Climate Refugees

I've often noticed that many Tahoe residents are climate refugees. Like us, they came for the skiing and stayed for the year-round sunny weather. Although we're now used to California weather, I was reminded of it when we came down to exhibit my books and Kit's paintings at the Sacramento Fine Arts Festival (October 26, 27, 28). While much of the country is getting a taste of cold, wet winter weather, and Tahoe's daily highs are all the way down into the 60s, Sacramento is in the high 70s and low 80s, and the sun is brilliant.

So I Googled "Sunniest American cities" and here is what I found. Sacramento and Los Angeles are number 3 and 4.

Here's the link:
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/US/sunniest-cities.php

It's a fun website. You can search for lots of variables like cloudy days and average temperature. You can also search by state and by city.

Enjoy!

Painters Paint, Writers Write

The pesky part of being a writer is you have to write the books. You can't just think about it or talk about it. Same for painters.

Having said that, I admit that my wife and I have it pretty good, living where we do and both having creative occupations.

This past week, enabled by perfect weather, not too hot, not too cold, was an example. We went out to Hope Valley, just south of Tahoe. I brought a chair and my laptop, Kit brought her plein air easel, and we focused on that pesky work. Nice gig...

The view of Kit's work space as seen from my "desk." This is the Carson River, still flowing after all these sunny months. The little bump in the far background is Round Top, 10,400 feet.

Kids And Horses

One of the cool things about being an author is participating in charity-name auctions to raise funds for a worthy charity.

I've done this a few times. The way it works is an author agrees to allow a charity to auction off the right to have one's name used for a character in the author's upcoming book. The winning bidder gets the fun of having their name applied to a fictional character, whether it be a wonderful heroic character, an evil bad guy, or somewhere in between.

My most recent title, Tahoe Skydrop, had two characters named for auction winners. One provided funds for the Women and Children's Center in Reno. Another provided funds for the Carson City Friends of the Library.

Last summer, I was approached by the organizers of a fundraiser for the Kids & Horses charity in Minden, Nevada. They provide therapy for kids that revolves around getting those kids into contact with horses. It turns out that many kids with problems strongly connect to horses, whether riding them or simply being around them.

The fundraiser auction was held in Incline Village a few weeks ago. They auctioned off two names for me to use in my next book.

How much did those two character names raise? $5,000!

Wow, I guess I better do a good job with those characters!

Here's the link to Kids & Horses

Jackie, The Very Nice Ski Instructor

Last weekend, I exhibited my books at the Candy Dance Festival in Genoa, Nevada. It was, as usual, a mob scene.

One fun experience was when a charming woman with her two sons in tow came to my tent. She introduced herself as Jackie, and she explained that 28 years ago, she'd been a ski instructor at Heavenly.

The view from Heavenly

That was the year my wife and I moved to Tahoe. We wanted to take a break from the real world, so we decided to try the "ski bum" life for a season and got jobs at Heavenly. I worked as a "liftee" helping skiers as they rode the lifts. I asked the supervisor if I could be assigned to the "Mighty Might," a type of rope tow on the beginner hill where skiers grab onto "paddles" attached to the tow.

To give you some perspective, the total vertical drop at Heavenly is 3,600 feet. The total vertical drop of the Mighty Might hill was 10 feet. But you'd be amazed at the trouble (and fun!) beginning skiers can get into with just 10 feet of rise and drop.

The Mighty Might assignment was considered the lamest, most uncool job in the lift department. But I saw an opportunity to make it my own. I put up a blackboard and wrote down the names of countries that the beginning skiers came from. Dozens of countries every day, from all over the world! I put up fun quotes. And when I wasn't busy, I sat in the sun (or in the storms!) and wrote.

When ski instructor Jackie introduced herself in Genoa, she said how she still remembered me on the Mighty Might hill, writing every day on my yellow pad of paper. She was so glad to see that my writing had turned into something.

Then I suddenly remembered her from 28 years ago. And I recalled that my singular impression of Jackie was that she was the nicest, smiling-est instructor at Heavenly. And like me, she didn't consider working the Mighty Might as lame at all. She saw it as an opportunity to help brand new skiers get a great introduction to a fantastic sport in one of the world's most beautiful areas.

As my memory of her came back, I told her two sons about how nice and kind and generous Jackie was with her ski students.

They looked a bit doubtful.

Jackie said, "See boys? I CAN be nice. I HAVE been nice.

What fun!

Great Danes At Book Signings

This weekend, I'm exhibiting at the Candy Dance Festival in Genoa, Nevada's oldest town. Yesterday, people brought four Great Danes. One couple had two, a Brindle and a Fawn. One man had a Black. Another had a Merle. All quite large. All very calm and well-behaved.

Black

Brindle

Fawn

Merle

Of course, the dogs were mobbed by the crowds, getting hugs, pictures, pets. Very fun.

Oh, Yeah, Time To Revisit...

There are many places in Tahoe worth revisiting again. And again. This is one of them.

The Rubicon Trail is accessed from D.L. Bliss State Park on the West Shore, just north of Emerald Bay. Because Rubicon Point is the tallest underwater cliff in the lake - 1000 vertical-foot-wall dropping under water - the depth gives the water an amazing color.

Note the two stand-up paddle boarders off the rocky point.

Much of the hike is substantially above the water, so you have many opportunities to look straight down into that amazing blue.

If you want more details, here's a link to a post I wrote four years ago:
http://toddborg.blogspot.com/2014/10/best-hikes-in-tahoe-rubicon-trail.html

Enjoy!

Why You Should Come To Tahoe In September

It doesn't get better than this. High temp of 73, high 74, high 70...

And the forecast is calling for more of the same for the rest of the week. Add to that the fact that the tourists have largely left. Yesterday, we walked out to Pope Beach. It was deserted. The water was an amazing transition of intense blues. The beach sand was hot. And no one was there.

Time to come up the mountain and enjoy it!

What Your Dog Can Do That Chimps Cannot

Chimps, Bonobos, and the other great apes are our closest relatives. They are highly intelligent and have complex societies that are surprisingly like ours. Yet there is something that your dog gets that they don't.

Pointing.

With very little training, your dog knows what you mean when you point at something. It will look where you're pointing because it knows that you want it to. Maybe it's which cup to knock over to find a treat. Or maybe it's a bird off in the next field.

But despite lots of effort, researchers can't seem to get our primate cousins to understand this basic skill.

Sure, there are no doubt lots of perfectly good reasons why chimps and bonobos don't understand pointing. Or maybe they do understand it, but don't care. (Cats, anyone?)

Two of our Great Danes got excited when we pointed. It didn't matter if it was a squirrel in a tree or a plane in the sky or a tennis ball in the grass or a treat we'd hidden. When we'd point, they would immediately turn and stare, frowning, focusing, looking for whatever it was that we were trying to indicate.

Smart animals, those dogs we all love.

Doggles!

We were hiking in the woods the other day and came upon a couple with two German Shepherds. The dogs wore goggles.

While we watched, one of the couple held the dogs while the other person hiked far into the woods and hid a blue "bone." When that person rejoined the spouse and dogs, they waited a bit, then gave the command "FIND."

The dogs raced off into the forest. A short time later, the dogs ran back. One of them had the blue bone in its mouth. A great game of course. The first time we'd seen it with dogs wearing goggles.

If your dog has a head injury you don't want it to scratch, you put a big cone collar on it. The dog will of course try to get that cone off.  I would have thought that once out of the observation of humans, the dogs would shake and paw-off those pesky dog goggles as well. Shows what I know.

The people explained that the dogs like the goggles because, as with people running through trees and brush, the dogs don't have the stress of branches poking at their eyes.

Wow, and I thought the dogs I've seen wearing sunglasses just did it to please their owners.

Another example of dog smarts.

Cool Tahoe Hiking Website

Local writer/artist/photographer Jared Manninen has a newish (at least to me) website about trails in the Tahoe area. It is called Tahoe Trail Guide dot com. Whether you're a hiker or skier or snowshoer or backpacker, or you just want to look at the gorgeous pictures, you will enjoy this site. Here's the link:

https://tahoetrailguide.com/

If you want to learn about its creator... Another link:

https://jaredmanninen.com/

Enjoy!

P.S. I've met Jared. In addition to his generosity - obvious from the effort he's put into making all of this info available to the world for nothing - I can also attest that he is a Nice Guy.

P.P.S The pic above is a Pixabay image, as I did not feel I should grab one of Jared's off his website. Better to go to the website and see Tahoe the way Jared presents it.

The Single Most Important Tip About Tahoe

Go early.

For driving, parking, hiking, boating, biking, eating.

In the first seven days of my new book launch, I've been around the lake twice. And I've seen what most locals avoid. Which is tourists trying to get someplace - anyplace - find parking, beach spots, hiking trails, dinner reservations etc. Many are frustrated and get turned away by the various gate-keepers.

But even at the busiest times of the year, Tahoe can be a great experience if you simply go early. For hiking, try to be at the trail head by 7 a.m. For the beaches and parks, show up at the entrance gate 15 or 20 minutes before they open. (Google your destination to see what the hours are.) For a deli sandwich or other groceries and picnic supplies, get to the supermarket by 8 a.m., or much earlier if possible. Again, look up the hours online. 

Locals have to get their daily supplies, too. But we know that during summer one should be done with all errands and be off the road by 9 a.m.

If you get to your destination early, you'll be much happier.

Tahoe Beach before the crowds arrive.

Enjoy Tahoe!

Red Flag Warning!

The last two days, Cal Fire and the National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning for extreme fire danger. Not just Tahoe, but most of Northern California and Northern Nevada.

The warning comes when humidity levels are very low and wind predictions are very high. Even the tiniest spark can start a fire that grows explosively into a blowup. (Oh yeah, I wrote a book about that.)

So no yard work (a shovel hitting a rock can cause a spark), no campfires or barbecues (a hot ash can drift into vegetation), no parking off paved roads (a vehicle's exhaust and catalytic converter can ignite vegetation) and no cigarettes smoked outdoors.

Please stay safe.