A Mystery Writer's Notes From Tahoe:
Where the water is pure, the air is cool, and the bad guys all get caught...
I was at my computer when the most recent quake hit, two days ago. It was, for us, a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. People who reside near major fault lines would probably scoff at our reaction, considering no building fell down, no tsunamis washed up on shore, no pipelines were severed by shifting land.
The quake was a mile or so below the center of Lake Tahoe. It was close to the location of one of the last significant quakes. Hmmm. Are the Earthquake gods trying to tell us something?
People are already talking about how low the lake is this spring, and which boat ramps are closing due to low water level, and how maybe this is the beginning of the next 500-year mega drought.
Yes, it could be bad. Meanwhile, long-term drought or not, it will snow again. Unless you're on the Atacama Desert in the Andes, precipitation keeps returning. A drought just means less quantity and less often.
So if your boat has a deep draft, maybe leave it at home, come walk the shore and hike the trails and take pictures of our beautiful pure lake. And don't throw away your snow shovels just yet.
Our much-loved Lake Tahoe Community College art professor David Foster passed away last week.
David was a friend to hundreds and instructor to thousands. An icon of the arts and a part of the bedrock of the Tahoe community, he was one of the original founders of the Lake Tahoe Community College, and he served as head of the art department for decades.
Some knew David as a professor who taught figure drawing, others as the leader of many student trips to Europe to study art. Some knew him as a marble sculptor who worked in Italy. Some knew him as a photographer. Some knew him as a fitness enthusiast who could seemingly run forever.
All knew him as a dedicated, thoughtful man who, while fun and often funny, never lost his focus on being an earnest, smart teacher, tireless supporter of the community, and husband of his great wife Joanne and father of their kids.
We will miss him very much.
When we moved to Tahoe, we never thought about earthquakes. We knew of course about the major quakes that leveled buildings and freeway overpasses and killed lots of people. But Tahoe was never on the list of places with major risk. So when we experienced our first shaker, we were actually excited. This was what everyone talked about! The lamps teetered, the pictures on the wall went crooked, and dishes "walked" across the counters and shelves.
Since then we've experienced many earthquakes that were significant enough to feel. (For those who don't know, there are hundreds and sometimes even thousands of earthquakes a day across the west, most of which are too minor to feel. We only know about them because sensitive instruments pick up the movement.)
We've also learned about plate tectonics. The earth's crust is made up of giant plates that are constantly moving. The reason for their movement is not totally understood, but suffice to say that the interior of our planet is a dynamic place, full of movement. And what goes on down below affects what happens on the surface crust.
The main thing is that those crustal plates move in different directions and at different speeds. The intersection of the plates is where the action is. The stresses build up, and, periodically, those stresses are released when the plates suddenly move. Sometimes one plate pushes up against another, and that process builds mountain ranges. Other times, a plate gets pushed down, or sideways. No matter what direction the tectonic plates suddenly move, we feel it as an earthquake.
In the last two weeks, Tahoe has had two dramatic quakes. They haven't caused much damage. But they sure get your attention!
It's May 1st, and we still have a patch of snow on the north side of our house. That's no big deal. Some years we have snow until June.
But it's a fun contrast when we're out hiking and come to a meadow covered in yellow wild flowers. What kind of wildflowers, you ask? The little yellow kind that look like crepe paper up close.
The Library of Congress is the closest thing we have to a National library. Its location is off the east end of the national mall. It serves congress, but that is only part of its job. It is often considered the world's largest library.
Among a thousand duties, the library of congress issues cataloging numbers to books it deems sufficiently significant. I'm lucky in that it considers my books in that category.
The building and its rooms are spectacular. What a wonderful monument to books!
I'm excited to announce the next Owen McKenna (#19). It's called TAHOE JADE, and it will be published August 1st.
Here's the description:
A Letter From Abe Lincoln
In the fall of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to the new governor of California, Leland Stanford. Lincoln sent the letter by Pony Express, which went through Tahoe. The letter from Lincoln was intercepted, and it never reached Stanford.
An Assault, A Fire, A Kidnapping
160 years later, Firefighter Jade Jaso was assaulted in Sacramento. The next day she nearly died in a warehouse fire. A short time later, her rancher father was killed in a fall at Lake Tahoe. Then Jade disappeared.
A Coded Message
When Detective Owen McKenna is brought on the case, he finds Lincoln’s letter hidden in the personal effects of Jade Jaso’s father, who was a collector of historical memorabilia. The letter contains a coded message. McKenna learns that the message refers to a treasure Stanford had mentioned to Lincoln. Unfortunately, Jade’s father made the deadly mistake of talking about the letter. The information came to a brute of a man who would kill and torture anyone who got in the way of finding that treasure, including Jade and her father, as well as Owen McKenna and McKenna’s girlfriend Street Casey...
TAHOE JADE should be in bookstores come August.
If you prefer ebooks, Amazon just put up a Kindle preorder page, which you can visit to see the cover:
For me, February through April is editing season. My new book is off at my 4th editor. In case you don't know, for most writers, editing and the subsequent rewrites are the most important part turning a rough draft into a competent novel.
Many writers think they can do the editing themselves. Most regret that impulse, for it leads to endless embarrassment in addition to nasty comments in reviews and the resulting poor sales. The reason you can't edit your own work is that you only see what you think you wrote. Whereas an editor sees what you actually wrote.
Because my new book has already been edited multiple times, and because I've rewritten the book after each previous edit, I sometimes suffer the delusion that I've sent my 4th editor a book with very few problems. Ha! It is a joke among us, me and the editors. One small reason is that different editors catch different problems. One big reason is that, when I rewrite to fix past mistakes, I create numerous new mistakes. It never ends.
When I rewrite my final time, I'll send it off into the publication pipeline. And when the finished, printed book comes out, it will, alas, have more mistakes. But, hopefully, they will be few.
I've said before that done is better than perfect. Meaning that you can continue to fix a book forever. If you don't finally decide it's done, you will never have a published book.
Winston Churchill's comment on the subject was (in so many words), "Your book begins as dream, morphs to an infatuation, and possibly moves into the category of mistress. But eventually, it becomes a tyrant. When that happens, you have to open the door and fling it out into the storm."
Good advice. Done is better than perfect. But don't be "done" with it until it's had multiple edits and rewrites.
Are you a hiker? Are you coming to the South Shore? If you want a place to go for a nice long walk that isn't buried in snow and has gorgeous views, come to the Tallac Historic Site. There are very few tourists this time of year, and the views across the lake are grand.
How to get there?
At the "Y" intersection where Emerald Bay Road turns north from Lake Tahoe Blvd., drive northwest out Emerald Bay Road. About three miles out, look for signs for Camp Richardson. There's a General Store, a classic old hotel, lots of cabins, etc.
When you go past the General Store on the right, continue a quarter mile or so and watch for the sign to Valhalla, again on the right.
Just after the turnoff (which is closed) to Valhalla, there is a gravel parking lot on the right where you can park. (There are also many other places where you can simply pull off the highway and park.)
From wherever you park, you will find numerous trails and paths and roads that head north to the shore of Lake Tahoe. When you get to the lake (about a quarter mile) head west along the shore. Take your time exploring. You will find the Heller Estate: https://valhallatahoe.com/valhalla-grand-hall/ , the Pope Estate, the Baldwin Cabin, multiple beaches etc.
Enjoy the old-growth Ponderosa Pines at Valhalla, monster trees that are 7 feet in diameter. Check out the spectacular view of Mt. Rose and the surrounding mountains, 30 miles north. And of course, there is nearby Mt. Tallac, the tallest mountain that sits directly on Lake Tahoe.
You will find miles of snow-free trails and beaches worth exploring. This time of year, you can enjoy these places like locals, unencumbered by the hordes of tourists that will descend come July.
TAHOE HERALD
News Flash
Byline: Glenda Gorman
Here's an interesting bit of trivia (to me, anyway) about snowfall in the Tahoe region.
Everyone knows that Tahoe gets tons of snow. Does more snow fall because Tahoe is at 6,250 feet above sea level? How about nearby areas like Kirkwood at 8000 feet?
Yes, but not for the reason you probably think!
When storms push off the Pacific and rise up the Sierra, the clouds cool, and they can't hold as much water vapor. So they drop their moisture as precipitation. Here comes the surprise trivia.
By the time the storms have come up over the Sierra crest at 8000 to 10,000 feet, they've already dropped the majority of their moisture!
This moisture generally falls as rain on the West Slope of the Sierra. As the storms get to the higher mountains, the air has cooled enough that the remaining precipitation usually falls as snow. And because Tahoe is colder, that snow usually sticks around and accumulates into a deep snow pack.
Once in awhile, the storms stay cold enough that the foothill precipitation comes as snow down to 3000 feet or even lower. When that happens, the greater total moisture in the foothills means that the higher foothills can actually get more snow than Tahoe!
Tonight, we are supposed to get a moderate storm. It will be cold. As I write this, Tahoe is expected to get up to 8 inches at 7000 feet and up to 12 inches on the Sierra crest. But the higher foothills are expected to get up to 18 inches!
Because foothill temperatures are generally warmer, their snow will melt and Tahoe's snow will remain, adding to the perception that Tahoe gets all the snow. The bottom line is that the foothills get more total moisture than Tahoe. When it's very cold, that occasionally translates into more snow.
This happens a couple of times a year.
Phew! You probably couldn't get through the day without knowing that, huh?
