Part II - Prescott, Bishop, the beautiful Owens Valley and a ghost town visit.

Okay...continuing where I left off yesterday. After we left Tucson, we headed to Prescott, AZ....a very popular retirement town. Pulling into town, the first thing we noticed was the greenery. Unlike Tucson, there were trees (not cactus) and grass. It wasn't Oregon, but it was a big improvement over the lower Sonoran desert. Again, I'll give you a synopsis here....we didn't care for the town. Sure they had lots of chain stores and restaurants, but the housing was ugly and overpriced and the downtown left a lot to be desired. Lots of "characters" walking around the town square. We found out later that Prescott is a big "rehab" town, with clinics everywhere and a huge VA facility. Not much culture, no upscale restaurants that we could find and here's an unusual thing we noticed.....no one was friendly. We're used to everyone speaking when you pass. Not here. We walked around the town square two nights and not a person spoke, except for one couple with a dog. So much for a very highly rated town. And one more thing....we bought gas at an Arco station the night before we left. My debit card got rejected (remember the commercial..."You've been declined"), so I used my American Express card. Later back in the room, I called my bank to find out why my card had been rejected and I found out that someone had tried to put in a charge for $100 on my card. Their system caught it and it wasn't paid. How do they know? I immediately cancelled the card. Then I wondered if this person/recovering addict at the station had also tried to use my Amex card. Yep...it turns out they had tried, but the software program again caught it. That card was also cancelled on the spot. So much for Prescott. We packed up and blew out of that town in a hurry.

The drive to Bishop was a long one....we sort of back-tracked through Area 51 part of the way still looking for spy planes or aliens, then cut up into the beautiful Owens Valley and arrived at the quaint little town of Bishop, CA. Bishop is a hub for back packers hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, rock climbers, ski bums, photographers, fly fishermen (some of the best trout lakes in the country are there) and people who just generally love the outdoors. I've know about Bishop for over 40 years, since I attended a photography workshop led by the late Galen Rowell. Galen put Bishop on the map....and his studio is still there and doing a big business. The town is surrounded by some of the tallest peaks in the Sierra's...including the tallest peak in the states...Mt. Whitney at 14,500'. To say the area is beautiful is a huge understatement. I posted some pictures, which I know don't do it justice. I had to take quick snapshots as we drove along....something I really hate to do. As Arnold would say...."I'll be back" (think an Austrian dialect).

From Bishop, we headed home and drove through the most beautiful mountain range we've seen since Mont Blanc in Chamonix, France. Huge snow-capped peaks, beautiful mountain lakes, valleys full of wild flowers, rock formations that look fake and so much more. One of our stops was at Convict Lake. On the trail around the lake, Tuck decided he would run down the rocky slope and dive in...with me following and dropping the "F-bomb" at full volume.  He was lucky. The water was freezing, the wind was gusting to 65mph and the rocks on the shore were huge. He found a log and somehow pulled himself back up on the shore. If the log hadn't been there, yours truly was going in after him. That would have been interesting.

Anyway, I digress. If you can't make it to the Alps....this drive will do just fine folks. For more than six hours, we drove through scenic valleys and high up on the mountain passes on one lane roads. Absolutely stunning. Oh yeah....we'll be back.

As a side trip on the way through the valley, we decided to take a slight detour (actually a 15 mile drive over a one-lane dirt road) and visit the most well-preserved ghost town in the country....Bodie. It's an old mining town that was deserted in the 30's, but most of the buildings date back to the 1850's. The US Parks department fortunately took it over in the 50's and prevented it from being looted and ruined. Rangers are posted there every day, rain or shine. If you can get there through 10' of snow in January...you'll find a ranger there to lead a tour. It's very cool and I hope anyone reading this will make the trek. You not only get to see the buildings up close and personal, but everything inside the houses is exactly as the residents left them. Plates still on the tables, school books still on the desks, etc. The residents just up and left. Boom....done. The rangers don't know exactly why everyone left at about the same time, but they did. I did some research and the best scenario is that the gold mine closed suddenly and that was it. I posted some pictures to give you an idea of how this amazing little town looks today. Enjoy.

That's about it for now. We headed home after leaving Bodie and got home late after driving around beautiful Lake Tahoe on the way. Man...what a day for scenery!

Cheers!

Wayne, Claudia and Tuck

Holy Guacamole it's hot in Tucson....a Las Vegas motorcycle auction and more.

There's a lot to tell in this post, so I'm going to post this in a couple parts....it's less boring this way.

Part 1 Las Vegas and the trip to Tucson:

Wow...June has been an exciting month for us so far. On our ever-expanding quest to find the perfect place to live...we decided to rent a home in Tucson up in the high desert, to check out the climate, the architecture and the town in general.  On the way there, we stopped in Las Vegas so I could attend the "Mecum Las Vegas Vintage Motorcycle" auction and shop for my next project (I didn't see Elvis...although he was rumored to be in the building).

On the way to Vegas, we drove by the world's largest ammunition depot and right next to it, the top-secret Air Force base, called Area 51, located in the dried up Groom Lake bed (To this day the government will not disclose what goes on there). I'm not kidding...Google Area 51. I can tell you this....the place is freakin' HUGE and has a very high creepy factor. Since we saw very little activity on the surface, I definitely believe the stories that most of the facility is underground. We saw no aliens, but several of the locals in the Area 51 Alien diner (a picture will be added soon) definitely showed signs of having parents who were from "somewhere else". From there, we headed to Prescott, AZ to get a feel for a smaller mountain desert town and last, but definitely not least, we ended up in the climbing and hiking mecca of Bishop, CA to begin our drive home through the beautiful Owens Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountains surrounding us all the way home. And oh yes, we walked through the most well-preserved ghost town in America....Bodie, CA. All total, we drove about 2,700 miles, almost as much as our trip out here from Florida. Whoa....it's vast out here!

The Las Vegas Vintage Bike Auction and a trip to Tucson: I recently sold my BMW R-26 to a collector in Reno, NV, so I thought this auction might be a good place to shop for a new project. And boy was I right. Since Las Vegas was on the way to our rental home in Tucson, it was a great way to combine a personal trip with business. We loaded up the truck, put our buddy Tuck in his back seat condo and headed out from Grass Valley. The drive to Las Vegas went through some of the most desolate country we've ever driven...and we've driven in a lot of places. I've mentioned the "pioneers" before (those unbelievable souls who settled this country) and this drive just underscored my admiration of them. We drove for six hours with nothing but desert on either side...at 75mph. It was 100 degrees. Then up to 105 and climbing. Imagine doing this in a horse-drawn wagon...with your family? And then suddenly, you see a massive ammunition depot.....the Hawthorne Army Depot. Big?....uh, that would be correct. It's the largest in the world...147,000 acres and contains 2,500 underground bunkers. Need some WWI mortar shells? They've got 'em. And right after you pass that strange place, you arrive at....Area 51. Look it up...it's a fascinating place and very real. And very secret. One quick fact...you can't fly over Area 51. No one can. The airspace above it is classified...all the way into deep space. Hmmm.....I'm betting Agents Mulder and Scully are still trying to find a way in there. I sure miss that show.

The motorcycle auction was a hoot. The Mecum Company stages these auctions around the country and one just happened to be going on June 1-3 in Vegas.  I took an Uber ride to the casino, bought my ticket to the auction and walked through a giant room with maybe 1,000 slot machines, roulette tables, craps tables, blackjack tables and maybe 100 bar girls dressed in....not much. Nudity is cool in Vegas. No one seems to care. I didn't. There were about 750 motorcycles being auctioned. Amazingly, some very rare bikes were auctioned with a "no reserve" clause, meaning the bike had to sell, no matter what the winning bid ended up. And some ended up selling way lower than what they were worth. I will be buying my next bike at one of these auctions.

From Vegas, we headed to Tucson, where we rented a cool house on the outskirts of town in the high desert. We'd heard a lot about Tucson....great adobe-style architecture, an active food scene with brew pubs and food trucks, views of the mountains from every direction, over 300 clear sun days a year, lots of affordable housing, low utilities, an international airport, lots of gated communities with low HOA fees and lots more. Definitely a place we needed to check out. I won't go into a lot of detail of the trip, as there's too much to tell and most of it isn't anything anyone other than Claudia and I would want to read, so here's a summary: Most of the good things we'd heard about the area were true. What we didn't like was the town itself....or should I say the "sprawl" of the town. It's spread out over a huge area and the roads into and out of the town are too few and too crowded. Traffic might have been fine on these roads back in the 60's...but now, forget about it. It's 30-40 minutes to get anywhere. The last comment I have on Tucson is that it's located in a very, very dry area of the Sonoran Desert. It's dry folks...arid. Nothing green but the cactus. And...it was not for us. We stayed three days, visited the local restaurants and the surrounding Sonoran mountains (which are beautiful) and headed out to Prescott, AZ...a very popular retirement town.

Part II - Prescott, Sedona, Bishop and the Owens Valley.  Coming soon.....

We head to Yosemite National Park....and so did everyone else.

Before I write about Yosemite Park, I have to mention a PBS series we just watched about our national parks...and it's a must-see. It was produced in 2009 by Ken Burns (arguably one of the best documentary producer/directors living today). It's called The National Parks: America's Best Idea. We've only been able to find three of the six episodes, but we're searching for the rest and if we have to buy the series, we will. It's that good. Little did I know, but we owe our entire national park system to the dedication, foresight and talents of a handful of men....John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, Stephen Mather, Horace Albright, Franklin Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Were it not for these guys and a handful of others, every one of our amazing national parks would have been sold off to the mining companies, logging companies, railroads, real estate developers and others who just don't give a damn about our natural resources. After you watch a few of these shows, you'll understand just close we came to losing it all. You'll also learn about an amazing couple who explored the parks out West in their old Buick's (think 1920's)...and camped beside their car in the wilderness. The first RV-ers? Probably...and they're our hero's (you'll understand why after you watch the series).

Now, on to the story about our recent trip to Yosemite. Sitting around the campfire one night (actually our dining room table), Claudia and I realized that we needed to visit Yosemite before the schools let out for the Summer. Plus, this was a record year of snow (now melting) and the reports coming out of Yosemite said that the waterfalls were as good as they've ever been. We were hoping that our arrival on Sunday would coincide with the weekend visitors leaving. Whoops....were we ever wrong. It turns out there really is no "down time" for Yosemite.

Since Yosemite is only a three hour drive from our home in Grass Valley, we loaded up a few clothes, a bunch of my cameras, some of Claudia's great pimento cheese spread, some King's Hawaiian rolls (one of the great food products ever produced) and of course, our buddy Tuck. And off we went. When we arrived at the outskirts of the park (the ranger's station is about 20 miles from Yosemite Village), we noticed that cars were piling into the park. No one was leaving. Lots and lots of cars. And buses. And RV's. We got in a long line of cars and drove about 20MPH the rest of the way into the park. Once we arrived at Bridal Veil Falls, one of the first amazing waterfalls,  we discovered that there were no parking places and everyone was driving around jockeying for the next spot to open up when someone pulled out. It was nuts. What's up with this? It's May for crying out loud. Schools aren't out yet and it's a week before Memorial Day. Who were all these people and didn't they know it was our week to visit? The nerve.

We quickly discovered first hand what the PBS series had been trying to tell us....our national parks are being loved to death. Walking around the park grounds, we heard Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, British, Slavic, Canadian ('eh) and probably Russian. Everyone was there....young, old, people on bikes, lots of strollers, backpackers, campers, tour buses, old VW Westfalia campers, Harley's, BMW riders with serious-looking leather outfits (geez guys, aren't those things hot?), climbers with lots of rope in tow and bless their hearts, dozens of park rangers directing traffic. The next time you see a park ranger, stop and give them a big hug. (after they remove their hat). To stand in the hot sun and direct traffic all day, while at the same time answering the same questions..."is there anywhere to park"..."where are the bathrooms", etc. requires a dedication not many people possess.  It's a thankless job and my hats off to them for doing it. However, having said that, if you want to be a park ranger, you can't get a much better gig than Yosemite! I mean, everywhere you turn there's another amazing vista to look at or another waterfall to admire. Beats the hell out of being a banker, I can tell you that.

After all was said and done,  we loved it and we're already planning our next visit in October. And next time, by golly, we're going to beat the crowds. I hope. We loved the views, the falls, the unbelievable granite mountains (you have to see Half Dome and El Capitan to believe it) and just the unbelievable majesty of the place. I can certainly understand now why John Muir and all the other pioneers fought so hard to save it. Well done guys, you're giants among men.

I'll be posting some pictures of the park later tonight and tomorrow. They don't begin to do it justice, but there's only so much you can show in a small photograph. My best advice in closing is...just go.

Cheers,

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

Never judge a book by its cover...and the Isetta goes to a car show.

This might be a long post....so you might want to go grab a beer or a glass of wine.  We've been busy doing almost nothing. That's not totally true...we are looking at houses and land, talking to realtors, researching Nevada County's building codes (they're awful) and trying to figure out if this is where we really want to live....or is there another area lurking "out there" that might be even better?  This is a huge decision, even for nomads like us. Oregon? Washington? Arizona? Baja? Panama? France? So much to see....so little time. Stay tuned.

A long time ago....maybe 40 years, give or take a few....my Dad was training me to work in the furniture business, and more specifically how to work with his existing clients. Some of these folks were in big cities (and I was comfortable in that setting), but more than a few were located deep in the small towns of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. And these were the ones that required special attention, particularly since I was a new college graduate and thought I knew pretty much everything about everything. I was about to learn how much I didn't know.

We've all grown up hearing the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover"...but until I worked in the mountains, I never really understood the true meaning. On one of my first trips down into the Appalachian mountain towns, we pulled into an old general store to meet Curtis Mills, the owner. We were in Arjay, Kentucky. Yep, you read it right. Arjay was a town with about 10 buildings, one stop light, a suspension bridge over the creek to the school (I wrote about that in a previous post) and the police station was located in the back of the Western Auto store. You can't make this stuff up. Mr. Mills was dressed in overalls and looked every inch a "mountain man". His office was an old desk next to an ancient wood-burning stove with a couple rickety chairs nearby. We sat and my Dad talked to Curtis for maybe 30 minutes about nothing in particular, during which time I was looking around and thinking "what the hell am I doing here"? After what seemed like an eternity, my Dad got around to discussing some of the furniture Mr. Mills needed, a large order was placed and we got back in the car and drove away. Dad asked me what I thought about Mr. Mills, his old store, etc. I think I mumbled some dumb comment about him being a nice guy. It turns out that Curtis Mills was the richest man in the county...several counties in fact. He owned coal mines, an excavating business, a mobile home business, an appliance business, a tractor business,  a loan business, a well-drilling business and he owned hundreds if not thousands of acres of prime timber...oak, cherry, walnut, poplar and maple.  He was a multi-millionaire, back when a million was a lot of money. I learned a valuable lesson that day, one I've never forgotten. Well...almost never. Read on.

All of this leads me to my latest lesson in not judging a person by their looks. A couple weeks ago, Claudia and I took the old Volvo to the local DMV to see about getting the registration changed over to California. She followed me in case I had car trouble ( I didn't....the old Volvo runs like a champ). While I was sitting in the Ram truck filling out some paperwork, we noticed an old guy wandering in the parking lot. Really long gray/white hair, wearing a backpack, and the strangest mix of clothes I'd seen in a while....camo pants with Army issue desert boots, a paisley shirt, a black silk vest and a sort of LL Bean khaki jacket. He just looked "odd", but at the DMV you see a lot of really strange people (been to a DMV lately?). Well, the next thing you know, he pulls a camera out of his camo pants and starts taking pictures of the Volvo. Claudia and I watched while he took maybe five or six photos, calmly put away his camera and started to walk off. Since he seemed harmless enough, I asked Claudia to go ask him if he had any questions about the car while I completed the paperwork. Soon...they were talking and laughing. Wazzup? I walked over and they were speaking French. Of course they were. Every old guy with shoulder length hair and an outfit from Goodwill speaks French. Claudia introduces me to "Jean Pierre". Oh how wrong we had been. In very good English, he explains to us that he's from Switzerland and that he's a free lance photographer who works for a lot of magazines. He travels all over the world and had only arrived in our area the week before from Sonoma County, where he had been staying with friends in Guerneville. Before that he was in South America and he then spends ten minutes explaining which South American countries we should visit and which ones are too rough, have too many drugs, etc. He had traveled literally everywhere and only occasionally went back to Switzerland to see his relatives. He had one son, who lives in Australia (yes, he knew all about Adelaide where Katie had studied). He also knew all the areas in France we loved and way more about our national parks than we did (we have a long list to visit). After twenty minutes or so, we wished him well and off he walked. As he disappeared from sight, I thought about how very wrong we had been about this man and how we had judged him strictly on his appearance. All my old lessons from my Dad came flooding back. I promise to do better Dad....it seems I still have a lot to learn.

For those of you reading this who don't know about our little BMW Isetta, read on. A couple years ago, while walking Tuck every morning in Gilchrist Park, I got to know a very sweet lady who walked there every day as well....except she got there at 6:00....way before me. Every morning we talked for a couple minutes. One morning, I tell her about the BMW motorcycle that I'm restoring and she smiles and says very proudly...."I've got a BMW too". Long story short...she owned a 1958 BMW Isetta 300, one of the first micro cars to ever be produced. I told her if she was ever interested in selling it, to please let me know (these cars are super rare). A year later, she tells me she's going to sell it to me..."because she wants it to have a good home and she knows I'll take good care of it". How can you not love this lady?  We've had the Isetta since and we hauled it 3,200 miles out here in a custom trailer.

This area is vintage car crazy and there are small car shows every Saturday morning and big ones about once a month. So on a whim, we decided to take our little Isetta to the big show in Grass Valley last weekend just for a laugh. Check out the pictures and you'll get it. Everyone who sees this car smiles and laughs. It's so small, it doesn't really seem like a car...it's more like a giant red and white toaster that you can ride in. A carnival ride comes to mind. Four strong guys can pick it up and move it. It has a single cylinder motorcycle engine, has 15 horsepower, weights 720 pounds and can only go 50 mph. Downhill. This little sucker is SMALL.

I decide that loading the Isetta into the trailer, driving into town and then unloading it was a huge hassle. Let's just drive it there I say. It's only about 5 miles. Piece of cake I reason. So off we go last Saturday morning. Me in the Isetta and Claudia following in the truck just in case (is there a pattern here?). Keep in mind this is only the second time I have driven it. Also keep in mind that the tiny stick shift is on the left side, the 4-speed pattern is reversed from the American version, the brakes barely work, the suspension is questionable and the steering wheel moves four or five inches before the wheels actually turn. Other than that, she's ready for the Indy 500. I quickly realize that our little baby will only get up to 30 mph going downhill with a tailwind. Going uphill was awful....one glance out the rear view mirror and I notice a very long line of cars behind me. My cell phone rings, I see it's Claudia but it's so loud I can't hear anything she's saying...but I did catch..."pull over". Nah. If I stopped it would take another 10 minutes to get back up to 30 mph. Pedal to the metal and into town we went. When I arrived at the check in area, two workers walk up....and start laughing. Neither had ever seen or heard of an Isetta. When I parked the car, opened up the front door (there's only one door) and stood up in the car (that's how you get out without falling) all eyes were on the little red toaster.  I was ushered to a spot nearby and parked beside a beautiful 1952 MG-TC and a 356 Porsche. Claudia and I spent the rest of the day walking around the town and enjoying looking at some of the finest street rods in California. There's a lot of money up here.

As were about to leave, a young couple walk up with their two kids, who wanted to look at the Isetta (I'm sure it reminded them of a Disney ride).  You'll have to check out the pictures, because they made our day. Their daughter was wearing a hot pink poodle skirt and their son was wearing.....one of her old poodle skirts. To say they were precious is an understatement. The parents explain that their son absolutely loves his big sister's poodle skirts and had been planning all week to wear one to the car show. I love it! Only in California will you see a little guy wearing a poodle skirt at a car show....and proud parents nearby beaming at their young son. There's a state of mind out here that's hard to explain, but that example sums it up pretty well.

Thanks for reading....Cheers!

The BMW goes to a new owner....and a snowy trip to Nevada!

So here we are on I-80, passing over the Donner Pass (one of the highest passes you can drive in California...about 7,000' elevation)....me, Claudia and our little buddy Tuck driving through thick fog with horrible visibility, snow banks on each side of the road (I'll post some pictures later today) as high as 15', heading to Nevada to deliver my motorcycle to its new owner. We sure know how to pick our adventures! But here's the rest of the story....before you think we're completely crazy (just halfway). When leaving Grass Valley our weather was about 50 degrees with light rain and the weather at our destination in Reno, just across the mountain, was 65 degrees and sunny. But there was that mountain between the two areas...and you have to cross it. While you're on "the pass" as the locals call it, if it starts snowing or the rain starts to freeze, the highway patrol stop you at check points and turn you around if you don't have tire chains. It's still hard to get used to the fact that it can be 60 degrees here in Grass Valley...and we can jump in the truck, drive 45 minutes to Truckee and experience world-class skiing. So different from Florida, where you had to drive at least 10 hours to get any climate change. Truly...we're not in Kansas anymore Toto.

My BMW R-26 has a new home in Nevada...and we delivered her yesterday. For a couple reasons, it seems funny to write that. First, delivering a motorcycle to Nevada? My entire life (up until the last month or so) that would have been a week-long trip. Now...it takes exactly an hour and a half. Second, for those of you who have followed the blog for a while, or checked out the pictures, you know about the 18-month restoration of my BMW. It was a long, often gratifying, often frustrating, often "I just threw a wrench at the wall" maddening experience. But ultimately, after I finished it and looked down at what I had accomplished, it was totally worth it. I've been told that it will be featured in a motorcycle magazine sometime this Spring. That should be interesting. Stay tuned.  The new owner is a great guy who lives near Reno and he owns more than a few great old bikes and VW's from the 60's. The bike will have a great new home. I took one look back, reflected on the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars I had invested, and....walked out of his shop. Time to move on. Now....if only I can find an old Mini Cooper, or maybe a 60's era 3-cylinder Saab with a 4-speed shift on the column....the hunt continues.

Cheers!

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

Tuck goes to the vet....Super Moms with strollers....and fake Swans

Okay...let's get to the Super Moms first. Since we moved here, Claudia and I take Tuck for two walks every day. In the morning, we usually walk in the Empire Mine State Park. This place is a gem and the miles of trails are beautiful....and sometimes steep. It has taken us nearly two months to get ourselves in good enough shape that we can now handle most of the steep hills without stopping (remember, we were in Florida for 15 years...think pancake flat). The first thing we noticed when walking these trails was that everyone was passing us. Everyone. Young people, old people (our age), old horses, young horses, old dogs, young dogs, squirrels...you name it. We quickly realized that a lifetime of walking these trails had gotten these folks into really great shape. But...we were getting better. We thought.

About once a week, while walking the main trail, we encounter what I will now call "Super Moms". Here's the scene....Claudia and I are struggling up the hill with Tuck leading the way. We're feeling pretty good because we're not stopping to catch our breath. And then....out of the forest and coming up the very hill we are on....here come two young moms (sometimes three)  pushing fancy three-wheel strollers with their baby in tow. And....they're jogging. Of course they are. And...to add insult to injury...they're talking while they jog. Showoffs. And sometimes, to make us feel even worse, one or more may be pregnant. They're always nice and wave and say "HI" when they cruise past us. So far, none have stopped to ask if we're OK and need help. We're going to look for some trails too narrow for strollers. We'll show them.

We took our little buddy to the vet this week for a check up and to get him registered with a California vet. Most of you reading this don't know about our vet problems back in Florida. For the entire time we lived there, we never found an honest, caring, competent vet who wasn't totally driven by money to (quickly) pay off their student loans.  So when we went shopping for a vet out here, we were more than a little worried. We did, however, know of one clinic nearby. When we were visiting last year, we found a dog wandering down the road and we stopped and saved her from an oncoming truck hauling a backhoe (yep...it was close). She had a collar with a tag and from that we identified the vet clinic. We took her there and the people were super nice. So...that's where we went. And what did we find? Remember the old TV show "Marcus Welby, MD" with Robert Young as the caring doctor? Well, Dr. Welby is alive and well in Grass Valley, CA. He simply resurfaced as a vet. Perhaps the Buddhists are right and there really is incarnation? Anyway, Dr. Nolette is a gem! Kind, caring, honest, thorough, smart and most important of all....not profit-driven. He actually retired once and came back because he missed being a vet. Who does that? He spent about 40 minutes with us and one of his assistants sat on the ground with Tuck the entire time petting him. Hooray....we've finally found the vet we've been looking for a very long time.  And best of all....Tuck didn't even have to get a shot...but he did have to have a thermometer stuck in his butt (he hates it...who wouldn't). :-)

Last, but not least, it's time to discuss "fake swans".  A little background is in order. Our rental house overlooks a small pond (for some reason, locals call them lakes) and a fairway of the 18th hole of a golf course. Canadian geese are everywhere. They're in the ponds, where they don't bother anyone, but they're also all over the golf course....where they bother almost everyone. They're slow to move, so the golfers have to shoo them away.  But....and here's where the story gets interesting....the worse part is their poop. They poop everywhere. A pissed off circus elephant can't out-poop a goose. It's on the golf cart paths. On the greens. On the fairways. In short...little green piles are everywhere. And, once they find an area they really like, they don't fly back to Canada. I mean, why bother, right?  Free food, a lake for water, nice people all around them who won't shoot them, plenty of places to roost. Life is good. Since this IS a golf course with paying members who don't like walking on green goose poop, the course managers try different methods of getting them to "move on down the road".  Which leads me to the fake swans.

One morning last week, we're eating breakfast and looking out at the lake/pond. Hmmm.....the geese are gone. But there are four beautiful white swans sitting out on the water. We go about our day and that night while walking Tuck on the course, we notice that these are the calmest swans we have ever seen. They just float and make absolutely no noise. They don't move, just drift a little. The next day, we notice that the swans are in exactly the same spot as they were the day before. Yep....they're fake. Silly us...good thing we didn't mention to our neighbors that we loved the new swans. It turns out that one of the methods of getting geese to leave is to float fake white swans on the water. Apparently, swans are very territorial and when breeding, they're mean little mothers. They move in and the geese move out. At least that's the plan. We read up on this topic and found out that the trick only works for a limited time. Sooner or later, a brave goose floats up to the swan to say hello and realizes....this dude is made of plastic. What happens then we don't know, but I'm guessing the geese get really pissed off and come back with a vengeance...angry that they have been made fools of in front of all the golfers, squirrels, otters, fish and local birds.  So far, as I write this, the trick is working. The swans are there and the geese are gone...at least they're not on the water. Stay tuned.

Cheers and thanks for reading!

Wayne, Claudia and Tuck

Birthdays...walking a Yuba River trail...and the search for "elevation"

Geez...am I really getting older? I don't feel older...well, yes, the aches and pains are more frequent (and some never go away) and I do seem to lose my keys more often. But me...a senior citizen getting reduced movie tickets and free refills at McDonald's?  Yikes!! This can't be happening. So far, no one has gotten up at a local restaurant and offered me their seat. That would be the last straw and an immediate clue that I need to sell some of my car projects, take the profits and head to Beverly Hills in search of a good surgeon. Maybe Jane Fonda's....she looks pretty damn good for 79.

When my daughter Katie sent me a text to wish me Happy Birthday, I sent back a reply that one of the advantages of getting older was forgetting how old you are. Then, the next day I turned the page to April on one of the great calendars she makes every year (she adds amazing quotes for each month) and....lo and behold....there's a quote from Prince: "I don't believe in time....I don't count...when you count it ages you". Amen...I rest my case. And oh yeah....don't offer me your seat!

This area is located in an outdoor wonderland. The amazing Tahoe National Forest is in our backyard. There are world class kayaking runs with Class I to Class 5 areas, mountain biking trails that draw racers and enthusiasts from around the world, over 650 miles of hiking trails (including the Pacific Crest Trail, recently made even more famous in the movie "Wild" with Reese Witherspoon) and an almost unlimited number of lakes, rivers and streams. When we first moved here, we noticed that a lot of the cars were hauling mountain bikes, skis, or kayaks. Now, we know why. The entire area is considered a hub for non-motorized recreation in the Western US.

Want to learn more, or plan to visit the area...check this out:

https://www.nevadacitychamber.com/nevada-city-things-to-do/outdoor-recreation/hiking-trails/

Anyway, to make a long story even longer, we recently walked the amazing Bridgeport Buttermilk Bend Trail. This trail is known not only for the amazing views of the South Yuba RIver, but also for the world's longest free-standing covered bridge and some beautiful wildflowers. The trail has been carved out of the mountain side and offers amazing views of the river and the valley. I posted some pictures, but trust me, they don't begin to do it justice. A camera simply can't duplicate what the eye sees. The best I can offer is this....come visit and see it for yourself.

The search for "elevation". It has taken us about a month to realize what makes one area here absolutely stunning...and another area, just "so-so". It's all about elevation. Even a 500' change in elevation makes a huge difference in the views, the air quality, snow accumulation, availability of utilities (internet service), road quality, building sites, access to town, and on and on. In short, the higher you go, the prettier it gets....but it's a trade off. As you go higher, you get cooler weather, more snow, worse utility service (or none), fewer building sites, really windy roads and a much longer drive into town. As you go down, all of those things get easier...but the natural beauty of the area simply doesn't exist. So that's where we are....searching for an area that takes in the natural beauty, but one where you don't need a helicopter to get home. Stay tuned...the quest continues. We have a year to figure it out.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

Greetings from California!

Just a quick update for those of you who are still reading the blog. First of all, thanks for reading and following our journey/adventure.

For the past couple weeks, we've been trying to help the local economy by buying pretty much everything needed to furnish a home. It's not exciting reading...certainly not on the same scale as driving a truck across the country, or dealing with storage units that sit on the side of a very steep hill.

So...as soon as we actually have something to report...we'll post a new story. Check back in a couple weeks.

Cheers!

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

Ditching the folding camp chairs...and the fun of living in a small town.

 I've always wondered what it would be like to live in a town like Mayberry, where everyone knows everyone. Well....we do. And it's great.

Remember a post I made a couple weeks ago about Claudia and I meeting Suzy, the owner of a local winery? At that meeting, she casually mentioned that she was hosting a party/open house at her tasting room for members of her wine club. Never turning down the chance to drink wine, we said that of course, we'd try to attend. That was it, and we never thought much about it until yesterday. We remembered that the 18th was the day of the party, so we stopped unpacking for a while and decided to go.  We figured it would be crowded and that maybe, just maybe, we would see Suzy and say hello, drink some wine and meet some new people (people who love wine are usually pretty fun).

We drove into town and walked up a side street to the tasting room. Yep...it was crowded all right. Lots of people at the tasting bar and milling around a side room munching on pork sliders. Up to the bar we went and waited until one of the staff noticed us standing there. We said..."Hi, is Suzy here"?...to which she immediately replied..."Oh, you must be the couple with Tucker...we've been expecting you". Really? Are you kidding me? A casual conversation in a parking lot two weeks ago while walking Tuck and they were expecting us? You could have knocked us over with a feather. Two things hit us at once....first, we couldn't believe she remembered us and second...it's a damn good thing we went! Just goes to show you that in a small town, people not only know who you are, but when you say you're going to do something, you'd better do it. We wouldn't have gotten that kind of greeting back in Punta Gorda if one of us had been the mayor.

Anyway, we had a great time. A local chef had prepared pulled pork that he had smoked for two days and was serving it on homemade buns with amazing cole slaw. We met some really interesting people...including one guy who we noticed seemed to know everyone. Turned out, he did. We sat and talked to him for about a half hour. He had grown up in the area, knew Gov. Jerry Brown and knew his father Pat Brown (also the governor back in the 60's).  We mentioned that Katie had just gotten back from a vacation to the Philippine's, to which he casually says with no intent on bragging...."Oh yes, I go there every now and then. My daughter's husband is the second richest person in the Phillippine's and I have to have a body guard the whole time I'm there". We find out her husband is a Chinese investor. All righty then....it's hard to top that. He was a fun guy and we hope to see him again.

Today was a great day. We had our new leather sofa and loveseat delivered, along with a super-comfortable Stressless recliner (Macy's brand). Normally, this wouldn't be that big of a deal...but to us, it was huge. We have been sitting on our folding beach chairs since our giant yard sale way back in January. We still don't know how we did it...perhaps years of going to the beach with these things had hardened out butts?  At any rate, we were amazed at the service from Macy's (they have great gallery stores out here, way different from Florida). The delivery driver calls us this morning and tells us he'll be here around 2:00. He's coming from....are you ready for this...Los Angeles! Macy's warehouse is in LA and he's delivering our furniture and a bedroom suite for another home nearby all the way from LA. A six hour trip one way! Amazing. He arrives right on time in a....drum roll please....28' truck just like the one we rented to move here (and just like the one our recent moving crew said would not be able to make the turn). I meet him at the top of the steep drive and he surveys the tight turn at the bottom, then back at the truck, then talks to his partner...and they both decide that yes, they can get the truck down the drive by backing down the drive. Folks...this drive is a hoot to maneuver in our RAM truck. Driving down it in a 28' truck would be hair-raising. Backing down it required balls of steel. And down he came. We recorded it just in case something really bad happened that would make the evening news. I'll post the pictures later tonight. He made it and we still don't know how, even while watching him do it. These trucks have a turning radius of about a football field. What a guy...we gave him and his partner a big tip and off they headed back to LA.

I folded up the beach chairs and sat down on a real cushion to watch UK defeat Wichita State. A good day....time for some of Suzy's wine.

Cheers,

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

Shopping for our 4th TV in nearly 40 years...and just about everything else.

Here's the good news about selling all your furniture before you move....you get rid of stuff you've had forever and are kind of tired of...and you don't have to haul it 3,200 miles across this big 'ole country of ours.

Here's the bad news about selling all your stuff....once you get where you're going, you have nothing and you have to start all over. You don't really think about it as the years go by, but you accumulate stuff all the time...weekly, monthly and yearly. Suddenly, after nearly 40 years (I realize that makes no sense), you've got a lot of furniture and every closet is full. It took us 40 years to fill our house and about two days to empty it.

So, here we are out shopping for, well....pretty much everything. New sofa, new chairs, new tables, new TV, new curtains, new headboard, new kitchen "stuff", new bathroom "stuff", new clothes, new walking shoes (they have great stores here...everyone walks and camps),new dog beds, new mattress and box spring, new lamps, new rugs...the list seems endless. In short, starting over. For most guys I know, shopping is not something programmed into our DNA. We tolerate it, but we're always glad when it's over. Sort of like going to the dentist. I must not be alone in this regard, as Amazon is single-handedly putting most retailers out of business by offering shopping and free delivery from the comfort of your home computer. I'll buy a new shirt while sitting in my old paint- spattered jeans and 10 year old T-shirt, thank you very much.

But, we need to get this done, so each and every day we head down to the amazing shopping area of Roseville, where every store we've ever heard of exists and about 500 more we haven't heard of have opened. As I write this, we've finally purchased a Sony TV and sound system. Driving home from Best Buy, we realized that we've only bought four TV's since we got married in 1977! Amazing....we get ten years out of these suckers before we have to replace them. I can't decide if we're really thrifty or just cheap.

We found a sofa we're going to get tomorrow and an area rug. Soon, we won't be sitting on camp chairs any longer and staring at our little 18" Vizio sitting on a plastic storage box. Yes, we do that. If only I could show you the expression on the face of our cable guy (the second one) when he walked into our big vaulted living room and saw....our little TV sitting on a Home Depot storage box. I was sure he wanted to call his office and ask if he could do a charity installation. I tried to look really pitiful. He didn't buy it.

That's about it for now. I'm getting ready to unbox the Sony and fire up the sound system. Tonight, we can watch our shows on a big screen....sitting on our camp chairs. Life is good.

Cheers!

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

Walking the Deer Creek Tribute Trail

Greetings from the mountains!

I added some pictures this morning of a local trail we like to walk. It starts just off the main shopping area in Nevada City and continues through the woods to the suspension bridge over Deer Creek and beyond (we don't know how far it goes...yet). Anyway, it's a beautiful trail and Tuck loves it...except for the suspension bridge. He and Claudia got about halfway across and he felt it sway a little....that did it. He panicked and Claudia was lucky to get him back to the start of the bridge. I think in many ways animals are way smarter than humans....if you're walking on something 75' above a raging creek and things begin to move under your feet, perhaps it's not a great place to walk.

There's not too much to report on what we've been up to. Our free time has been spent unpacking boxes and shopping for TV's and furniture. It's a time-consuming process, as we have to drive to nearby towns to shop. So far, we've found some great TV's, but no sofa's. The search is going to expand to Sacramento and over to Reno (that should make for a fun trip).

Cheers,

Wayne, Claudia and Tuck

Unpacking our stuff... the "cable guy" ...and the dishwasher with no drain.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.....or, in this case, turn on your computer....the blog is back. Sorry...it's been five days since I last sent in an update and if I don't write it down, it's lost to history (I have a good memory...but it's short).

I don't want to bore you with all the details of the last five days (well...maybe I do), so I'll condense this as much as possible: We moved. We're tired. The end.

Actually, that is a pretty good summary...but it's only 8:30 here and way too early to go to bed (although Tuck's schedule hasn't changed...he still finds his bear and puts himself to bed between 8:00 and 9:00). So sweet.

We successfully moved everything we own...again. Two guys from a local moving company showed up at our storage unit at 9:00 sharp and we began the now familiar process of moving plastic storage boxes. We liked these guys and they did a good job....but they were slow. The move took almost five hours, which was about twice what we had planned. A lot of the blame lies with the driveway to the new house. Remember when I mentioned a while back that these are mountain communities and the driveways are seriously steep on both sides of the road. Well...our house sits on the downhill side and the drive is....well...seriously steep. And at the bottom, there's a 90 degree turn. I'll post a picture later. As much as I hate 26' Penske trucks, we had planned on moving everything with another one (but this time, I didn't have to drive). Alas, the Penske truck was too tall and would have hit low-lying tree limbs on the drive and it wouldn't have made the turn at the bottom without the driver using our new neighbors drive (never a good way to introduce yourself when your moving guy backs over your neighbors shrubs). So, we had to opt for the 16' truck, which meant making two separate trips and doubling the moving bill.

In the interest of time (remember these guys were slow), we decided to use the living room as a "staging area" and unload everything there, with the exception of the tools. Let's just say we're really glad the main room has a cathedral ceiling. We made three rows of boxes, each about 2' apart and maybe 6' tall and pretty much filled the room. It looked a little like a Sam's Club or a Costco aisle. The only thing missing was the greeter with no teeth.

Since then, we've been unpacking boxes (hooray....I found my underwear and socks) and taking the empty boxes down to the shop area (which is huge). Slowly, but surely, we are eating away at the rows of stuff and by this weekend, we're pretty sure we'll be able to see the far end of the room, which won't be too difficult, because we sold almost all our furniture. Can you remember the last time you had NO furniture? I think I was a freshman in college and Nixon was in office. I'm not sure which was worse.

We began the quest today for new living room furniture and a new TV. I'll update on that later, but I will quickly say this about the new generation of televisions....they're amazing and huge. At the rate Samsung is going, I'll be able to hook one up in a few years and have our friends drive in the yard to watch...all we need are some of those nifty speakers that hang on your window so you can sort of hear the sound (who watched the movie at the drive-ins anyway).

I'm sure most of you reading this have had experiences with the local cable guy. Where do they find these guys? I'm pretty sure the list of requirements goes something like this: Must have an odd appearance, must have an "attitude", must have an odd personality which borders on creepy, must be late by at least 2 hours, must spend most of the time at your home on the phone with "the home office" discussing why the modem isn't talking to the router, must be able to turn a normal conversation about TV's or the internet into something Stephen Hawking wouldn't understand and last, but on certainly not least....you must be able to drive away in your van before the homeowner figures out that nothing you did is actually working. Such was our recent fun afternoon with "Matt", the cable installer for our local internet company, SuddenLink, which as it turns out, isn't sudden and doesn't link.

Matt rings the bell and I open the door, at which point he says "show me whatcha got". I didn't know whether he was looking for old tattoos or he wanted me to take a swing at him. He looked like one of the guys in a Clint Eastwood western movie bar scene. Rough beard, dirty clothes, an odd stare and an attitude. I can talk to virtually anyone on the planet, but I gave up with this guy after 15 minutes. He would not talk. So, Claudia and I left him alone to do whatever it is the cable guys do and an hour later, he announces he's finished. He's wired three cable boxes and hooked up the internet and he drives off. We immediately realize he has left us with only one controller and most of the channels don't work. Damn. Claudia gets on the phone and finds out after an hour that SuddenLink must be the company that Jim Carrey worked for in the 1996 movie. They got the initial order wrong, the install was all wrong and everyone blamed someone else. Today, a new installer (Josh) showed up to fix things. It turns out that Matt is indeed an incompetent wierdo, has been fired at least three times by the company and no one at the company will talk to him because.....surprise....he won't talk to anyone. Josh tests the three TV junction boxes Matt has installed and finds that only one works. Matt never ran cable to two of the boxes, he only mounted a face plate on the wall to make it look like a hook up for your TV cable. Amazing. Stay tuned.

Last but not least, the dishwasher story. We had to do a very extensive check list for the property manager, called a "Move in/Move Out" form. It was four pages long and it went over every nut and bolt in the house. Each item had to be inspected, checked off and listed as either being new, satisfactory or other (notes had to be added). We went through everything, found a few small items to be noted and turned it in to the property manager. And then....we cook dinner that night, load the dishes in the dishwasher and turn it on. A few minutes later, I hear Claudia say "Uh-Oh, something is leaking". I hate it when that happens. I run over to the sink and see water pouring out of an air vent next to the faucet (the vent is only necessary if the main dishwasher drain becomes clogged). Had it continued to run, it would have run over the counter top and flooded the wood floor and we would have been looking for a new place to rent. We call the owners and they show up the next day. They quickly figure out that the prior tenant installed a new disposal and didn't tell them. And, instead of hooking up the dishwasher drain line to the disposal, he had simply run the drain line up to the vent on the counter top. Ironically....the dishwasher was the only thing they hadn't run before we moved in and the only thing we hadn't tried yet because we hadn't cooked anything. A disaster was averted and a new disposal is being installed tomorrow.

That's it for now. I hope to add some pictures soon.

Cheers!

MOVING DAY!!

Years ago, when I was a serious runner, right before a race the thing to do was "carb up"....the theory being that since carbs turned into sugar and sugar gave you energy, the more carbs you ate, the better you would run. So, the night before, most runners ate bowls of pasta, or potatoes, or a lot of bread, ice cream...you name it. Here's a little secret...it didn't work. The experts (strange old men in white lab coats), now know that carb-loading was probably one of the worst things you could do to prepare for a race. It causes a metabolic dysfunction,, which is a fancy way of saying you crashed from a "sugar high". Great. Thanks a lot Runner's World magazine and the sugar industry....maybe that was my introduction to understanding that just since something was printed in a national magazine it didn't mean it was true. Silly me.

Nevertheless, since we both routinely scoff at "the experts" and since we both loved the 70's (the best music ever)....Claudia and I decided to "carb up" last night, in preparation for the battle with the storage units today. We had a big 'ole pizza from Mountain Mike's (great) and some Racer 5 IPA beer...which on the carb scale, should give us enough energy to unload the units with no help from a moving crew and still have enough energy left to run at least a 10K. Stay tuned.

We got to meet Dave and Karen yesterday, the owners of the house we're renting and a couple of the neighbors, who were pitching in to help with the removal of some huge pieces of an oak tree that had to be cut down from in front of the house. Dave and Karen are great and we hit it off immediately. They're going to be great landlords. We got a tour of the house to figure out all the new stuff you need to know in a new home, including how to run the fancy gas range (time to start training for Chopped), the built-in central vacuum system, etc. The house is going to be perfect. It has a great view, plenty of room, a great kitchen, tons of storage, a "mans cave" shop in the lower level and a wonderful yard with a lake for Tuck. I think I'd better warn the Canadian geese that inhabit the lake! Just kidding about the geese...the local residents hate them, because they poop all over the golf course. Hell, if I had just flown from Canada, I'd feel like pooping all over a golf course too. The sound as they fly over is great....even if they are setting up a bombing run over the golf course.

That's about it for now. Time to eat some more carbs and prepare for "Storage Unit Wars".....that sounds like a great video game, or at least a reality TV series. We'll take some pictures during the move and post them later tonight. We have a one day window to get this done, as rain is moving in tonight. No pressure....been there, done that.

Cheers!

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

Getting ready to move....again!

Since we've gotten so good at packing and moving....we decided to do it again before our skills get rusty and our backs recover from the last battle at the storage units.

To give you a quick update, yesterday morning we signed the lease documents and today we get to meet the owners and do a walk-through of the house and grounds. We've been told that they used to live in Hawaii and we're anxious to learn more about it, since we've never been there and we have that on the bucket list. They initially didn't want pets, so we're thinking we'd better leave Tuck back at the Inn. The last thing we need is for Tuck to run up and pee by the front porch, or worse yet....get into some mud (he has an amazing ability to find it) and track it onto the brand new carpet (yikes....time to look for another home). So, discretion being the better part of valor...we're going to play it safe. The good news is that we know when they meet him, they will love him just like everyone else does. 

We hired a new moving crew who live in the area and we meet with them Friday morning to vacate the storage units for the last time! Keep in mind that we've had furniture and other belongings stored for over a year now...first in Florida when we began staging our home for the sale and now here in California. We've decided that once we move everything and unpack all the plastic storage boxes, we can start a nice side business selling empty storage boxes on Ebay (we have about 100). Actually, we'll have to store them in the new shop, as our long-term goal is to either buy or build a home....so we're going to need them again. Ugh...thinking about moving again is a little like putting a reminder on a calendar that says...."Root canal at the dentist Monday at 10:00". Therefore, for the time being, we're going to unpack them and store them down in "the shop". 

The house is in a subdivision called Alta Sierra. By mountain standards, it's a large development with a golf course, clubhouse, small lakes, restaurants, a fire department, etc. The whole area is hilly, so picture steep driveways on both sides of the road....some up, some down. Many would have been too steep for what we need and fortunately the home we leased has a drive that isn't too steep and I'll be able to negotiate the truck with the trailer. Turning everything around at the garage to head back out may be a Houdini trick, but after the cross-country drive, I'm up to the challenge. Stay tuned...if the Weather Channel runs a story about a Ram truck with an attached 12' trailer going downhill into a lake, you might want to watch.

Alta Sierra is South of Grass Valley, the sister town to Nevada City (about five miles South). It'slarger than Nevada City and has a great mix of a historic downtown and newer shopping areas. Both towns sit right in the mountains and getting around is super easy. Each town has four or five exits off Hwy 49, each about a mile apart, but unlike most towns where you exit the interstate and then drive five miles into town....in this area the stores sit right beside the highway. You can pop on and off, depending on what you need to do, or where you need to shop. It's great...even for a guy like me who hates to shop (I'm ready for Amazon Prime deliveries by drone).

That's about it for now. Today will be a busy day meeting the owners and beginning the process of vacating the storage units. I'll post more tonight, or tomorrow morning. Pictures will follow as soon as possible...but first, we have to buy some furniture (remember the giant yard sale?).

Cheers!

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

A house to rent...and meeting another business owner

Most of you reading this blog don't realize all the preparations that went into this odyssey and one of the biggest logistical problems was finding a house to rent. I wrote about this a few days ago, but in a nutshell....we needed a home either in town or nearby, with a 2-car garage, an area for my shop, a flat paved area where we could park the trailer that hauled the Isetta and a future Airstream....and last, but not least, it had to be pet-friendly. In an area with few rental properties, this was no small order. Claudia, bless her heart, has worked on this problem daily for the past year. Yep....that's a long time.

Both of us quickly realized two things after researching the rentals online back in Florida: First, there weren't many pet-friendly rental homes in the area and second, picking one without actually being there to look at it in person would be at best a difficult proposition and at worst....a potential disaster if we picked the wrong one. Fortunately, we had some friends here (thank you Scott and Janet) on the lookout and they alerted us to a property. We were also fortunate to have found a property manager who went to bat for us and convinced the owners to allow a pet (thanks Amelia!). We visited the home (we had previously passed it over because of the No Pet clause) and realized it would meet almost all of our needs.

Yippeee.....we got it. After going through the gauntlet of financial hurdles required to rent here in California (at least as restrictive as buying a home in Florida), we were given the good news late yesterday afternoon. The house looks out over a small lake and a golf course. For the first time in 15 years, we won't be staring directly into another home from the back deck! Let me tell you, after living on 20 acres in Indiana, then downsizing to two acres, then downsizing again to one-quarter of an acre in Florida....this is a really big deal! 

The house has three bedrooms, sits on one level, has a great shop, a 2-car garage, a gourmet kitchen, windows across the entire back and a lot more. We take possession this Thursday and we'll post some more details later. It's a little further out of town than we had hoped, but it's in a great neighborhood and we feel lucky to have found anything in this tight rental market.

We went walking in town again this morning and once again, Tuck was the ice-breaker he has been since he was 10 weeks old. We bought some coffee at a local shop, sat down to sit and people watch....and almost immediately we hear..."can I pet your dog"? Her name was Rachel and she and her business partner own one of the yoga studios in town (The Golden Mandala). Turns out, she's from Knoxville and is getting ready to open a new studio in Louisville. What a small world we live in! She spent about 30 minutes with us discussing Nevada City, her background, how she got here, politics (of course) and lots more. She gave us her business card and said to call her anytime we had a question, needed advice about the town, etc. Another walk and another new friend. You gotta love it.

That's about it for now. I'll add another post tomorrow or Thursday. As for now....it's time to start packing again in preparation of the move....we were getting a little rusty after being here for ten days!

Cheers!

Visiting Tucks' restaurant and the local winery

One of the great things about a small town is getting to know the people. Having a great dog like Tuck along to break the ice is a real plus.

We walked into town this morning to so some more exploring, take some pictures and have some coffee and some homemade muffins at Three Forks Bakery. While ordering, Claudia met the owner and had a nice chat. This lady has it going on....check out the pictures I added of the inside and you'll see what I mean. On a side street, we passed one of the better restaurants in town....and it just happens to be named Friar Tuck's....or as the locals call it, simply "Tucks". It's a really cute place with great food and a piano bar. I'll post some pictures of the inside at a later date. We're hoping since we have a dog with the same name, we'll get free food for the rest of our lives. Stay tuned.

The next stop was the winery tasting room. It was too early and not open (hey..it's always 5:00 somewhere in the world), but while we stood there taking some pictures, a really nice lady walked up to Claudia and introduced herself. Turns out...she's the owner of the winery. You know us....we've never met a stranger, so there we stood for the next hour talking about the town, her winery, politics, dogs (she has a labradoodle named Arlo who's the winery dog), real estate, etc. We couldn't have asked for a nicer introduction and we plan on giving her a lot of business.

We hope to hear back later today on a rental home we checked out last week. It's further out of town that we'd hoped, but it meets a lot of the requirements. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Cheers!

A walking tour of downtown Nevada City

Yesterday, Claudia, Tuck and I walked into town for a beer at one of our favorite places, Three Forks Bakery and Brewing Company. They're dog-friendly, make amazing breads and pizzas and brew some of the best beer I've had in a long time (crystal clear, pure mountain water sure helps).

It's hard to convey the vibe of the town in a few pictures. In a nutshell, it's an 1850's gold rush town that sits in the beautiful Sierra Nevada mountains. The town has survived for over 150 years, in spite of (or maybe because of) "progress" all around. As a result, the buildings are modern inside (great shops, restaurants, artists studios, etc.), but original on the outside. This concept of preserving the past is the norm in Europe...but very unusual here in the states. Personally, we love it...perhaps because we have spent so much time in Europe, particularly France. The unique nature of the town is evident when you sit and "people watch". Visitors come here from all over California (and the country in general) to escape the traffic, smog, crime and general madness that seems to have taken over many of our larger towns. If you live in one currently, or perhaps have lived in one in the past, you know what I mean.

Gold mining and the money that flowed from it, was responsible for this whole area becoming very prosperous back in the 1850's and to a large extent, it's still wealthy. Old mining equipment is everywhere, as are pictures of the actual mines and miners. Man....these dudes lived a hard life! When I see the pictures of how they worked and lived it makes me feel like a total wimp. Bottom line...enjoy your gold...it came with a very high cost, then and now.

So what follows are just a few pictures of the town. We'll take more and post more, particularly some inside shots of the shops and restaurants. Later, we'll post some pictures of Grass Valley, the sister town to Nevada City. It sits about 5 miles down the road.

Enjoy!

Wayne, Claudia & Tuck

House hunting in the mountains

Greetings from Nevada City. For those of you who've been following along, I haven't posted anything in a couple days....figured I'd give you a well-earned break!

This won't be a long post and it won't have any pictures, as we've been really busy doing all the things you have to do when you move to a different area....getting a new PO box (we're using a personal mail box at a local UPS store and we'll post the address later today), figuring out how to get the USPS to send our mail (which we hope has been held back in Punta Gorda), learning our way around town, trying to find the boxes in the storage unit that contain "whatever it is that we can't find" and most importantly....meeting with property managers to find a suitable rental house. The list of requirements is a long one. We did learn one important fact yesterday...even though the owner of the rental home says "no pets" in the listing, that is just a standard clause and many/most will waive that once they find out more about you and your dog. We send pictures of Tuck....his sweet face will melt anyone. Bottom line is that we now have a few more homes to consider.

The real estate market in this area is red hot. Not only did Claudia and I figure out this was a cool area, but it seems a whole lot of other people did as well. Who, you might ask, is moving here? The demographics are a lot more diverse than we had imagined. A property manager we met with yesterday filled us in on the mix: retirees (like us), young couples leaving the Bay area who want a peaceful place to raise their family, artists, musicians, chefs, small tech companies, independent film makers, people looking for "higher ground" (if it floods at 2,500 feet, Noah has already left the dock), couples from the East Coast who are tired of the weather and traffic, real estate developers and home builders (land is comparatively cheap here) and the list goes on.

All of this translates into a market where good properties don't stay listed for very long....some are gone within days. Since many are looking to rent before they buy (that would be us), the inventory is really low. If you are fortunate enough to locate a home to rent, you then have to be screened. The property manager has to accept you, your finances are checked, a background check is done and then and only then, do the owners sort through the various applicants and make a decision on who to accept. Fortunately, for us, retirees go to the top of the list. I think they figure we're too old to get into much trouble. :-) We are considered "ideal" candidates....which is nice, as I don't think I've ever been considered ideal for anything.

We're going to send in our application today for a home we toured yesterday. It's nice, lots of room, sits on a lake, golf course nearby with walking paths, big shop below the house and room for all my stuff. Stay tuned on that. If time permits, we're going to walk into town (10 minutes) and take a bunch of pictures so we can post a sort of walking tour of the town. That will have to wait until we move out of our smaller storage unit (we rented a bigger one to hold the Volvo, the Isetta, the BMW, my tools, etc). To put it mildly....we are really sick of storage units and not being able to find which box contains our underwear and socks (we didn't wear socks in Florida, but we usually wore underwear).

Cheers!

God Willing and the Creek Don't Rise

For those of you raised in the South, or had relatives who were, you may have heard this old saying before. If not, read on.

I don't know exactly when I first heard this expression, but it was so common that I never gave it a thought. Basically, it's used in situations where you've done all you could...and the rest was up to God. When I traveled with my Dad in the Appalachian mountain towns, he would always depart a business meeting with the same phrase...."well...see you in a couple months" and they would reply by saying..."God willing and the creek don't rise". For my family, living in comfortable Louisville, it was just an expression. For the mountain people, it took on a whole other meaning. When creeks rose in those little towns, it would literally cut off the town from the main road.

Well, guess what? Claudia and I spent most of yesterday afternoon literally watching the creek behind our cabin rise...and rise...and rise. If you've turned on the Weather Channel in the last month, you've no doubt read about the situation in California. Areas that have suffered through eight and sometimes ten year droughts are now finding themselves in extreme flooding conditions. Reservoirs throughout the state (including the largest one in California near here) that were at 10 percent capacity a year ago are now full and overflowing....something the "experts" said would either never happen, or if it did happen, would take a decade or more of rain. So much for the experts. Mother Nature had other plans.

Our cozy little cabin sits on the lowest section of the 35-acre property that makes up the Northern Queen Inn. We picked it specifically for the privacy it offers....and the fact that it sits directly across a cool old wooden bridge that spans a very large creek. Yesterday morning, we noticed the waterfall by the dining room was louder than usual and the area around it where we had taken pictures just the day before.....was underwater. That got our attention. The creek was rising. Fast.

We stood on the bridge to our cabin and picked out a boulder in the middle of the stream that was about 6' in diameter (rocks are big here) and sticking out about 3'. We also located three large tree roots on the bank that were about 6" apart vertically. We decided to use the boulder and the large tree roots as visual gauges to keep track of the rising water. Around 5:00 PM, the water started rising about 6" an hour. In a creek this size, that's a lot of water folks. So every hour on the hour, we put on our rain gear (it was still raining hard), grabbed a flashlight and went out to check. Up it came. Around 9:00, the boulder was underwater and so were the large tree roots. That was a 3' rise in just a few hours. We had to make a decision. If the creek kept rising, we would be cut off from the parking lot where our truck and trailer were parked. It would also mean our truck and trailer would be in trouble. We could move them to the upper level parking lot on the property, but it would have been a major pain the ass to do it in the rain. So....we waited some more and watched Forest Gump. What a great movie. Around 10:30, the rain quit and the water stopped rising. Yeeehaaa! But....we worried about it all night.

This morning, our little buddy came over to the bed to touch our elbows with his wet nose. What a guy.....how does he know when it's 5:30? I got up, put on my LL Bean rain parka and headed out with Tuck for his morning pee break and to check the water. Deep sigh of relief....it had dropped about 3' from last night. We made it. The rain has stopped. The meaning of the expression I've heard since I was a little kid just became perfectly clear.

Today, we begin our search for a rental house. It has to have a two-car garage with room to store the Volvo, the Isetta, the BMW,  room for my tools and all the non-critical stuff you normally keep in a garage, our truck and the trailer, a spot for the Airstream trailer we plan on buying this Summer and accept pets. The pet part is the deal-breaker. This will be easier said than done. Most rental properties don't accept pets. Plus, mountain homes have spectacular views....and spectacular driveways. Think....the drive to our storage unit. Some of the drives lead down from the street in front of the home and others lead up from the street below. We checked out a really nice home yesterday that had, in our opinion, an impassable drive that led up at a 45 degree level from the street. We went partially up and had to back down really slowly. How they built the house is beyond me. How did movers get furniture up there? We drove off and scratched another one off the list. Stay tuned.

We hope to walk around the town today between errands and post some pictures. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Cheers!

Unloading The Beast...in the rain at the storage facility from Hell

What do you do at 5:00 in the morning, when a cold, wet nose presses against your elbow and you hear a slight wimper? Normally, I'd mumble something like "you've got to be kidding me", roll over and go back to sleep. With Tuck....who had ridden 3,200 miles and never made a peep....you pat him on the head, scratch his soft as velvet ears and get up. Absolutely. His time zone clock is off and so is mine. He still thinks it's 8:00 and it's time to go out, sniff every branch, do his business and then....being the lab that he is....scarf some food out of the bushes. That's my boy. No one was up but another hotel guest walking her shepherd. It's always comforting to know there are other crazy people out there.

So, I digress. Yesterday was the great unloading of The Beast. We fueled up the Penske to get ready to turn it in and drove to the storage unit. We'd had our first real breakfast since leaving Florida (courtesy of the Northern Queen Inn dining room) and we're feeling pretty good. The weather looked a little "iffy". It was overcast, with a very slight drizzle, but the wind was gone. So far, so good.

Getting off the exit in Grass Valley (another really cool town about 5 miles away), Claudia led us with her trusty IPhone GPS to find the storage facility where we had rented two units.  We found the address and saw the entrance sign, but no large, spread out storage unit. Hmmm, wrong address? Nope, we'd found it alright. But, we had both forgotten, this was a mountain town. There are NO large, flat as a pancake, easy to drive around, storage facilities. That was Florida. This is California in the mountains. Claudia was in front and called me. The news was not good. The first thing I heard was "you've got to be kidding me". Uh-oh. She turns at the sign and looks up, and up, at the storage units perched atop the hill. Trust me, it gets better. It's the Driveway from Hell. There are switchbacks you had to negotiate to get there. Fun in a go-cart. In trucks, not so much. Once you conquered those, you arrived at the office and the electric security gate. Claudia punches in the super-secret code we are hiding from the Russian hackers and moves through the gate, only to find out that she has to make another hard, almost 90 degree turn to her left. Somehow, she makes it before the gate comes down. Then, it was my turn. I punch in the code and start through, only to find out that the Penske won't make the turn. The rear wheels hit the steel pole guarding the code pad and I come to a rapid stop. Are you freakin' kidding me? Keep in mind, this is not only a storage facility, it's also a Penske drop-off site. We were pissed. And the manager of the place (a guy we're sure was pretty stoned), just sat and watched us through the office window. The two guys we hired to help us unload show up and they too are amazed at the turns and the clueless manager.

About that time, a lady approaches my truck. Another manager there to help? Nope, she and her family are there to unload, guess what....another 26' Penske truck and her Dad is right behind me, getting ready to negotiate the same turn. Bless her heart, she stands in front of my truck and directs my right front wheel up, over and off the curb, which we both figure out at the same time is the only way to get the front of the truck over far enough to the right so the rear wheels on the left side will clear the poles guarding the "code machine". Meanwhile, the gate keeps coming down (it has no safety mechanism to stop it) and the guy auditioning for the remake of "Reefer Madness" has to keep hitting the "up" button in his office. Honestly, you can't make this up. I finally make it through and Claudia walks up to me pointing up the hill to yet another switchback (don't worry, we're going to try and post photos of this). This building, it turns out, is where our first unit is located. I put the truck in the lowest gear, negotiate the turn and park in front of our unit. The guys work by the hour, so we're ready to get to work. They're nice, we like them immediately. Up goes the door to the unit and....down comes the rain. Oh well....get 'er done.

I won't bore you with the details of the two hour unloading of The Beast, except to explain that the truck had been loaded in Florida with the furniture in first and everything else behind it. Now that we're unloading it, we need to get to the furniture first to pack the unit correctly, which meant...we had to sit a lot of stuff out in the rain while we unloaded enough stuff to get to the furniture and the boxes that we wouldn't need until we find a rental house. A lot of it got wet, including the BMW, which hadn't seen a drop of water since I painted it. Long sigh.

We got the truck unloaded and then reloaded everything that had been sitting out in the rain. This pile consisted of the boxes that would be stored with the two cars, the BMW, all my tools, the drill press and the air compressor, etc. But oh, it gets better. Our second storage unit, it turns out,  is located on the next level up (remember, this is a "tiered storage facility". Since I was facing the wrong way and the other Penske truck being unloaded blocked my way forward, the only way to get the truck up there, was to back it part of the way down the hill I came up, using the air brake to keep me from rolling backwards and then make another 90 degree turn to the right up to the other unit. I think maybe the guy in the office had it right....maybe you do have to be stoned to do this. Anyway, I made it and pulled up in front of our second unit. Up goes the door and Claudia immediately realizes that we had unloaded all the furniture in the wrong unit....25' one....which was supposed to be the one reserved for the cars, tools, etc. Whoops....a few really bad words fly. We now had enough room for the BMW, all the tools and the Isetta, but not enough room for the old Volvo (we need a name). Old Sven, or whatever we end up calling him/her, will have to be stored somewhere else.

At 12:30, we were done. The Penske truck was empty, the Isetta and the BMW were safely tucked away with all my tools. We. Were. Exhausted. The good news is that we think everything made it safely cross country (we did see a few boxes that looked crushed), except for my old glass jug full of corks that we'd been saving for about 35 years. In the waning moments of the move, I slid it out of the way to make room for the mattress and box spring and it dropped about an inch to the floor. Boom, it shattered. A long silence ensued between the four of us, as I realized that I'd just broken a jug from an old whiskey still I found while squirrel hunting. I had been protecting it since I was 16. That one hurt. Life goes on. It's just "stuff".

So, here we are at the end of what I'm going to call Chapter One. I hope those of you suffering through this enjoyed it. They say writing is therapeutic and I agree. It was quite a road trip.

In Chapter Two, we're going to take some pictures of where we're staying, views of downtown Nevada City and surrounding areas and our search for a long-term rental, where we can....you guessed it...unload the storage units and move everything to the new rental home. No problem....we're getting good at this.

Cheers!