July 2024

For the first time, possibly ever, June and I went up to the cabin alone and stayed alone for the entire week. Clayton and his contingent had just departed and did a very nice job of cleaning. 

We did lots of fun things while we were there.

See the pics (Click  on the next screen to play music)

And we also worked.

Here is a list of the work things we accomplished while we were there:

• I secured 2 of the 3 curtain holders in the living room. The middle one never did have any sort of anchor. We bought a hammer and center punch and I pounded a small hole through the sheet metal just below the drywall, then threaded a small sheet metal screw in it to hold it firmly. The right side took a real molly bolt to hold it securely. We also bought a nice wheel barrow and wall scraper.
• Stacked a 10'-long by 3'-high pile for North Tahoe FD to chip. They came and did that just after we left.
• Filled 10 large garbage bags of twigs/pine needles for the garbage company to haul away. I just called Tahoe Truckee Sierra Disposal and they will automatically take up to 6 bags and bill the account. Any more than that and you have to schedule and prepay. I just did that.
• I removed the old broken lattice under the rear deck and pulled out the dilapidated furniture. We planned to somehow destroy the four pieces and haul them to the dump, but after seeing the nice cushions that went with the benches, we decided to instead put them on FB Marketplace for FREE. After about 30 people showed interest, someone said, 'I'll be there tomorrow morning'. So I marked it as sold. A couple drove two SUV vehicles from South Shore and hauled them away.
• I scraped quite a bit of old paint off the siding bottom on the back, north side, and front of the house. Then we applied what was left of the paint. Looks much better but it is only a stop-gap as the entire house will need paint in the next several years.
• We solicited several quotes to have the one dead tree cut and removed. The cheapest and most professional of the bunch was Setare Trees in Auburn. The came the day after we left and, after a couple of miscues, the finally sent pictures that proved that they actually did a good job.
• I broke the glass coffee pot, so I ordered a new one due to arrive the day before we were planning to leave. Apparently UPS didn't like the address and the shipment was delayed a day. We had already left so we wrote a note for the UPS driver to leave the package UNDER the deck and remove the note. On the blink recording later that day, we watched the driver see the note, and put the package on top of it.

Almost every day in the late afternoon, June and I would head down to the pool to swim and play a few games of ping pong. We would sometimes swim out to one of the platforms in the lake. Our last day there we actually sat on the beach and soaked in the sun.

Sunday July 7

The official kickoff date of June's Birth Month! Not ideal to drive up on her actual birthday, but it was super hot at home so we figured, 'Why Not!' We had a nice, leisurely drive up. No traffic to speak of. It was also unusually hot in Tahoe. I got a reservation for Spoon that evening and they never disappoint. And I just remembered: Although we thought of it often, June really wanted to go to Sunnyside for the traditional MaiTai while we were there. We never did. Sorry sweetie!

Monday 7/8

On the way to Tahoe City, we stopped at Eagle Rock to take the first hike of the week. Never disappoints! In Tahoe City, we noticed the Pack and Save had gone out of business. But there was a nice sign on the building saying that Safeway was 2 miles with an arrow pointing East. So we went shopping for groceries at New Moon.

Tuesday 7/9

Hiked at Barker Pass. Our usual fun hike had MANY thru hikers: people hiking either the TRT (Tahoe Rim Trail) or the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail which goes from Mexico to Canada). We like to pause and chat with them. The wildflowers were still blooming at that altitude.

Thursday 7/11

We had dinner at Chamber's Grill. June had a giant Pork Chop. I had a deep fried Fish-n-Chips. The grease killed me. Never again!

Saturday 7/13

We discovered a wonderful hike on All Trails called Skyland to Basalt Overlook. Only 2.51 miles and 781 ft. of Elev. gain, the views are similar to Eagle Rock, only about 1000 ft. higher. Stupendous!

Sunday 7/14

We did a nice loop up to Sunrise benches, Quail, Homewood, and back. I recorded it on All Trails and titled it Chambers Wilderness loop. Never heard back from All Trails about making it an official hike.

Monday 7/15

We drove 1.5 hours north on highway 89 to meet Carolyn at Graeagle Meadows golf course. It was a warm but beautiful day. We played 9 holes and saw millions of grasshoppers/locusts on the course. We then had lunch at the course, then drove a short ways into town for an ice cream. Then we drove back to the cabin.

Tuesday 7/16

We took a nice hike up to Homewood. We ended up at the chairlift just below Quail Lake.

We had dinner at the Swiss Lakewood Restaurant. It was...an Adventure. We made reservations, arrived, and were seated inside as we requested. The outside looked a lot more fun, but no idea if there were bugs or whatever. We ordered: June had Salmon and I ordered the Filet Mignon medium (pink). He submitted the order as 'medium-well'. We planned to split the 'Surf-n-Turf' meal. The food arrived, and I promptly cut into the steak to split it in half. It was purple in the middle. Even the server couldn't restrain a gasp. He took it back as we devoured the salmon. It was good but rather small. The steak came back looking about half the size as when it originally arrived. The server said that the cook, butter-flied it, meaning he cut it in half horizontally. Ok, but this was only about one half of it. He got the manager and she apologized saying, "How can we make this right?" We just agreed to cut our losses and leave. They took the steak off the bill. We still had plenty of food at home.

Wednesday 7/16

We cleaned, painted and then went to sit on the beach.

We left Thursday morning 7/17 after cleaning. We stopped at Firesign for breakfast; our usual meatless scramble. It was delicious. We had a perfect ride home except for minor slowdowns for roadwork going up to Donner Summit.

See the pics (Click  on the next screen to play music)