Sunday June 30, 2013

Summer is here.  It's here in the weather forecast.  Warm!  Warm here, hot everywhere else.  90 for a high here today, Reno 104, Vegas - Wow! and Death Valley _ Oh My Goodness!!!!!

   Summer got here in a hurry.  Monday and Tuesday were cool and rainy.  I felt like we were back in Oregon again.  I did not go to swimming because the pooldoes not have a top during the summer and it would not have been comfortable.  By Wednesday the sun was back and 70 degrees and it warmed up everyday after.

   Tallac is finally on the summer schedule.  Three tours of the Pope House everyday except Wednesday.  Wednesday the house gets a thorough cleaning, so other programs are run.  Here was our week.  Wednesday R was the maid at an event called "Afternoon with Anita".  One the volunteers, dressed in period costume and portrays Anita Baldwin, one of the "characters" of the site.  I, dressed as the butler, led two "Servants Tours"  in which I led "prospective domestic employees" on a tours of the Pope estate telling them about what to espect if they would become part of the staff of 35 (maid, butler, cook, etc.) that once worked for the Pope family.

  Thursday and Friday I led two tours of the Pope House along with normal day to day operations such as cleaning the museum, or emptying the trash, etc.  Yesterday was super busy.  I did the trash run in the morning while R drove into town to get groceries for an afternoon event.  Then I mopped and cleaned the Pope kitchen.  R was in the museum for several hours after opening gretting and talking with visitors.  At noon we drove home to have lunch and let Mollie out.  From 1:45 until 7pm we were in costume as maid (R) and butler (J) preparing for an event called "Vintage Vatican".  16 guests are drived to the front of the Pope house in a 1928 GMC vehicle, greeted by the butler, who escourts the ladies up unto the front porch. Two maids are there to help them find name tags, ( the name tags are of celebrities of the 20's, Tom Mix, Thomas Edison , Greta Garbo, Coco Chanel, etc.
Mrs Pope greets them and shows them her house, followed by bubbly and food on the front porch served by, you guessed it, a butler and two maids.
   The guests had a great time. The conversation was brisk and full of laughter.  The food was consumed and the evening ended with another ride back to their cars.

   After clean-up we came back to the trailer and gathered up our neighbors for snacks ( a little of the remaining canapes, plus chips, etc.) for a hour or two of jokes and stories before heading inside.

  Today, relaxation will be the order of the day.

Anita Baldwin's property

  Anita Baldwin was one of the two legitimate daughters of Lucky Baldwin.  She inherited a large portion of his estate including the property in the Lake Tahoe area.  She lived in a very large house on the west side of Fallen Leaf Lake which is in itself a gorgeous spot just south of Lake Tahoe.  Taylor Creek flows north out of that lake and down into Tahoe.  Walking along Taylor Creek is one of walks that Mollie and I do often.
  Tuesday night after supper a group of us drove part-way and walked the rest into the site of Antia's cabin on the west side of the lake.  I hesitate to call it a cabin because it was over 5000 sq ft.  You can only try to visualize it bacause it burned to the ground in the 1970's.  All that remains is the stone foundation and a huge fireplace and a tall chimney.  
   Even then it is not hard to imagine sitting out on the enormous front porch in the evening, watching the shodow of the sun's light creep up the mountains across from Fallen Leaf Lake.  Ah the good life.

Thursday June 13th

Nice sunny day.  High in the 70's.

   The paperwork for the sale of our house arrived on Wednesday.  We signed the highlighted areas and took the papers to a mailing company to have it notarized and Fed Exed back to Eugene.  Today is the day that the house actually sells.
   We talked to our insurance agent yesterday and we took out a renter's insurance policy on our houehold goods which are in a storage unit.  Evidently, State Farm needs an address (and not a storage unit address) on file so he is allowing us to give our Eugene address for 90 days.  After that we will need to either have a new house or give our son's address for the policy.

  Today I give my first Pope House tours.  I have shadowed (attended tours to help remember the facts)  several tours so I am not really worried about it.  It comes back to you.  I just need to get my costume in order this morning.  It adds to the feel of the Pope house tour.

Sunday June 9, 2013

Yesterday, Saturday was a busy one.  David and I had several projects that we had planned to finish that day.  But there were delays because we first used a tall ladder and peeked into the attic of the Baldwin House.  You never know what you will find when you look in storage areas and out-of-the-way places on this site.  The other day I showed David the Baldwin boat house which is almost hidden in the bushes just to the east of the museum.  Inside the small structure, along with an intricate spider web lattice, was a rowboat, a small wooden runabout, and six outboard motors of various ages. That is what we hoped to find in the attic.  What we found was........ an attic; empty and unexciting.
   We put the ladder away and began our day.  The great thing about working here at Tallac is the variety of jobs that you get to do .  I have replaced a toilet, raked pine needles, repaired a section of concrete curbing, rebuilt a section of fence, helped cut down several trees, played the part of James, the head butler of the Pope House, along with other tasks.
   Yesterday, it was rebuilding a section of decking on what is called the Breeze Way at the Pope House. The breezeway is a curved, covered walkway that connects the main house with the kitchen.  It was not uncommon in days past to have the kitchen building separate from the house to lessen the fire danger of the wood stove.  Several of the deck boards were showing signs of wear and rot and needed to be replaced.  So the day was spent pulling the bad ones up and putting new ones down. 
   Sounds simple right?  Remember I said a "curved and covered walkway".  So each board had to be measured and cut individually to fit into the open space created by the removal of it's predesessor.  This involved much measuring and numerous trips back to the shop where the table saw is located.  We also had to work around the Pope House tour schedule and allow our visitors passage through the breezeway for the two afternoon tours. 
   Eleven deck boards were removed, replaced, and primed before the end of the day.  A good day.  Today, another volunteer will paint the entire breezeway with the cover coat of grey paint and another restoration project will be completed.

Selling the House : Adendum

   The thing to remember when selling your house.  It isn't sold until it's sold.  When we accepted the offer on the house several weeks ago, we thought, "That was it".  Not quite.  There are two possible snags.  If the buyer is getting a loan, the bank requires both the buyer and the house to qualify.  Since our buyer was a cash buyer, this was not an issue.
   The other hurdle is the home inspection.  This was the focus of our last several days.  Some people feel that the inspector is trying to earn his money so he searches until he finds anything he can.  Our inspector did find some items.  Many of them were little things that are easy to fix; like flashing needing chalking, a electrical outlet needing grounding, etc.
    The one big item that was discovered was the damage that was done when a raccoon got under our house.  Insulation was pulled down and damaged and heat ducts were chewed through.  The final estimate has not been added up yet, but State Farm says that we will be covered even if the work is done after the house sale closes.  The claim representative informed me that if the damage had been done by mice or rats, we wouldn't have been covered, but because it was done by a raccoon, we are ok.  Why?  Because a raccoon is a mammal.  (I know) 
   So it seems that things are moving forward.   

Typical Week-end in South Lake Tahoe

A busy week-end in the South Lake Tahoe area.  Friday evening after work we went out to supper with our next door neighbors D & L. Macaroni with brocoli and red peppers and a side salad eaten outdoors along with good conversation made for a delightful evening.  On the way home our friends helped us close the Tallac site.  Closing means turning the lights off and shutting the outside doors of the twenty display buildings on the site.  It is easy but it takes a little time.
   After we got home I took Mollie for a walk over to where a group of people were gathered near the entrance to the visitors area.  There were two porta-potties and an genertor powered light so I was curious.  The Reno-Tahoe Odyessy is a 187 mile team relay run similar to Hood to Coast run in Oregon.  The route of the relay brings the runners around Lake Tahoe at night.  The bulk of the runners were going to run by our area between 10pm and Midnight.  Besides the dangers of running on a narrow two lane road in the dark, they would not get any view of the lake.  We heard cheers and clapping from runner's supporters as we nodded off to sleep.
   This week-end and the next is time for the annual Renaissance Faire at Camp Richardson which is about a mile east here.  Lots of folks in strange attire and lots of traffic.
   This morning as I walked Mollie at 6:30 we watched a steady stream of riders who are riding the 72 miles around the lake in a event rightly called America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride.  The weather could not be finer.  The scenery could not be better.