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Year: 2006

Pictures from Tahoe: Thursday

June 22, 2006 • • Leave a comment

On Thursday, we hiked at Sugar Pine Point State Park on the west shore of Lake Tahoe:

Sugar Pine Point SP

We only did one hike while we were there and so we took this one because it would get us close to the water:

Lake Tahoe

The trail was pretty easy, but we were in it more for scenery than exercise. We hiked along a beach that we had to ourselves:

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

After walking along the beach the trail veered back into the woods and led to what one guidebook described as the highest altitude lighthouse in the world. The park’s literature described it as the highest navigational aid. It was a gigantic yield sign with a light on top set in place to warn boaters of some rocks near shore. I don’t know why I was expecting a more traditional lighthouse, but we had a few good laughs about it and continued our hike:

Sugar Pine Point SP - Big Trees

As we were heading back to the trailhead, something black moved quickly across the trail about forty yards ahead. Our first thought was ‘bear’ but then we decided it must’ve been a bird. When we got around the bend we saw to other hikers who had had a clear view of our bear/bird. Turns out it was a bear, and they were trying to decide if they really did in fact want to go hiking, but seeing that we were alive, they soldiered on.

I’ve always been fascinated by bears and was hoping to see one (preferable from the car) but I feel lucky to have gotten even the most fleeting glipmpse of a bear. Especially one that didn’t have an apetite for Texan.

After hiking, we went back to Tahoe City for lunch and then paid a visit to Truckee. From there we drove up to Donner Summit to stand around in some snow since we don’t ever see any around here.

This picture was taken at the trailhead for the Pacific Crest Trail that runs from Mexico all the way up to Canada:

near Donner Summit

Pictures from Tahoe: Wednesday

June 21, 2006 • • 6 Comments

This is looking up at the mountains from Squaw Valley on a perfect morning:

Squaw Valley

We drove across the Sierras to Nevada City, CA to visit my uncle and aunt who have a house in the woods near there. Before lunch they took us to see the South Yuba River about a mile from their home.

This is looking up the river:

South Yuba River

This is looking down the river:

South Yuba River

When we got back to Squaw I tried my hand at glowing aspens, inspired by Ansel Adams:

Squaw Aspens

California Beer

June 21, 2006 • • 4 Comments

Irish Pub in Squaw Valley
(inside an Irish pub in Squaw Valley)

In 1994, I was working on a made-for-TV movie in San Jose. On a day off, I drove up to Mountain View with one of the sound guys. We attended the Small Brewers’ Festival of California where I tried many beers including Pete’s Wicked Ale, which quickly became my favorite.

When I returned to Austin, I preached the gospel of Pete’s but it would be another year and a half before it made its way here. By the time I found it, in a 7-11 on MLK, it tasted different. I still liked it, but it wasn’t quite what I remembered. Perhaps beer tastes better in memory?

A few years ago, I mentioned it to a friend’s father who is an alcohol distributor. He claimed that all California and all European beers were skunky by the time they reach Texas and that they taste totally different (meaning fresh) closer to the source.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but when we were in California, I found that my favorite beer of all time, my comfort beer if you will – Sierra Nevada Pale Ale – was not the same in the Sierra Nevada mountains as it is in the hills of central Texas.

I love Sierra Nevada for its crisp hopiness, almost IPA-like in character. It’s the cascade hops that I love, I suppose, which is why when I make beer I try to load it up with similar-tasting hops. Still, there’s nothing like a cold pint of Sierra Nevada Pale. The idea of drinking a pint of Sierra in the Sierras was too much to pass up, but imagine my surprise when I tasted it. It was like a great beer made perfect. It had greater complexity of flavor than it does here. There’s an almost floral presence in the taste, but it’s not sweet or soapy, it’s just… better.

Perhaps my friend’s dad was right. Perhaps Sierra is a bit off here in Texas, but I still like it. The test will be if I can locate a local purveyor of any of these fine beers that we tried on our trip and see if they taste as I remember them:

  • Tahoe Red Ale from the Lake Tahoe Brewing Company (whose site I can’t find) somewhere on the Nevada side. I liked this one. Reds aren’t my favorite, but it was smooth and pleasant.
  • Steelhead Extra Pale Ale from the Mad River Brewing Company in Blue Lake, CA. Truly a light pale in color. Nicely hopped, and I say the hoppier the better. This was my favorite of the beers we discovered.
  • Eye of the Hawk Select Ale by the Mendocino Brewing Company in Ukiah, CA. You can tell it’s a very alcoholic beer (8.0%) without reading the label. It’s thick, full, and strong. Reminds me of some Scottish ales. One is enough.
  • Great White Hefe-Weissen by the Lost Coast Brewing Company in Eureka, CA. I like a hefe after a hot day. It wasn’t really hot the day we tried it, but it still went down clean and smooth. Very refreshing with a wedge of lemon. Beautiful rich golden color.

We also drank Sierra Nevada Pale. Of course.

In his book River Horse, William Least Heat-Moon at one point describes reaching the west coast as coming to the end of the “Great American Beer Desert.” It’s not too deserty here in central Texas, but I do love going to California if for nothing else than to try new beers.

Pictures from Tahoe: Monday and Tuesday

June 20, 2006 • • 4 Comments

This is our first glimpse of Lake Tahoe, taken from Tahoe City, CA last Monday:

Lake Tahoe

This is the view from our room in The Resort at Squaw Creek in the mountains halfway between Truckee and Tahoe City:

Squaw Valley

I took this on Tuesday morning when the sun was trying to come out, but only really made it to the upper slopes. The rest of the day was overcast and drizzly, but still beautiful.

This is from a waterfall leading into Emerald Bay on the southwestern shore of the lake:

Emerald Bay

The island – Fannette Island – is the only island in Lake Tahoe.

We didn’t stay long at Emerald Bay because rain was coming in and thunder was booming down from the mountains, so we spent most of the rest of Tuesday relaxing, playing cards and watching the clouds crash into the mountains and then billow down the slopes of the valley.

The Lost Book Club: A Wrinkle in Time

June 20, 2006 • • 6 Comments

Why did I not read this when I was younger? A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle is a wonderful tale of travel through space and time, full of charming characters, human and alien, who all want to help Meg, a young misfit, find her long-lost scientist father.

Accompanying Meg on her journey are her friend Calvin and her younger brother, Charles Wallace, who is very young, but possess the intelligence, if not the wisdom, of an adult. He also seems to have some kind of powerful psychic ability, though L’Engle does not really delve too deeply into the whys of this aspect of Charles’ character.

A Wrinkle in Time appears on Lost as one of the many books that Sawyer is shown reading. It appears in the episode “Numbers” in which we learn Hurley’s backstory and the tale of how he won the lottery using a set of numbers that he has come to believe are cursed and that seem to have something to do with the island. Hurley sets off across the island searching for answers and in this way, his journey parallels Meg’s journey for answers about her father.

Along the way, Meg and company find that many worlds are shrouded by a black thing, a darkness, that sounds more than a little bit like the mysterious black cloud that both Mr. Eko and John Locke have seen on Lost. Here we have what is apparently the closest Lost connection.

As it is described in A Wrinkle in Time, the black shadow is some kind of manifestation of pure evil, but on Lost in may be something else. In the first season it appears to be some kind of unseen monster, but after looking into it, Locke claims that he has looked into the eye of the island and found it beautiful. In season two, Mr. Eko has a similar experience, but the monster is revealed as some kind of black smoke or shadow that shows Eko images of his past.

In A Wrinkle in Time, we have another book that suggests alternate reality and psychic manipulation. It focuses on the presence of some kind of all-encompassing evil that has the power to distort reality and trap people where time has no meaning; in fact all of A Wrinkle in Time takes places over the course of a few seconds on Earth.

I’m not sure time has stopped on Lost, but one thing that’s interesting to note is the fact that the only two characters to face the monster and survive are the two who are most driven by faith. The issue of faith vs. reason is a recurring theme on Lost, and as I ponder A Wrinkle in Time, I remember that it was Meg’s faith and her love for her brother that saved her. On Lost, Mr. Eko, a true man of faith, was ultimately saved by the love of his brother.

Perhaps A Wrinkle in Time is something of a red-herring on Lost, designed to make us wonder if the characters on Lost are trapped in a wrinkle in time of their own, or perhaps under the spell of some kind of psychic manipulation. Maybe the darkness on Lost isn’t really darkness, or perhaps it further blinds the men of faith. Whatever may happen on Lost, though, A Wrinkle in Time is a worthwhile read.

For more of my Lost book posts, check out The Lost Book Club.

Back from Tahoe

June 19, 2006 • • 1 Comment

Mountains around Tahoe

We returned from our Lake Tahoe/Sierra Nevada vacation late on Saturday. It should have been Friday, but a cancelled flight left us stuck for the night in Reno, which is really not the worst place in the world to get stuck.

We hadn’t vacationed since the summer of 2001 when we went to New York, New England and Quebec, and this time we wanted something that was easy and relaxing. Basically a vacation we wouldn’t have to recover from when we returned. Getting away to Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada mountains seemed like a perfect getaway.

Overall, we had a wonderful time away from central Texas where the sky is a furnace set on ‘hell.’ The weather in the Sierras was mostly sunny (one rainy day) and temperatures never reached higher than the low sixties. We stayed in Squaw Valley which is five miles north of Tahoe City, California and was the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. We stayed at the Resort at Squaw Creek, which is a ski resort, but ski season was over and summer hadn’t really started so it was pretty quiet, and there were no crowds either in Squaw Valley or at the lake, just total peace.

The area around the lake is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Water and sky are so cold and blue and would come together as one if not for the mountains that surround the whole area. I’d forgotten how good mountain air smells, full of pine and a crispness that just doesn’t exist at lower elevations.

Here’s the run-down on the week:

Monday: Arrived in Reno and drove to Squaw Valley to check in. Drove down to Tahoe City, CA for our first look at the lake and to pick up groceries. Spent the evening sitting in our room, drinking beer, playing cards and watching the sun disappear behind the mountains while enjoying the slow changes in the sky as night settled into the valley.

Tuesday: Rainy day, but still a good one for exploration. We drove to Emerald Bay to view Tahoe’s one island and check out the waterfalls. Later we drove along the north shore to King’s Bay. We found a little record store run by a guy and three dogs that specialized in indie/punk/alt rock and bought the new Sonic Youth CD. Then we spent the rest of the day in the hotel lobby sitting by the fire, playing cards and watching the rain fall in the mountains.

Wednesday: Gorgeous, sunny morning. We drove up to the old railroad town of Truckee, CA, which has been heavily gentrified. We walked around the historic downtown before driving to Nevada City, CA in the western foothills of the Sierras to visit my aunt and uncle. We ate lunch with them in Nevada City at a little restaurant whose name escapes me, but it was probably the best meal of the trip. That night, back in Squaw Valley we went to Fireside Pizza for dinner and drank my favorite beer, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which we learned tastes very different in California than it does in Texas, thus confirming what a beer distributor I know once told me: all California beers are skunky by the time they get to Texas.

Thursday: Another beautiful blue-sky mountain morning. We went hiking along the lakeshore at Sugar Pine Point State Park and even saw a bear. It crossed the trail about forty yards ahead of us so quickly we didn’t even know if it was a bear or a bird since we only saw it’s upper half. We came around the bend where it crossed and saw two other hikers frozen on a bridge. They tentatively asked if we were okay and if we’d seen the bear. They’d had a much better vantage and confirmed the sighting. I would like to have gotten a better view, but I guess I’m lucky just to have seen one.

After the hike we had lunch as Rosie’s Cafe in Tahoe City, which is apparently something of a Tahoe tradition. Then we wandered about the main drag, checked out the stores, but ultimately decided to drive back up to Truckee for our souvenir shopping. After some hard shopping, we enjoyed another Sierra Nevada Pale at a local bar and then headed up to Donner Summit to stand in some snow for a little while. We hiked around the trailhead of the Pacific Crest Trail and then cruised back to Squaw Valley for some beers in an Irish bar and then Pizza again for dinner.

Friday: Another perfect day, but unfortunately the one on which we had to leave. We wandered around Tahoe City, taking in as much of the lake as we could, filling up our minds and memories with mountains, lake and sky. We had breakfast in Truckee at a diner called ‘Coffee &’ and then drove out of the mountains and back into Reno. After we learned that our flight was cancelled, American put us up at the Reno Hilton and we wound up having a great time.

We got back to Austin on Saturday afternoon and reunited with Morrison and the hounds who all seemed to miss each other more than they missed us.

Pictures (real ones with the real camera – the one above is digital) will be ready tomorrow. I’ll probably post more about our trip through the week, but for now that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Weekend Hound Blogging: Vacations

June 11, 2006 • • 2 Comments

It’s vacation time. Morrison and Phoebe left for the resort spa yesterday, but since Daphne is too afraid to be boarded, she’ll be staying with my sister’s family for the week. She doesn’t get to start her vacation until later today, though. In the meantime, you can tell she misses her friends.

Lonely Daphne

Or maybe she’s just glad to have the bed and couches to herself for a little while.

And where are the apes going?

Lake Tahoe - Emerald Bay
(Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe – Image by Neil Li borrowed from Wikipedia)

We’re off to Lake Tahoe for the week. I’ve wanted to see the area ever since I read Mark Twain’s Roughing It back in high school. We won’t be roughing it, but we also won’t burn down half the lake shore as Twain accidentally did in the mid-nineteenth century.

See you next week.

Old Photo Friday

June 9, 2006 • • 3 Comments

In honor of the Football Soccer World Cup, I relive my own athletic glory days and present to you the terror of the 1978 Springfield, Virginia Spring Soccer League…

The Sabers

The Sabers. We were undefeated. We were the champeens.

I played soccer (spring, summer, fall, indoor, jv, you name it) every year from kindergarten up through my junior year of high school, but the Sabers was hands-down the best team I was ever on. In the fall, the team reformed with a few more players and became the Sabers II, but as with many other sequels did not fare as well.

So let’s hear it then: Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? THE SABERS! THE SABERS! YEAHHHHHHH!

By the way, that’s me to the left of the sign.

A Hunnert

June 8, 2006 • • 3 Comments

Today when I got home from having lunch with my family, the thermometer read: 99.9. I waited and did a few chores, checking back on the thermometer from time to time. Finally… 100 F (that’s a hunnert here in Texas).

I can’t remember when we’ve had triple digits this early before, but despite all the dire thoughts about global warming that this conjures, I was kind of excited. Why would anyone be excited about triple digit temps, you ask (or I imagine you asking anyway)?

Cycling. I love cycling and one of my favorite things is riding during the hottest part of a summer afternoon. Usually, I’ve finished writing for the day and being on my bike for an hour or two gives me the chance to think about whatever I’m writing, to work through story and character problems, and also to just burn off energy and enjoy the feel of the searing sky and still air. I find it cleansing.

Today, the sky was full of clouds so there were occasional respites from the sun, but those never came while pushing uphill. It was deliciously hot, and I’m kind of worn out now – I only did about twelve miles – but what a wonderful feeling to feel so close to the sun.

I’ll be sick of this by October when it finally cools off, but for now there’s nothing quite like triple digits while cycling the trails and streets of my little corner of this oven we call central Texas.

The Lost Book Club: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

June 7, 2006 • • 11 Comments

I first read “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce (the full story is online – just follow the link) a few years ago while searching for a short story to teach on a Friday during summer school. Recently, it showed up on the Lost episode “The Long Con” as one of the books that John Locke is seen organizing in the hatch.

“Owl Creek” tells the tale of the Confederate saboteur Peyton Farquhar’s execution by Union soldiers during the US Civil War. The story begins with Farquhar about to be hanged from the Owl Creek Bridge. He is pushed over the bridge, but the rope breaks and he falls into the river, where he dodges bullets and swims to safety.

He makes his way through a forest that grows increasingly primeval and sinister the closer he gets to home. As he reaches his house, he feels a terrible pain in the back of his neck, the rope breaks, and Farquhar hangs dead from Owl Creek Bridge, the entire story of his escape a flight of imagination occurring in the space between falling from the bridge and the rope snapping his neck.

Great story, beautifully imagined and written, but why is it referenced in Lost?

It seems to me that “Owl Creek Bridge” is something of a suggestion to the viewer that perhaps the survivors of Oceanic 815 are not really survivors, but are experiencing the final moments just before their deaths. This theory has been discredited by the show’s writers, but apparently The Third Policeman (another Lost book, which I’ve not yet read) also suggests this interpretation.

One thing that stood out in rereading “Owl Creek Bridge” was this description of the forest as Farquhar runs from the Yankee troops:

The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which–once, twice, and again–he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

Anyone addicted to Lost will certainly be intrigued by this passage particularly the reference to mysterious voices in the woods, which often occur on the show just before strange things happen. There is also the hint of a suggestion that Farquhar has entered another world, perhaps some kind of parallel dimension existing just on the edge of death.

I don’t think the survivors of Oceanic 815 are in their final seconds of life; I think that’s a bit too easy, but I do wonder if they are in some kind of alternate or psychically created world, or at least one in which psychic manipulation occurs.

If you haven’t read “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” check it out because it really is a great story. Also read Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Secret Miracle,” a similar story, though one that hasn’t (yet) shown up on Lost.

For more of my Lost book posts, check out The Lost Book Club.