.....it was confirmed that all three dogs were current in their shots, and then the three dogs were put into a mandatory 10 quarantine.  We were inclined to evict the folks in 127, but the officer advised they were 'under the influence' and, therefore, it would be unwise to force them to drive that evening, so they were allowed to stay overnight, but had to leave at first light today.  I, with TLE spent the next 2 hours calming everyone down, and keeping the parties separated.  The Sheriff promised to return several times that evening to patrol Section G and be sure all remained peaceful, and I, of course, did the same.

Our Sunday night movie was Zootopia, and we had perhaps our largest viewing audience of the summer.....every seat was taken....

By the time the movie was over it was time for me to do my 'Quiet Hour' patrol, and wasn't that a hoot.  I had to threaten eviction to people in several sites who would not quiet down, but finally by 11 pm all was quiet, and then it was time to do the nightly cleaning of the office/store/laundry areas.  

TLE and I clocked out at 12:15 am after checking the restrooms which included several disgustingly clogged toilets.......disgusting is not really a strong enough word, but that is the best I can manage right now.   We had barely settled into our recliners to watch TV for a while when the Ranger phone rang.....dang!  A young woman and her young son had pulled into the park pulling a travel trailer and she was unable to get into her site in the dark, and needed to be able to plug in top run her gas heater as the temps were already down to freezing.  I got dressed again and drove the cart over to the store and had her park next to the horseshoe pits where there is a 30 amp electrical pedestal.  She plugged in, got her heater going and I went back home.....oy vey!

We didn't get to sleep until almost 3 am, and then I was awakened by the aforementioned phone call from my boss......time for a nap!

Thanks for stopping by!