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.

Sirra Canyon Hiking Group Thursday Hike to Loch Leven Lakes

The Sierra Canyon Hiking Group hike today was the 7.5 mile round trip to the Loch Leven Lakes. It was an absolutely beautiful day – warm with a cool breeze. According to all my hiking books this is a very popular hike. The trail head is right of of Highway 80 at the Rainbow Road exit. The three lakes were absolutely stunning. We sat on a rock in the sun by the lake to eat our lunch.
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Afterward we stopped at the Rainbow Lodge for beer. This group of people is so much fun to hike with.

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If you would like to see all the pictures of the hike you can see them here.

Who Owns This House – Gossip

A couple of weeks ago we received a letter forwarded by our landlord from the Sierra Canyon Homeowners Association AKA the Lawn Patrol complaining about the dead spots in our lawn. They were there when we rented the house and they are getting smaller and fewer because of Duke’s lawn care. The letter was more than a little annoying.

It really made us wonder why the Lawn Patrol doesn’t do something about the house down the street from us.

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As you can see in this picture the lawn is completely dead as are all the trees in the yard. As I understand it the Homeowners Association has a right to put a lien on the house and fix the yard at the homeowners expense. Del Webb/Pulte, the builder, is still selling new houses in this development and well maintained front yards could make a difference in a prospective buyer deciding whether to buy or not to buy. I imagine that Pulte/Del Webb still controls more than 50% of the votes in the Homeowners Association. I’m sure that is why the Lawn Patrol sent a letter to our landlord.

We recently heard some gossip which seems to clear up this puzzle about the house with the dead yard and why the Homeowners Association seems to be ignoring it. What we heard is that the house was sold to some people with a sale contingent on the sale of their house. When their house didn’t sell they backed out of the sales contract. According to the gossip, Pulte/Del Webb maintains that the house was sold and that the contingent buyers can’t back out. So apparently now the lawyers are fighting about who owns the house and the Pulte/Del Webb lawyers have told the homeowners association not do any maintenance on the house or the yard. Presumably because maintenance might strengthen the case that Pulte owns the house.

Just to repeat this is all gossip. I have no idea if the story is true. But is does make one wonder…….

Dad’s house and the fires.

My Dad lives in Escondido whichi s north of San Diego. The fires are quite close to his house. He and all his neighbors received reverse 911 calls yesterday telling them to evacuate. He evacuated to the Escondido Presbyterian Church. It is not too far from his house and he is with friends. He slept in his van in the church parking lot last night.

The neighbors all went back home this morning and Dad thought the fire had passed them by but he just called to say that the fire is at the bottom of his hill less than a mile a way. It hasn’t crossed the road but they are all evacuating again to be safe. I still think his house will be OK but it is not a sure thing. I’ll keep you all posted.

Sierra Canyon Hiking Group Thursday hike – Coldstream Canyon

I haven’t hiked for two weeks so today’s hike was hard but beautiful. There was lots of snow which made the hiking hard. Especially going up.

To get to the Coldstream Trail trailhead we took the Donner pass Road exit off of I80. We followed a gravel road to the east of the Donner State Park Camp ground. We went quite a ways on this road until we came to a horseshoe bend in the railway tracks where we parked, crossed the tracks and headed up. In about half a mile we passed Lost Trail Lodge which looks like a wonderful place to stay.

From there we headed through forest for several miles. The trail was covered in snow. it was fun to see all the animal tracks. There were coyote, deer and rabbits tracks and several others we weren’t sure about. Hiking in the snow was hard work but we had the trail to ourselves and the temperature was around 40 so it wasn’t too cold.
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We were heading south towards Tinker’s Knob. We made it to 8250 feet at the ridge before the final climb to Tinker’s Knob. It was drizzling and gray so there was no view. the snow kept getting deeper so we decided to turn back. I think we did about 6 miles total.

Here we are near the top. I am  the one with the white pants.  If you want to see all the pictures of this hike they are here.
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