Art, Friends & Yoga

This was one of those diverse and interesting days that makes me feel extra fortuntate.

After coffee al fresco, Sharon and I headed to the newly launched Lake Tahoe Community College’s Annual Student Art Exhibition. This very fun exhibit features work from across the Art Department. It highlights student achievement in drawing, painting, ceramics, photography, and mixed media. The opening reception and awards ceremony celebrate technical accomplishment, creative thought, and the diverse artistic voices of the LTCC community. All amazing!

I am very partial to ceramics. Jessica Aster's Cheeseburger Bird made me smile. For those who don't live in the land of vocal chickadees, right now the quiet of the day is interrupted by their mating song, "đť… Cheeeeeeeese burgerđť… ". So clever.

The realism of Exodus by Penney Garrett was exceptional.


There was something very poignant about No Screens by Paul Mueller. The hammer was so realistic. Such talent.


I enjoyed Agnes Knight's Deep Brew Dive.
I was drawn to 49 Pistachios in a Serving by Kelly Fisher & Wendy Cook not only because it was clever but also for its coincidence. Just yesterday, Steve and I were discussing the health benefits of this particular nut and learned that a serving size is indeed 49 pistachios. Wild.
Interestingly, Andrew Budd's Black Knight won best in the show. What a truly unique exhibition.
Lunch was spent in the company of some wonderful women. Mary Jo (to my right) returned to Tahoe to meet up with old friends. I am so happy I was included in this gathering.
We ended the day at Lake Tahoe Yoga for our very first visit. I was drawn to a session called Karmic Ruts: Identifying Postural Habit.
Jenay spent 1.5 hours teaching us how by changing the ways we use our bodies we can improve more than our physical well-being. The class focused on:
-Getting to know how we move
-Identifying postural habits that are creating dis-ease
-Adjusting the way in which we use our bodies
-Learning to stop moving in ways that create pain
These were all things I really needed to know. It was an incredible session that both Steve and I thoroughly enjoyed and we felt wonderful afterward. Now we just have to put into practice all we learned. This was truly the best end to our day!

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Emerald Bay & Negative Ions

I will never tire of hiking down to the shore of Emerald Bay State Park.

Our day's original plans got changed so we pivoted to our favorite hike and invited Karen. She was in!

While the Bay is gorgeous, our ultimate destination was Lower Eagle Falls.
Did you know that breathing the air around waterfalls may have a positive effect on health? That’s due to its content of negative ions, or “air vitamins,” as they are called by some overly enthusiastic supporters of their potential health benefits. I love that... air vitamins. Have you ever stood by a waterfall and suddenly felt your whole mood change? No, it isn’t a mind trick. It’s a real physiological occurrence.

Sometimes known as the waterfall effect, negative ions are released whenever water collides with itself — like in a waterfall or as it often does in the ocean. The negative ions, these invisible little powerhouses, are tossed in the air as the water collides with itself, and we reap the benefit by breathing them in. Karen is the one that shared this phenomenon with us.
The waterfall spray benefits your mind and body by giving you the feeling of being refreshed and revived. I experience that each time I'm here.
In addition, nature was providing some 'eye vitamins', too.




Snacks were had here. So idyllic!
This special place is home to what some consider to be the most iconic old-growth forest in the Lake Tahoe Basin. A visit is not complete without hugging something that quite possibly is twice as old as our Country. Wow. I đź’™ Emerald Bay.

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Tenacious Women of the Eastern Sierra

What a unique way to spend Mother's Day... Learning about some amazing local women!

On a glorious 93° Sunday, we found ourselves returning to the Minden Mill for a special history program presented by David and Gayle Woodruff- No Limits… No Boundaries: Tenacious Women of the Eastern Sierra. 
"The Eastern Sierra Nevada has long drawn brave mountaineers, curious wanderers, and bold thinkers. But the story of this rugged country was never written by men alone. In the shadow of these mighty peaks, women have carved their own remarkable paths—leading their communities through hardship, shaping culture, and leaving legacies as enduring as granite. From Native American women whose courage guided their people through profound challenges to one of America’s most celebrated literary voices, the Eastern Sierra has been home to a lineage of fierce, resilient, and visionary women." What a perfect theme for Mother's Day.
We began with Sarah Winnemucca. Please note, as with every one of David's talks, the history he shares is so in-depth. He is an incredible researcher and storyteller. I can only give a brief introduction to all of these exceptional women. All demand deeper studies. Sarah (c. 1844–1891) was a prominent Northern Paiute author, activist, and educator who tirelessly advocated for her people's rights amid Western expansion. Daughter of Chief Winnemucca, she served as an Army interpreter, scout, and lecturer, becoming the first Native American woman to publish a book, Life Among the Paiutes (1883).
Mary Austin (1868–1934) was a prolific American author, feminist, and environmental activist best known for The Land of Little Rain (1903), a seminal, transcendentalist tribute to the California desert. A pioneer in regionalism and Native American advocacy, she wrote over 30 books, including novels, plays, and essays focusing on the American Southwest's nature and culture. In her later life, she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where she became a central figure in the literary community and founder of the Santa Fe Playhouse.
Nellie Bly Baker O'Bryan (1893–1984) was a pioneering American silent film actress, Hollywood projectionist, and Eastern Sierra entrepreneur. Moving from Oklahoma to Hollywood in 1918, she became California's first licensed female motion-picture projectionist. She worked with Charlie Chaplin, appearing in 14 films including The Kid (1921). In 1935, Nellie relocated to Mono County and opened a summer resort. She became an entrepreneur and also a skilled wilderness guide. Eventually, she sold the resort but spent the rest of her life in the area. She is credited with building a local tourist attraction, the "Upside Down House" which in its heyday was the most popular tourist attraction in Mono County (my blog post about it is here).
Nan Zischank (1907–2000) was new to us. There was little in her early life to suggest she would one day be who she became. Born into a wealthy and socially prominent family in Ohio, Nan lived as a young girl in Boston and attended finishing school on Cape Cod, where she learned the requisite skills—management of servants among them—for a life in East Coast society. Long story short, in 1935, she and her husband Max moved to an isolated winter cabin in the alpine scenery and deep snow of the Sierra Nevada eastern slopes. That, she made clear to all, was when her life began in earnest. She was a prominent Eastern Sierra pioneer, expert skier, and local businesswoman who operated the Long Valley Resort near Crowley Lake before WWII. During the war, Max enlisted and Nan worked as a "companion, guide, advisor and diplomat" at the Manzanar War Relocation Center. What a life well lived.
The final tenacious woman showcased has been on this blog a couple of times. Anne Brigman, a late nineteenth-century pictorialist photographer, was born in Hawaii but spent most of her life in California. Throughout her life, she was recognized for her courageous and modernist spirit as one of the first-ever female photographers to capture self-portraits of her body in the wilderness. As a woman with a Christian missionary upbringing and a suffragette, she did not fit the conventional profile of the early 1900s woman, and was often an advocate for women’s rights. Her work and her life as an artist was tied to the social-political time in which she lived, demonstrating her freedom of soul and mind. Wow.

We have so much to learn from all these women, still today.
Being as both Gayle and I were without our sons on Mother's Day, it was wonderful to continue the history lessons and camaraderie with a meal together. What fun indeed! Henry Glassie, US historian, said, “History is not the past but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view, to be useful to the modern traveler.”  We could travel just about anywhere with these two. What a map David presented!

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Ike and Martin: A Patio Opening!

When this image showed up in my facebook feed, I knew the algorithms finally got it right! There was no way we were going to miss Ike & Martin.

This was our first visit to Shadyside Lounge in Tahoe City. What a perfect reason... A Patio Opening Party.
Turns out it was Ike & Martin's first visit to Shadyside, too. Oh man do I love this duo (previous posts about them can be found here). They make my heart happy!
For those who don't know, Ike & Martin are a Tahoe based supercharged acoustic rock group playing modern classic pop music with great force! Their unique take on classics has endeared them to me, plus they are just amazingly fun and so very entertaining.


As for the location, the website welcomed us to "Shadyside Lounge, a rustic neighborhood Mexican joint. The vision of bringing local culture back to the West Shore was brought to life in November 2023 by Scott Zumwalt, Doug Hartline, and Carmine Bove. Tahoe City was in need of a Mexican restaurant, craft cocktail bar, and sports hub, all of which Shadyside has fulfilled."
Owner Doug was indeed welcoming and he was a very gracious host. He made certain everyone was enjoying themselves. That said, there is no doubt about enjoyment when Ike & Martin are in the house. Wild stuff!


"Music has a great power
for bringing people together.
With so many forces in this world
acting to drive wedges between people,
it's important to preserve those things that
help us experience our common humanity."
— Ted Turner

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Snapshot Day: Helping the Lake

Today, I was one of the 125 volunteers who mobilized across the Tahoe-Truckee watershed to collect and test water samples from 37 different creeks, streams, smaller lakes, and Lake Tahoe itself. Our goal was to take a “snapshot” of water quality at a single moment in time for this important source of drinking water and outdoor recreation.

Since 2001, Snapshot Day partners have sampled sites from Meyers to Tahoe’s North Shore, continuing on to Truckee and through Reno, ending at Pyramid Lake. By collecting water quality data from the same sites each year, Keep Tahoe Blue and event partners can track changes in the health of Lake Tahoe and the Truckee River watershed. Snapshot Day also provides a unique opportunity for the community to connect with the environment in their own backyards through hands-on, scientific fieldwork.
I was assigned to the 'I' Team with Alyssa as our leader. What fun to have friends, Mimi and Karen, as fellow citizen scientist volunteers.
We went out to two monitoring sites and performed a stream walk (visual assessment), collected field data, grabbed samples, and took photos. Streams were field tested for dissolved oxygen, conductivity, pH, and temperature.  Water samples were taken back to the central meeting location and measured for turbidity, nutrients and fecal coliform bacteria. All very scientific and surprisingly fun.






Each year, Snapshot Day volunteers generate thousands of data points about the Tahoe-Truckee watershed. How wonderful to be a part of this important snapshot. I đź’™ Lake Tahoe!

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