Clear Skies

Looking straight up from our campsite, this is about the same view as one of the Monday photos I showed in this blog of the smoke from the fire. I like this one much better than the previous.
During the worst of the fire there was lots of fine ash and chunks of burnt bark raining down on us. Most of the chunks were about the size of a quarter and smaller but then there was this one I'm holding shown below.


As of today, the fire is 70% contained, the highways are open and those who were evacuated, or left voluntarily, are returning. The local community and most merchants are pitching in to help those who lost their homes. The Red Cross is here, as well as many temporary donation facilities, to aid those in need. We went to the grocery store yesterday and instead of being asked how we were ...... we were asked if we were safe. Fortunatly we could reply ..... "yes". I know this community very well and they will band together and help one another to get through this. We have not seen our friends yet who lost their home.

I now look forward to getting back to normal and returning to the silly posts this summer blog should be about.

Tuesday June 26 Fire Jumps Hwy 89

Yesterday afternoon the Angora fire jumped Hwy 89 near Camp Richardson, this is the plume of smoke as seen from the intersection of Hwy 50 and Hwy 89. I was down at the intersection on my bike and watched as Hwy 89 was closed and around 20 fire trucks moved from one location of the fire to another.



This was the view yesterday around 3pm from our campground entrance off of Hwy 50 looking north towards Raleys Supermarket (Ellie knows how close that is). Currently the fire is staying north of us but heavy winds are predicted for this afternoon so we're keeping the car packed although I feel optimistic that we are over the worst of the scares ...... I even saw some stars last night!

Tahoe Fire Area Map

The above image was posted on CNN this morning and shows the current fire area. I placed an "X" with a circle around it showing our location. The smoke is heavy here and it smells really bad. We are very sad for the people who have lost their homes, these were not summer homes, these were mostly moderately priced homes (for the area) belonging to locals. We have friends who have lost their home. The current report is that the fire is 40% contained but the race is on to get further containment before the winds return tomorrow.

Tahoe Fire

A fire started within a few miles of our campground yesterday afternoon around 2:15. This is what we saw looking straight up into the sky at about 2:30

About an hour later, this is what the sky looked like.

There was a lot of air tankers and helicopters. I shot this one around 4:30.



Around 5pm we were notified to be prepared to evacuate. We loaded up our car with important items, tuned into the local radio channel and waited. People with homes were keeping their wooden roofs watered down and some people in the campground left. This morning the winds are calm and we're optimistic that we won't have to leave. Many homes have been lost and the mood around here is pretty gloomy. All incoming roads into Lake Tahoe are closed and everyone is advised to stay home and indoors since the smoke is pretty nasty. Lots of ashes and even some chunks of burned wood are coming down so it's really kinda messy. The good news is that the last report we heard said that the fire is close to 10% contained. I'll post again tomorrow and hopefully have some good news.

Dogs On The Beach

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Our dogs Andi, Millie and Barb and Ginny's dogs Dolly and Samson on the beach at Lake Tahoe this morning. This is about an hour timelapsed into just 20 seconds. Click the thumbnail to play video and then give it some time to load

If A Video Is Slow Loading

As great as blogger.com is, sometimes a larger video file is slow to load. If you'd like you can CLICK HERE to go directly to my blip.tv page. By clicking on the triangle in the center of the first video that loads, it will run a progression of current videos of mine that are available. Otherwise just choose a video in playlist. Hope this helps.

Ginny, Lea, Marlene and Barb Hula Hoop Challenge

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So Lea intends to Hula Hoop across Lake Tahoe. Since no athletic endevor goes unchallenged, tryouts were held. Click the above thumbnail to view. Allow a little time to load since it's a little larger file than most, in fact, once it starts you may want to pause it until it's fully loaded then click the play triangle.

And The Winner Is ........

Click to Play

Lea remains the one most qualified to Hula Hoop across Lake Tahoe. When the challenge is completed, the video will be posted right here on Marlene's Summer Blog.

Barb And Ginny Arrive

Barb and Ginny arrived in Lake Tahoe today around 3pm. This photo was taken from our front yard just minutes after Barb expertly backed in their trailer through the trees. Millie was happy to see her friends and so were we. Should be some good partying ahead.

Beach Day For The Dogs

Today was beach day for the dogs. They love it! Millie loves to swim out for sticks and Andi just prefers to play in the shallow end and roll in the sand ..... about like me. The weather is great now ...... I would guess in the mid 70's but still cold in the morning. We're hoping our new electric barbeque will arrive tomorrow since just using our propane barbeque doesn't hack it for Lea's gourmet style :)

Western Tanager

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A beautiful male Western Tanager we happened upon while hiking on a trail to Fallen Leaf Lake this afternoon. Lea was able to get this video. Click on the thumbnail above to view Lea's video.

Here's the still photo that I got

Campsite Photo

Here's a photo of our campsite. The photo doesn't show how we're squeezed in between trees...... guess I should take one that does. You can see our 20" TV in the basement for using the Wii game system, our cooking/eating area under the white canopy and our "storage" tent at the back of the motorhome .......nothing but forest land from there on. It's great for the dogs since we can walk them down to "Maggie's Meadow" and a just a little further on to the Truckee River.

How We Wii In Our Motorhome

Lea and I love to make little videos so what could be more perfect than including some in my blog. I mentioned the new game console we got the other day......Wii. We set it up in our motorhome basement since.....well....there's a lot more room outside and it's funner. There's a lot of videos on youtube showing people playing Wii but I can guarantee you that's this is the first being played out of a motorhome basement. So .... check it out. Just click on the thumbnail to view the video.

Click To Play

Warming Up

June 11
It’s finally starting to warm up, I would guess that it got into the mid 60’s today. We were able to get out and do another short hike. We went to the Trout Chamber which is an easy loop hike on the “Rainbow Trail”. Mid way through the loop there is a chamber below Trout Creek with glass sides so you can see into the creek which is full of native trout. It’s very cool and Lea and I go there at least once every summer.
This afternoon I hiked down to “Maggie’s Meadow”. This is the place that our dog Maggie loved to run. We have every intention of spreading most of her ashes in this meadow but we just haven’t been able to do that yet although it’s been 2 years now. It will happen when it feels right. It was beautiful as usual so I will end this post with a photo of the meadow that I took this afternoon.

June 02-June 10

June 02
Lea and I left Apache Junction at 7:45 am. 4 computers, camera equipment, books, clothes, caravan canopy, mini van tent, 2 dogs, 1 cat and a parrot all fit inside our new Chevy Uplander. We had removed the seats and built a raised platform so that all our “gear” could be stored under the platform and the animals would be comfortable on the new “bed”. Almost everything fit under the bed except the canopy and a few misc items such as dog, cat and parrot food.

400 miles later, we arrived at Lea’s mother’s house in Orange, Calif. around 2:00 pm on one tank of gas with about 60 miles of fuel remaining...... not bad.

June 03
We left “O.C”. at 9:30 am and arrived in Bishop around 2:30 pm. Our first stop was Von’s in Bishop and then headed to Day’s Inn on Line St, which is the road that takes all the campers and backpackers up to the rivers, lakes and trail heads of the Sierra Nevada in this region. This motel is really nice and comes with a refrigerator and microwave oven which is why we stopped at Von’s grocery store first. It was hot in Bishop this Sunday ....... around 92 degrees.

June 04
It was a warm morning when we left Bishop at 8:00 am and headed off to Lake Tahoe. We arrived at Tahoe Valley Campground at 11:45 am and called Scott at Tahoe Tow to pull our motorhome from storage to our space. Unfortunatly, Scott’s small tow truck was in the shop getting a new paint job and he arrived with a huge truck used to tow semi’s. This was not good! He did get us in our very tight space but not before he took out the power posts in 2 campsites. Ouch...... not sure how that is going to go yet. The park manager is going after Scott’s insurance so now we’re out of a tow truck service and will have to resort to getting our motorhome fuel pump problem fixed so we can drive back and forth to our storage site.

June 05
We awoke on Tues. to clouds, high winds and very cold tempertures. It was’nt long before the rain came and it rained all day. At some point during a short break in the rain, we managed to get our awning down and that was as far as we got in setting up our camp. We went to Raleys and bought the ingredients to make Cream of Broccoli soup.......perfect!

June 06
This morning we awoke to tempertures in the low 30’s and snow showers. We pulled our dead battery out of the motorhome and got a new one so we could level our motorhome (no battery power.....no levelers). With that done we headed off to the casinos but with out any luck we came home sooner than we would have liked. Still snowing but not sticking. Cream of Broccoli soup for dinner again.

June 07
We awoke to clear skies but frozen water pipes. Morning temp of 23 degrees! No water meant no showers so we headed down to Carson City to do our shopping. There are some things that I just won’t do without a shower, some you can guess but going to Walmart isn’t one of them. First stop was Game Stop so Lea could get a new Playstation game.......good news......we were able to get the last Nintendo Wii console in stock. We stocked up on groceries and headed home with a car full of food and a brand new Wii. We were good girls, left the Wii in the box and set up our campsite. Temps were warm enough (maybe 60 degrees) to take off one jacket..... I was wearing a Tshirt, sweater and sweatshirt. With camp set up, it was much easier to relax but too tired to set up the Wii system.

June 08
We were able to get showers this morning so it must be warmer but it doesn’t feel like it. I hate being cold, which has a lot to do with why I left the mountains and moved to Arizona. Too cold to do any hiking so the next best thing was to set up the Wii system. I will soon be adding a page to my “Random Thoughts” blog that will be dedicated to the Wii system.......you don’t want to miss it and I will make a post here when it’s up.
Did you know that you can’t find electric barbeques anymore? Really..... not at Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot or the Kmart in Tahoe. Our old Sunbeam electric barbeque died last summer so we need to replace it........not by going into a store and buying one. The best we could do was Amazon.com for $179. and yes...... we opted for the “free shipping”. So with any luck we’ll get it before the end of the summer.

June 09

This is Eagle Creek which flows into Lake Tahoe at Emerald Bay. A short, but steep, hike on a popular trail leads up up to Eagle Falls. Anyone capable of hiking a steep rocky 1/2 mile should do this hike. Lea and I do it every year when we first get to Tahoe to start breaking in our hiking legs and lungs.


This is what you see when standing on the bridge, looking straight down over the river at the falls. A huge contrast from the picture above, taken just 1/2 mile down from the falls.


June 10
Cloudy again with threats of rain so we totally lazed out and just hung out in the motorhome all day.