Being a homeowner at Lake Tahoe is an exercise in quirkiness, frustration and required inventiveness. Beyond all the zoning regulations required for something as seemingly simple as tree removal, there’s the inherent silliness of home construction. For many middle-class folks, buying an older (read: built before 1999) home is the only option available. And homes built circa 1950-89 aren’t really built for winter. Single pane windows, little or no insulation, baseboard heating (if at all), drafty construction, not to mention oddly designed kitchens meant more for weekend visitors than full time residents. These were a generation of homes built for summer visitors, and making it a truly year-round home requires sometimes considerable effort.
While we were lucky when we found our house – it had double pane windows! a new roof! – we knew that we would have to invest in some upgrades if only to allow wintertime temps to get above 55 F. Over the past few years these upgrades have included a clean burning wood stove, new heavier curtains and blinds, and the great ‘Insulate the walls from within’ project, where we lost a bit of floor space by adding insulation to all the external walls of the bricked ground floor.
Alas, even with all that effort, we were still losing enough heat that we still couldn’t maintain the house at a temp above 62 degrees. Luckily, a friend of ours needed a client/victim for a home efficiency study, and we offered up our quirky home. Thanks to professional evaluation, we learned that much of the heat was escaping through our afterthought, uninsulated mudroom. The solution? Add a door between the mudroom and kitchen.
Simple enough, but you must understand that nothing is simple here. The door frame was a combination of wonky (think Alice in Wonderland on a mild scale) and masonry, which is apparently a tough combination for the hardiest of DIY folks. N, to his credit, saw this, like all the other home projects, as an engineering challenge. We opted for a custom made door, which had it been cut to our measurements initially, would have been fine. Alas, the door manager at the local hardware store was not only dyslexic but stupid, and we ended up the first time with a door that didn’t fit.
Cue to this month, a year later. N was able to speak with the store managers and get a new door ordered, and spent the past weekend measuring and drilling, with little help from me, Mz. Stickyfingers. It’s up, and while there’s no finishing trim, its effects are already being noticed, both by us (house is staying warm downstairs!) and the dog (confused). And as an added bonus, we no longer have to worry about the dog getting into the trash in the mudroom.
We’re hoping that this door minimizes any immediate need to insulate the floors (another leaky part of the house), as that would be a monumental task compared to these other projects. And time will tell whether we're saving money on our energy bills.
- I may be getting older, but the wisdom thing ain't happening
- Giving up coffee is not for the weak
- You use your chest muscles for a lot more things than you realize
- A chest contusion is unpleasant (and makes comedies painful)
- Stretching does make a difference
- Patience is overrated
October typically marks the beginning of the ski film season, when filmmakers of all winter persuasions (telemark, alpine, snowboard) take their shows on the road, fueling the winter lust of die-hard skiers like me. This weekend brought a double whammy of telemark films, including the newest film from the Powderwhores, a Utah based collection of rippin' backcountry telemark skiers.
While non-skiers will probably never fully understand the addiction that is powder skiing, this trailer captures a bit of the energy and joy that I get when dancing through untracked snow. I'm just hoping Mother Nature pulls through with this El Nino crap, as I'm jonesing for some deep snow after this movie.
For those in South Lake Tahoe on Monday, another tele film, Freeheel Life, will be playing at LTCC at 8pm.
Back in May I learned (through a pretty cool video) that I’d won a California Passport from the Joie de Vivre (JdV) boutique hotel chain. Based entirely in California, JdV has 35 properties throughout the state, and this passport included a 2 night stay at every single one of them. For the mathematically challenged, that is 70 nights (or nearly TWO months). And making it even nicer for me, the vast majority of the properties are conveniently located in San Francisco and the Bay Area, both of which are just a few hours from Lake Tahoe.
While I was super excited about this prize, I only visited the first hotel at the end of September. Life got in the way. N and I decided to head down to San Francisco to meet up with his parents, who were driving down from Bend for a family reunion. The reunion was on Treasure Island, so we stayed at the relatively nearby Hotel Vitale, located a stone’s throw from the Embarcadero and Ferry Building.
The Vitale was gorgeous – by far the nicest hotel I’ve stayed in while in San Francisco. Apparently each JdV hotel has a theme, and this one’s is very obviously healthy living – is there a Wellness Magazine? Daily yoga classes, access to the nearby YMCA, a spa, and lots of muted natural colors giving the place a calming feel. We didn’t spend a lot of time in the room (does one ever when in this city?) but the location was perfect for on-foot exploration, given the proximity to the Ferry Building (hellooooo, food mecca!), North Beach, SOMA and Union Square. And the hotel restaurant had a happy hour menu that, in an unusual twist, ran on weekends. The weekend we were there it was unusually warm, making sitting outside with a glass of wine and tapas most appealing. It felt almost European, only without the cigarette smoke.
I was able to get a room for N’s parents at the Hotel Carlton, whose magazine has to be National Geographic Adventure. It’s located in a historic building that apparently survived the 1906 earthquake (and later the Loma Prieta quake), both because it’s built on bedrock and because the structure itself is reinforced. Given that I’m no fan of shaking ground, this in itself is a huge selling point. But the hotel’s ADA room really sealed the deal. It was spacious, with a wheelchair accessible bathroom, and plenty of room overall. While it didn’t have the views the other rooms might have provided (it is on the ground floor), the effort that was put into making sure this room really adhere to ADA requirements was noticed and appreciated. The staff were terrific here, too, very friendly and fun - they all seemed to truly like working at the Carlton.
While an abbreviated trip, there were a few firsts. I’d never been to Baker Beach, where the photo was taken, nor to Treasure Island. The latter is almost a throwback in time, with the old barracks from its Naval Base days sitting vacant and dilapidated. Some of the buildings have been repurposed, but the part of the island where we were was quiet with no amenities. Despite this, we had a huge grassy lawn to ourselves, along with a stunning view of the San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate Bridge. It was quiet and there was relatively few people there, which, based upon the traffic we saw on the Bay Bridge, was a rare thing in this part of California.
The other day I received something I'd not seen in years - a genuine handwritten letter. It was very novel in the world of immediacy. That this one came out of the blue from a long-lost friend living overseas made it all the more unexpected and appreciated. And oddly genteel, though I'm pretty sure she didn't use a feathered plume to write it.
Having become so accustomed to immediate news and updates from friends and family, whether through email, Facebook or the many other online tools, I realized that there is something to be said for traditional forms of communication. It's so much more tangible, for starters, and she even included some photos - real printed photos that I can frame or post on my fridge.
I'm so excited about rediscovering the lost art of letter writing that I am writing my friend back with a pen and paper. Heck at this rate I might even return to my journals - the ones I used to write in before I began this blog.
While the phrase 'El Nino' has been used a lot when referring to this upcoming winter, I've remained cautiously pragmatic. Color me skeptical, but I know how fickle Mother Nature can be, so I like to err on the side of caution.
This morning, however, I awoke to this. That quickly changed skepticism to fervent hope that this is the sign of great things to come this winter. While it's not unusual to get a dusting at this time of year, a true storm like this doesn't tend to happen until November (or later). So there's reason to hope, as evidenced by the local ski resorts excited posts on Facebook and Twitter.
To confirm that it was actually accumulated snow and not just a dusting, we took the mutt for a short hike to Gilmore Lake in the Desolation Wilderness. With boot-top snow for much of the hike above 7,000 feet, and few tracks besides ours, it was a glorious day to be outside.
Our timing was perfect, too, for the clouds moved in as we got to the car, and it's been snowing hard since. My plans for tonight did not involve shoveling the driveway, but it just might now.
