Why Should We Care About The Shoulder Season?

 If you've heard that visiting Emerald Bay is no longer just crowded during the summer, that is correct. It is busy all year long. It used to be that locals waited for the shoulder season (October, November, April, May) to visit the major tourist attractions.

That strategy still works for many places. For example, the Hellman Ehrman Mansion at Sugar Pine Point State Park on the West Shore is a great place that tourists tend to ignore during the shoulder season. 

We were recently there on a weekday, hoping for one last opportunity to walk the grounds before the first winter storm. What a treat!

This is the front that greets visitors.

This is the lake side.

Here is the view from the back deck.

The mansion was built at the turn of the 20th century by Isaias Hellman, the founder of Wells Fargo Bank. The mansion is as grand as they come, and certainly holds its own against the more famous Vikingsholm Castle at Emerald Bay.

To get there, drive to the main entrance at Sugar Pine Point State Park. There is a self-pay machine. Put in $5, get the printed receipt, and put that on your dash.

During the shoulder season, you can drive up and park close to the mansion. The grounds are vast and have many paths that wind through the forest. You can also walk the (rocky) beach for a mile.

For those of you who pay attention to my books, it was in Tahoe Skydrop where Detective McKenna tracks a murderer and a kidnapped child to the mansion. McKenna finds a secret panel that opens up under a kitchen window in the Hellman Mansion. McKenna gets in through that panel and runs up the stairs to the third floor to confront the bad guy.

In this boathouse is the coolest race boat, built in 1926.

The boat, called MERCURY, is all aluminum. It set a speed record for the time at 58 miles per hour.

You can look into the boathouse and see the boat from several angles.

We had a great afternoon wandering the forest and along the lake, and highly recommend stopping by Sugar Pine Point Park.

Weather Pleasures

 Check out the temps the next few days. Looks like Winter is making an appearance in Tahoe!

17 degrees this (Sunday) morning. The next several days have winter lows as well. 20 degrees, 29 degrees, 26 degrees. The ski areas will be making snow. Everyone will be dusting off their ski equipment. 

Something to celebrate.

What Is Crunch Time For Writers?

 Every year in the fall, I realize that I'm running out of time to finish my next book. If you want to have a book out by a particular date, you can't stretch time. You have to simply recognize the immutable laws of publishing. As measured by the calendar, the publishing pipeline is long. But if you don't put the book in the pipe by the deadline date, you won't have a book when you want it.

But what if it still isn't perfect? you ask.

As I've said many times, you'll never make it perfect. And done beats perfect every time.

Translation: Yes, you want the book to be good, but you have to get it done. So get typing.

As I stare at the looming date on the calendar, my wife often steps in to help. She does many things that make it so I can write uninterrupted. Ten pages a day. Maybe fifteen pages a day. The typewriter gets warm from use. The ribbon needs changing. But the pages pile up. I'm enormously grateful to her for her help.

Is it enough to finish the book on time?

Tune in next summer.

Do I have a title yet?

Sort of. It starts with TAHOE...

What's Best About The Bay Area?

 We're currently on the peninsula (San Carlos), where I'm helping with my wife's art exhibit at the San Carlos Art & Wine Festival. It's relatively close to Tahoe, a good thing. The town and festival itself are nice, a good thing. The event is crowded, a good thing. And the weather is perfect, a very good thing.

Tahoe locals always claim that mountain weather is the best. Cold at night, hot sun during the day. But the Bay Area has amazing weather as long as you don't mind some fog in the morning. (Wait, that's not called fog. It's called The Marine Layer, which usually burns off by late morning.)

Regardless of the month, it never gets very cold and rarely gets very hot in the Bay Area. That's a feature of life near the Pacific.

We take down Sunday evening, head back to our AirBNB in Emerald Hills, then drive home Monday.

P.S. Like all of the festivals across Northern California this year, business has been good for both art and books. No recession in these parts.

Unbelievable

 Where else in the entire world can you go sailing, motorboating, swimming, diving, and parasailing on the purest of high-altitude lakes and still have an entire beach to yourself?!!!

 The storm last week brought us a couple of days of rain. And when the clouds cleared...? SNOW

Here's what Freel Peak, Tahoe's highest mountain, looked like.

Why does snow matter on September 22?

3 Reasons.

One: Snow melts slowly while rain runs off. When snow melts it has time to soak into the ground, which makes it less dry than ground where rain fell and ran off quickly. Water-soaked ground is a good thing.

Two: When the mountains are white with snow, it's good for the ski economy. People see it and start planning their trips to the mountains, booking their hotels and rental cars.

Three: It is a psychological boost to everyone to see that, despite climate change, global warming, and drought, we can have white mountains on the Autumnal Equinox!

The Sweetest Words To A Californian

The forecast calls for rain.

We're always grateful that we don't have much in the way of hurricanes, tornadoes, and other problems. But we do have fire. This time of year, the fire danger cranks up.

So looking at a weather forecast that shows the next few days bringing rain is great.

Another Big Fire Near Tahoe

 We almost felt guilty leaving the smoke that the Mosquito Fire has sent to the Tahoe Basin when we headed to the Mountain View Fine Arts Festival this weekend. The weather on the peninsula south of San Francisco cooled off and the air was very clear.

As of this writing at 8:30 Saturday night, CalFire's Mosquito Fire Incident report shows the fire has grown to 33,000 acres. For a size comparison, last year's Caldor Fire eventually torched something over 200,000 acres. The Mosquito Fire is currently 15% that size. But no one knows how much or how fast it will grow.

In classic fire expansion (as I worked into the story of Tahoe Blowup) the Mosquito Fire is making its own weather with a heat-created storm.

Here's what it looks like from a distance.

The good news is that few if any houses have burned so far. The fire is mostly in a wilderness. 

The bad news is that if its direction shifts much, there are communities that could be in its way.

We head home Monday and will get a closer look then.

My First Art & Wine Festival For 2022 - Mountain View

 The pandemic forced the cancellation of the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival for both 2020 and 2021.

The festival is finally back this coming weekend, September 10 and 11. The show is on Castro Street in downtown Mountain View. This festival is huge (400 artists and crafts people) and will keep you intrigued with countless types of artists. (Including a writer or two!)

The hours are Saturday 11 to 7 and Sunday 10 to 6. Admission is free. Come on by!

Here is more information:

https://mountainview.miramarevents.com/event-details/about-the-event

First Reviews Of Tahoe Moon

The first reviews of TAHOE MOON are coming in. I couldn't be happier.

Tahoe Mountain News: "Borg has hit another one out of the ballpark. Doing so every year is nothing short of amazing."

Bookin' With Sunny: "Never start a McKenna mystery in the afternoon as you're likely not to get to bed until very early the next morning."

Silver's Reviews: Brilliant, very knowledgeable author. The ending will have you flying through the pages.

Kittling: Books: "No matter how much I learn or how much I enjoy Borg's fast-paced mysteries, it's the characters who always bring me back for more. When you've got your hands on a new Owen McKenna thriller, you know you're in for a few hours of sheer reading pleasure."

I'm a lucky guy...

Lake Tahoe History Museum

 In the middle of South Lake Tahoe is the Lake Tahoe History Museum, a fantastic museum devoted to Tahoe history. It has hundreds of cool historical artifacts, many dozens of great displays, books on Tahoe, and much more. I highly recommend that you stop by and plan to spend an hour or two. You will be glad you did.

Want to learn about old Tahoe ships from the early 20th century?

Want to imagine staying at the classic Tahoe hotels from 100 years ago?

Want to learn about Washoe Basket weaving and see actual Tahoe artifacts that go back over 100 years?

It's all there at the museum.

The museum is located at 3058 Lake Tahoe Blvd, South Lake Tahoe.

Because the museum is run by volunteers, the hours are not extensive, typically 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Visit the website for more information: http://www.laketahoemuseum.org/home.html

Or call 530-541-5458.

I've been in countless museums in my life, and I've rarely enjoyed the experience more than the times I've explored in our local museum.

Book Launch Art Festival Catch-up Blog

 Buried with more than I can keep track of, I forgot to put up a blog for this morning. So for those of you who might be wondering if I got run over by a bus after 11 or 12 years of never missing a blog deadline, don't worry. The bus missed.

When you do a proper book launch, there is a whole lotta stuff to attend to. This weekend I helped my wife set up her booth at the Los Altos Fine-Art-In-The-Park festival.

It was a great art show. Los Altos is a beautiful town, pushed up against the Santa Cruz Mountains a couple of miles south of Stanford. Great setting. Great weather. (It always strikes us how perfect Bay Area weather often is.)

We'll be back in a couple of weeks for the Palo Alto Art Festival. After that, the King's Mountain Festival, and after that, the Mountain View Festival, unique for us in that both of us will be showing. Kit will be there with her paintings. I'll be there with my books.

Hope to see you soon!