Lake Tahoe Kayak Tour 2012

Last week Calvin and I took an inn to inn kayak tour of Lake Tahoe.  Calvin arranged about 45 miles of kayak touring and places to stay on the west side of the lake.  We have never kayaked on the west side of the lake, so this was all new territory for us.  We started at Commons Beach in Tahoe City.

Commons Beach is a very nice public park with easy kayak access. 

Here we are ready to start toward Kings Beach to our north.

The classic picture of Calvin as we leave Commons Beach behind.  We paddled as far as Carnelian Bay and had lunch at Garwoods with the rest of the boating crowd.

One problem we encountered is that hotels aren't usually labeled on the "lake side" so it was sometimes hard to find them, especially our first night at Mourelatos.  A second problem was that if the hotel doesn't have a restaurant you have to walk to dinner.  Our first night we walked to the Safeway store in Kings Beach and had a take out dinner on the beach.

This is the view from our balcony.

Tuesday we turned back south around Dollar Point, past Tahoe City and on to Sunnyside.

This is looking back on Kings Beach. 

Sunnyside does have it's name on the dock.  It was a very welcome sight as we had struggled against a headwind for the last few miles.

I liked Sunnyside.  It is kind of like the old lodges you find in the National Parks.  We had dinner on the deck that night.

Calvin on the beach at Sunnyside ready to start Wednesday morning.

 We pointed the kayak toward Meeks Bay

You can tell that this is a different day because Calvin is wearing a different shirt.  You can see how smooth the water is in the morning.  Easy paddling.

This is Meeks Bay, it is absolutely gorgeous, but the Washoe tribe runs the concession for the Forest Service and they aren't really interested in attracting any clients to their lodging.

I got up early on Thursday morning to watch the sun rise on Meeks Bay.  I had the beach to myself.

We had just a short paddle on Thursday down to Bliss State Park. We found a nice private beach that we only had to share with..

 a flock of Merganser.

We paddled back to Meeks Bay for a second night where we had a full moon paddle.

We took a lot of pictures trying to get the moonlight on the water.

This is the view from the other end of the kayak.

Friday morning we paddled all the way back to Tahoe City.  We were very happy to have the wind at our backs, and very happy to see Rosie and Jay who met us at Tahoe City and spent the rest of the weekend.  A great end to a fun week.

Colorado Reunion 2012

We had a great family reunion this summer.  We used the excuse of Katie Gabbart's wedding to all gather in Colorado for a little family time.  After the beautiful wedding and all the fun activities, we went to Winter Park, Colorado where we rented a house which was almost big enough for the whole family and had our own version of a Pinecrest reunion.

The first day we took a trip to Hot Sulphur Springs for a little pool time.  The name should have tipped us off, it smelled like sulphur, but it didn't stop anyone from diving in. 

Austin and Zach took the waterslide approach as long as Butch was there to catch them.

Clare is working on being a swimmer like her mom.

I love the light in the covered pool.

We also had a traditional picture day in our matching shirts.

We also hiked, rode horses, tried the Alpine slide and threw lots of rocks and sticks into the water.  What more could you ask for?

Butch's family crossing the Colorado River

Hiking the Continental Divide

What a great week.  Thank you everyone for making the trip.

Moana Pool is coming down

Several years ago the Moana pool was deemed too expensive to repair, and has since been closed waiting for something to happen.  Last fall our crafty mayor offered the parking lot as a site for the Reno "Occupy" movement.  He even waived the permit fee I believe.  The Occupiers were thrilled for a couple of months until they discovered that it inconvenienced no one when they occupied the Moana pool parking lot.  Eventually their permit expired along with their enthusiasm and Moana pool was once again vacant.  But new plans are in the works.  A new swim and sports complex is being built on the site of the Moana ball park and pool.  We recently watched the ceremonial smashing of the lobby on TV.  I hurried down to get a picture before it was all gone.

Although it was several days after the lobby smashing, most of the structure was still standing.

The lobby, however, is a pile of sticks..

 I remember walking through this lobby what seems like hundreds of times dropping off and picking up swimmers as they swam their hundreds of laps.  I stayed outside the fence for this photo, but I'm sure some members of the family would not be deterred by a fence, or even a locked door when looking for a little after hours swim time. Some stories are just too good to forget Peter.

Cherries, Cherries and more Cherries

This has been a bumper year for cherries at our house.  We have three mature cherry trees, and the cherries are so thick on them they look like clusters of grapes.

We have three mature trees drooping from the weight of the cherries and we only have one person in our house that actually likes to eat cherries.  However, I just cannot stand to let those beautiful cherries go to waste, so I have made cherry pies, cherry crisp, cherry chutney, and cherry syrup.  I have dried cherries and I have frozen cherries.  I even made cherry chicken, but Calvin drew the line there and announced he had had enough cherries.  We shared our bounty with anyone who came by.  We had our water heater replaced last week which took several days and the plumbers got cherries every day. Not little bags of cherries, but 5 pounds of cherries. I took cherries to the Family History Center and cherries to Relief Society.  We invited people to come pick.  The birds are eating liberally and we still have cherries. Calvin will get back from his backpacking trip tomorrow.  I know that he will be thrilled to have some beautiful fresh cherries from the tree when he gets back.

I mentioned that we got a new hot water heater.  We actually replaced the hot water heater and the heater for the baseboard heating system with a single unit.  For years we have been juggling showers and baths because we didn't quite have enough hot water for more than one every hour or so.  It became a critical issue, in my opinion, when I didn't have enough hot water to fill up the bathtub. I am happy to report that I can now have a full bath and in theory Calvin could shower, and we could run the dishwasher all at the same time and still not run out of water.  Truthfully, I only care that I get a full bath.  Here is the new heater and storage system.  A thing of beauty.

At least compared to what it replaced.

Jay's Graduation

The Graduate!

There is nothing like spending a June afternoon on the quad at UC Santa Barbara. It was a beautiful day to watch Jay graduate, and since we didn't have any responsibilities in the graduation we sat around taking pictures.

So here we are celebrating Jay's big day.

Along with a few thousand of our closest friends.

Calvin without his sunglasses and hat.

Way to go Jay!

More Maui

We are inside taking a break from the sun, so it seems like a good time to post a few more Maui pictures.

This is the "English Cottage" where we are staying.  It is a modern replica of an English 12-14 century stone house.  It is not your typical tropical retreat, but I really like it.

This trip we took a hike we had never done before.  We hiked the Waihe'e Ridge Trail.  It is a beautiful trail that goes from about 1000 feet to 2700 feet over the course of 2.5 miles.  The panoramic views were spectacular.  We saw lots of helicopters buzzing by looking at the same views.

Here is Calvin looking happy at the end of the trail

And here I am looking exhausted at the end of the trail.

And here we are together, just make sure the hike was well documented.

Calvin decided he didn't get enough exercise hiking, so he rode his bike about 50 miles back to the cottage.  This is a rental bike made by FUJI, which Calvin thought he might like better than his beloved Trek. 

We  kayaked a couple of times, so here is the obligatory picture of Calvin in the back of the kayak.  We took a snorkel cruise to Molokini, but I was a little disappointed.  I remember the snorkeling being better than it was.  The clarity was great, but the fish were sparse and the most common site was the legs of first time snorkelers dangling down in the water.  We did see an eel free swimming, so that was kind of cool.

One evening we took a sunset stroll along the beach in Kehei and got an obliging sunset gawker to take our picture.

Another new site we saw were petroglyphs at Olowalu.  There are amazingly similar to some we have seen in southern Utah near Blanding.

And finally we took a moped/scooter ride from Lahaina to Napili.  I have never actually driven a scooter before, and the rental agent was a little appalled that I had never driven one, but valiantly helped me circle the parking lot about six times and we were on our way.  I felt a little confident going straight, but stop/starts and turns were still a little shaky. We drove about half a mile and then stopped for lunch.  So far so good.  Then we headed to the to coast.  Things were going well until I got a little more confident and headed straight into the rocks on the side of the road.  That was a breath-taking experience.  Literally.  Once I could breath again, I gathered up my body parts and they all seemed to be in the right location.  One of the nice things about being married to doctor is that he is pretty good in an emergency, so even when I was having trouble breathing, I was sure that when Calvin figured out I wasn't behind him and got back to me he could help.  Fortunately I didn't need any of his advanced skills and got away with just a very minor amount of road rash and a few aches and pains today.  So here is the proof that I actually rode the scooter.  I'm not ruling out riding again,  but only on a straight road with no stops, starts or turns.  I can handle a straight road.