Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

Sierra Canyon Hiking Group – Monday hike – Steamboat Ditch


The Steamboat Ditch Trail is a 43-mile-long canal, finished in 1878, carrying water for irrigation. It starts on the Truckee River west of Reno and ends near the junction of the Mount Rose Highway and Highway 395 south of Reno. Today we hiked from the Verdi fire station across form Boom Town and Sierra Canyon and followed the ditch up stream. None of us had ever done this before and it turned out that much of the hike was cross country since there really wasn’t a trail. There wasn’t much water so we even hiked in the ditch for a while.
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The wind was really blowing. It was clear and sunny when we started but by the time we were done clouds had blown in it was getting colder and was starting to rain. Luckily when we stopped for lunch it was still a nice day.
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If you would like to see the rest of the pictures form the hike you can see them here.

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni

I just finished reading Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni. Moaveni had Iranian parents but grew up in San Jose. She lived and worked in Iran as a reporter for Time magazine and tried to figure out who she was and where would she feel at home. She knew that she always felt like an outsider in the U.S. but she was surprised that Iran couldn’t feel like home either. Lipstick Jihad would be an interesting book even if it wasn’t set against the backdrop of the reform movement going on in Iran in the 90’s. As Moaveni says

"All of our lives were formed against the backdrop of history, fated to be at home nowhere – not completely in America, not completely in Iran."

Because of this "backdrop of history" Lipstick Jihad is a fascinating book. I especially like that Moaveni helped me understand the complexities of the American Iranian relationship. It is not black and white. Iran is not evil and the U.S. good. Moaveni does not have an an answer to who is right and wrong in Iranian American relations but she did help me learn about Iran and Iranians.

The other thing I really liked about this book is that the theme of trying to find home is really a universal one. Because Moaveni was caught between America and Iran her search is a particularly interesting one but I have learned that we all try to find where we belong and at some level are always searching for home.

I experienced this when I was 13 and my family moved to Australia. I loved Australia but I missed home. It was an important lesson to learn that coming back to the U.S. I didn’t really feel at home either. I didn’t want to move back to Australia but it would always be a part of me. I feel the same way about Reno and Sunnyvale. I miss Sunnyvale and Reno doesn’t quite feel like home but I don’t want to go back to the Bay Area.

Lipstick Jihad reminded me that what I have to do is work to remember all the people and places that are part of my history and move forward recognizing that they are all part of who I am. I think this is true for all of us whether we have moved from Sunnyvale to Oakland, across country or even just to another place in our lives like from the work world to retirement or from college to the work world. Home is something we create with the help of our memories and our friends and families, as Moaveni says "we carried its scraps in our pockets, and when we assembled, we laid them out, and were home."

Sold!

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Duke and I are going out to dinner to celebrate tonight. Our house in Union City is sold! The sale of our house is a classic example of how prices in the San Francisco Bay Area have gone down. It was on the market for four months. This was our first offer and the house sold for $165,000 less than what a house like ours in our development sold for back in November of 2005….. Oh well, that is history and we have our money. We are happy.

There are a couple of other interesting parts of the experience.

  • People always tell you how important it is to have fresh paint, new carpet and staging, all of which we did. It turns out that none of that mattered. The buyers were in escrow for a house like ours. They were offering less than the loan on that house and the bank was dragging out the closing process. Our buyers were in a hurry and decided not to buy the other house. They are from Los Angeles and bought our house without ever looking at it! We closed in less than 2 weeks. Can you believe it.
  • You might think that once you move your personal possessions out of your house the cost of the homeowners insurance might go down. You would be wrong. As soon as we changed our mailing address our insurance company canceled our insurance. We had a terrible time finding someone who would sell us insurance on a house that no one was living in. We had been paying $1,800 for 12 months of homeowners insurance. The new insurance cost us $4,800 for six months!

Sierra Canyon Monday hike in the Donner Pass snow sheds

Last Thursday the Sierra Canyon hiking group hiked up to the railroad snow sheds over Donner Pass. We didn’t have flash lights so we didn’t go in very far. Today we decided to go to the other end of the snow sheds and hike all the way through them. We started at the top of Donner Pass right down the road from Squaw Valley ski resort and ended at the spot overlooking Donner Lake where we had lunch last Thursday.
You can see that the weather was a lot grayer and colder today.

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The snow sheds used to protect the trains from the big snow load over Donner Pass. About 15 years ago a new train tunnel was opened that goes through Mount Judah. The snow sheds were abandoned. The rails were removed and they now make a fascinating hike. In this picture you can see some of the sheds we hiked through. You can also see that there is a lot more snow up there than there was last Thursday.

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And here is a picture inside one of the sheds. If you would like to see all the pictures from this hike they are available here.

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Driving home we could see people skiing at Boreal. They just opened this weekend..

Cold Stream Valley – Sierra Canyon Hiking Group Thursday hike

It was an absolutely perfect day to hike today. The sun was shining and the air was cool but not cold. The Sierra Canyon Hiking Group hiked up into Cold Stream Valley South of Donner Lake. We parked at the same place we did for the Tinker Knob Hike a couple of weeks ago. For that hike we had snow and fog. Today was just the opposite. There was no snow left. The gate was closed on Coldstream Road off of Interstate 80 so we accessed the trail by driving through Donner Memorial State Park.

For much of the hike we were on the old railroad bed that you can see from Interstate 80. We passed the entrance to the railroad tunnel under Mount Judah and then came to the entrance to the old snow sheds where we had lunch overlooking Donner Lake. The whole hike was about 6 miles. Here are some of my pictures and the rest can be seen on Flickr here.

The entrance to the railroad tunnel under Mount Judah

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The entrance to an abandoned snow shed

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The snow shed was pitch black on the inside.

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Lunch break overlooking Donner Lake

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