August 29, 2019 - Small Projects

There have been a few maintenance projects that I have been trying to get to since we purchased the lodge.  The first - the area off the side of the living room, in front of the propane tank.  That area has always been a jumble of small boulders and rocks that has been difficult to traverse to get to the "portable banquet halls".  Just prior to the reunion, Jim and I pulled out most of the rocks, built a large step and backfilled the area with gravel and sand.  Since the reunion, we have added wild rock stepping stone.  So now, as you exit the front door to the left and head to the "flat lot", you no longer have to worry about stumbling over rocks, boulders and weeds.  Photo below:

Additionally, our front stone pillars and metal post have been in very sad condition for a long time.  This weekend, I started fixing the rock on the pillars and Jim added a new (non-bent) rail (the old one being bent and broken).  Photos of the improved front railing:

Now for some interesting tidbits from the last week of summer at the lodge.  Quincy and I were hiking around our property and found this rock that looked pretty interesting.  I am thinking it is a petroglyph - but not sure.  (If you are reading and you know, please send us a note).  It was probably moved onto the property at some point and just became uncovered this spring.  One of our helpful neighbors pointed out the the marks are probably large excavation equipment marks.  They are probably right - but as far as the kids are concerned, this is a Miwok petroglyph. Here is a photo:

And I took a ride up to North Fork Place so that I could get a photo of the old forest service bridge that crosses the NFNFA River well above the campground.  While driving up there, I took a wrong turn and ended up at a small group of summer cabins that are located on the north side of the river, I asked one of the cabin owners for directions, and he told me that there were two dams on the NFNFA a short hike past a locked gate on their road.  I didn't have time to check it out on my first trip - but Jim and I drove back there, parked the truck and hiked about a 1/4 mile up to the dams.  The first dam was easy to get to and was about 5 - 6 feet deep.  We did not see an easy route to the second dam and decided to check that out next summer.

Here are photos I took of the forest service bridge once I finally got on the right road.

And finally, I took Quincy back to the campground on the NFNFA river for his usual "swim" and decided to head over to Onion Valley.  I took a dirt road in back of the campground there, and within about 3 miles saw several signs.  "Active Logging" and "Trees Being Felled".  Just past a beautiful meadow filled with white onion flowers, I reached the burn area from last year's forest fire.  It is pretty devastated.  A crew of loggers have been cutting down the heavily burnt trees.  The Forest Service has a contract with a logging company out of Grass Valley to clear out the burnt trees on the 5000+ acres that were burnt.  They started logging about 2 weeks ago and we have seen a steady stream of log trucks and workers going in and out of the area.

My mom turned 90 yesterday - we celebrated in Manteca (lunch) just before heading up to the lodge. Pretty amazing how fast time is running.  We have owned the cabin for 10 years (this December) and Jim and I are well past 60 now.  We hope to spend a bit less time "working" and the lodge and a bit more time "enjoying" it.  We shall see.  This year is a family Christmas and next summer we are hosting yet another 4th of July reunion.

August 12, 2019 Long Time, No Post

To say we have been busy at the lodge is an understatement.  Most of June was spent prepping for the Guida, Atkins, Plotke (G.A.P.) family reunion which was held the week around the 4th of July.  We had about 40+ members of the family attend.  Many stayed the the lodge, some at the Rancho Sierra Hotel down the road, and some in motor homes.

The week was spent kayaking at Lake Valley and Fuller, hiking to the falls, with trips to Lake Tahoe, North Shore Stateline, 3rd of July Fireworks at Colfax, 4th of July parade at Dutch Flat.  And some of the hardier souls drove down to South Shore to ride the mega Zipline at Heavenly.  We had two big winners on the slots at the Hyatt Lake Tahoe.  And no major injuries or forest fires!

Since the reunion, we have hosted a few days with some of our old friends from Redwood Heights and are now preparing for our annual Cal Alumni weekend.

In between all of these festivities, we managed to get a short trip to Sequoia National Park.  We are hoping to get one more national park visited (Lassen) before fall sets in.

Work on the lodge continues (at a slower rate since it is summer) and we have just about completed the "Snow Room" which includes a new oak staircase leading from the top to the lower floor and cedar sided walls.  And we have added a railing to the lower deck (steps and finish work are still a luxury to be completed later).

One interesting update to our History.  Prior to the family reunion, two lovely ladies knocked on our door and told me that they were the descendants of the first teacher in Emigrant Gap, Annette Greenleaf.  They had found our blog online and read our notes on Ms Greenleaf and stopped by on they way East to say hi.  I hope they send us a note soon so I can add some more information about our first teacher and also send them a photo of the "old school".  In case they are reading this - our email is jguida@pacbell.net.

May 17 - 20, 2019 - Continuing the Snow Saga

We thought that snow season was about over with our last post - but not this year!  We became complacent during the drought years and thought that May was no longer part of the storm king season.  Our road signs clearly state that no parking is allowed at the end of our street from Oct 31 - May 31 for snow removal - but the thought that we would actually get a lot of snow in May became quite foreign with warmer temperatures and early fire seasons for the last 6 or 7 years.

The weekend on May 17 - 20 gave us another 4 - 5 inches of snow and much cold weather.  That did not deter Jim from installing a new dining room window (the old one had lost it's double pane seal some years ago and just needed to be replaced) and from adding the hardwood flooring to the landing and and cedar tongue and grove to the walls in the Snow Room.  I spent most of my weekend painting the 2 story high ceiling in the snow room and patching new landing drywall.  I have a paint topped baseball cap to prove it.

After hanging off a number of ladders outside and in, we both felt like it was ibuprofen time!  Here are some photos.

Photo of the snow with one ladder propped against our new window and one ladder laying on the snow.  

The snow room  ceiling was previously forest service green with lots of "age" spots and damage (including some fire damage from the 1950s fire that consumed the restaurant building next door).  Interestingly, painting the ceiling beige actually made it appear less prominent.

It snowed on our ladder so exterior window work had to end.

Jim's parquet floor with Oak apron on landing in snow room.  He is installing, I will be finishing.  Then maybe the soda referring can finally be moved out of the dining room.  

May 2019 - SNOW?

We are having some very interesting weather this month.  While at the lodge last week, we had 6 inches of snow.  This week it is snowing again (see photos below).  We had an epic snowfall this winter resulting in one broken window on the lower floor (apparently impaled by icicles falling from the upper floor roof and 3 broken screens (also from icicles encounters).  The roof on the screened in porch was pushed bent back a bit from the big snow pile falling off the main roof.

Other than that - the snow was glorious, amazing and fun.  We love big snow years and the repairs that need to be made to the lodge after, are well worth it.

During May, I have spent more of my time clearing branches from the property and building bonfires.  I have had all 4 bonfire pits going at different times since there was a lot of debris that fell this year and still quite a bit that we are clearing from the woods around the property.  As part of our fire proofing, we removed another gigantic cedar that was a bit too close to the screened in porch and the cabin itself.  That leaves the big Oak in front of the screen room and one big cedar below.  We are keeping the Oak (it is not as flammable as the cedar) but deciding if the final cedar that is within 20 feet of the building has to go.  Photo below of how the area looks now.

Jim has been working in the snow room.  He installed a new landing off the main floor and new stairs heading down to the lower floor.  The old stairs were rickety original outdoor 2 by 6 stairs and had been painted many many times.  The change also moved the lower landing up so that the stairs are now wider and easier to climb.  So far, he has the framing completed - built like Fort Knox (as usual) and the plywood down.  He has ordered the oak treads for the stairs and is hauling up Oak Flooring for the landing.

We are also going to be replacing one of the large windows in the dining room.  One of our many "repurposed" windows ended up losing a seal and now has drips inside the two pieces of glass. We are replacing the "slider" with a double/double hung window.

I was glad to see that we have not lost our blog after all.  Though we received a post that google was doing away with Google +, looks like our blog has been spared.  So - more posts coming in the future.

Jim's Project

Missing Cedar

Snow in May

The Icicle Window

Epic Snow from 2018-2019 season

January - April 2019 - Epic Snow Year

It is now April and our blog still seems to be "online".  There was a notice from Google stating they were removing a lot of stuff - but gladly did not turn out to include our blog.  So looks like we can continue posting updates.

We had an epic snow year this season with visits from Gina/Tom and family and Bill and his cousin in February and Jenny/Ryan and their friends and family in January.  Lots of digging out and snow play.  The snow was much like the depths we had during our first two years at the lodge.  Since we were worried we were losing our blog, keeping this short and just adding some photos.

October 30, 2018 - School For Sale

The Emigrant Gap School is finally going up for sale.  The school has been closed for about 3 years now and the building has not been maintained since then.  A few years ago there was a break-in that left a broken window and debris scattered inside the building.  I added some plywood to the window to keep as many critters (and creeps) out as possible.

The land was donated by Mr Cortopassi back between 1925 and 1940.  He and Mr Hyatt of the Mercantile put up the funds to build the one room school house.  It replaced an old clapboard school house that was located across the street.

I toured the building last week to check the condition.  Whoever purchases it will need to redo the Kitchen (currently galley style and pretty yucky) and Bathroom (the bathrooms are currently set up as boy and girl with stalls and sinks),  remove and rebuild the shower room (which is currently in a pretty rotted out lean-to attached to the building) and add 2/10 supports,wiring, etc to the attic to allow for bedrooms (there are no bedrooms in the building) and build a staircase up to the attic.  The windows are all single pane but they have a great view of the woods behind the school.  The worst issue is that the land in front of the school (street side) belongs to the state, so access could become an issue at some time.  Also the well and pump may not be located on the school property. The crawl space basement appears to be in good shape.  And it does have a metal roof, pretty much a requirement in our snow country.  Though I think one of the stove pipes (there is no stove) has fallen down).  The property is under 1 acre.

Of course, we would be the best candidates to purchase the school due to it's land locked location  - but we already have to maintain an 11 bedroom 5 1/2 bathroom building that has much work that still needs to be done.  I personally do not wish to maintain another building.  We had hoped one of our nieces or nephews would like to purchase it - but it looks like they are going to pass (too much work, too little land).  So - we will probably be looking at new neighbors in the future.

The road down to the property is on our land and has been narrowed since we needed to move the portable off the property line - so we may be building a garage next to it, which may make the school even more land locked.  They are asking $179,000 for the building which seems a bit high with all the work that needs to be done.

October 21, 2018 - Autumn Weekend with Friends

Another great weekend at the Gap with longtime friends Niki, Patrick, Karen, Larry and Rodger.  Mostly good food, good talk and great wine.  On Saturday, after a very late breakfast and some cajoling of Jim from me, we took a trip over the the Fairground in Grass Valley to attend a Craft Fair. The fair was rather small - but everyone (except me) managed to find something.  Jim bought a handcrafted Birdhouse for Orinda.  It is really nice (probably too nice to put outside in the weather).

Saturday night was Jim's Chicken Masala which - of course was a big hit.  Karen, Larry and Rodger had to leave after dinner.

Niki, Patrick, Jim and I headed to the Hardware Store in Colfax (Jim can not get through a weekend without doing some kind of project).  On the way back, we drove through Dutch Flat and got to tour the Dutch Flat Hotel.  It was sold about 1 year ago to someone who lives in Grass Valley.  Glad it went to a foothills person rather than someone from the Bay Area (I know that sounds bad - since we are from the Bay - but the Rainbow Lodge was sold to someone from the Bay and they have not reopened it as a Restaurant/Bar/Hotel).  Anyway - Niki and Patrick got to roam through the building and loved it.

Our final trip was to our falls.  I have never been to the falls in Autumn.  It was quite lovely with all the dogwoods turning colors.  Though I decided not to climb down the cliff to the bottom of the falls (wrong shoes), everyone else did and took some really nice photos.

Niki and Patrick got on the road before nightfall, and Jim did his small project and left for home around 7 pm.  I stayed on (of course) since we had an appointment with Amerigas to re-hook up our propane to the game room.  And, as always, there was clean up to do.