Each year we get to don green and truly party like we're Irish.

Len and Cyndy were our amazing hosts. The night was unforgettable because of them. As Tahoe's top event in March, this party featured a traditional Irish buffet, wine tasting, and one of the region's biggest silent actions to help raise more than $30,000 each year for charitable organizations through grants, projects and donations. Cool right?!
It is always great to see Seán, the Tahoe Bagpiper, in his highland glory.
It was really great to see Todd (and his famous green beard). Todd is the man whose little girl was the recipient of all the good cheer from the fundraiser we attended in February at the Beacon. His being there tonight indicated that she was home from the hospital and doing much better. A definite reason for celebrating. 




Dancing with wild abandon, green mustaches, delicious food, a worthy cause, tons of fun and absolutely fantastic company- Day #17 couldn't have been any better!

Today was Susan's birthday so I shared Day #16 of my birthday month with her.

Creative Crepes is the new place in town so we thought celebrating there would be a great idea. It certainly was delicious. I chose the Parisian: brie, ham and spicy Dijon. Trés bon!


After lunch, we went to Karen's for homemade cookies and the movie Moana. It was a very enjoyable film yet definitely not a kids' movie. This was a delightful way to spend the day!

Day #15 was spent with 25 fifth Graders doing Winter Trek. While snowshoeing with a bunch of ten year olds is like herding kittens, it was a spectacular day to be on the mountain.

What a view!

This has to be one of my most favorite things to do on a Monday... creating darling mail art with a group of amazing women.

 Kim (centered) is the conduit of all this creativity! What a wonderful Tahoe Treasure she is.



Everyone does their own thing while encouraging, laughing and sharing. It is the fastest three hours ever! I ♥ Mail.

While I have mentioned, on numerous occasions, that it was a rough winter here I have been reminded, by many, that it could always be worse.

Wanting to experience this spectacular and unique mountain range, we drove down Movie Road and into the heart of it all. Most of this is BLM land which means we can stay here for free via something called dispersed camping.

What a difference between the Hills and the Mountains. The rounded contours of the Alabamas contrast with the sharp ridges of the Sierra Nevada to the west. Though this might suggest that they formed in a different age and way, the Alabamas are the same age as the nearby Sierras. The difference in wear can be accounted for by different patterns of erosion.


There are two main types of rock exposed at Alabama Hills. One is an orange, weathered metamorphosed volcanic rock that is 150-200 million years old. The other type of rock exposed here is 82- to 85-million-year-old biotite monzogranite which weathers to potato-shaped large boulders, many of which stand on end due to spheroidal weathering acting on many nearly vertical joints in the rock.


The Scarlet milkvetch was the only flower we could find. Its bursts of red were rare but beautiful.
This isolated spot is now one of our favorite places to camp.

We awoke to a crisp, peaceful morning. As the sun came out, the hills lit up. It was pretty amazing.

This was our last stop before returning to Tahoe and home. What an exceptional, varied and unforgettable two weeks of roaming.

For the last ten years, every time we traverse Highway 395, I have been drawn to stop at this museum. Today, we planned our travels to allow me to do just that. Wow!

The Museum initially was envisioned to represent the Western films that were made in Lone Pine and the Eastern Sierra, (400 in the Alabama Hills, another 300 in the Eastern Sierra including Death Valley and over 1000 commercials). As every Western Director, producer, actor and actress made films in this area, the Museum’s name was changed in 2015 to The Museum of Western Film History and its exhibits pay tribute to ALL Western films, highlighting for visitors those made in this region. The new mission provides the museum a broader range of genre films and an opportunity to reach a wider audience. The Museum also recognizes a number of high profile non-westerns made in the area which include - High Sierra, Iron Man, Tremors, scenes from two Star Trek and Star Wars films,Gladiator, and episodes of Twilight Zone, to name a few. So cool!
After watching the film, From Real life to REEL Life, I embarked on a cinematic history lesson that was pretty darn incredible. The Museum had been searching for a vintage camera car for many months to add to their exhibit that explores filming technology as used in movies and of course, that supported an era of Western film making. Once owned by Hollywood Studio, RKO, the 1928 Lincoln has been in the possession of collectors for many years and is now here and pretty awesome. Many camera cars were used in filming from the 1930s - Similar cars were used along Movie Road in filming Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy and many other films shot in the Alabama Hills.

The movie memorabilia was varied and so interesting. These were John Wayne's boots.
I had to join in the "Singing Cowboy" exhibit. Did I mention my mom was a huge fan of Tex Ritter? Around the campfire, the original cowboys sang of life on the trail with all the challenges, hardships, and dangers encountered while pushing cattle for miles up the trails and across the prairies. While much of what is included in the genre of "cowboy music" is "traditional," a number of songs have been written and made famous by groups like the Sons of the Pioneers and individual performers such as Gene Autry and other "singing cowboys." Singing in the wrangler style, these entertainers have served to preserve the cowboy as a unique American hero.
While I was never a fan, I had to appreciate the Lone Ranger Canyon exhibit. The Lone Ranger's film premiere occurred in the Republic Studio's 1938 serial. There are over 400 items documenting the phenomenon that was this masked man of justice.
One of the most important characters associated with Lone Pine is Clarence E. Mulford’s Hopalong Cassidy. On the page he was a hard drinking, tobacco chewing, rough talking character with a limp that made him “Hop-a-long.” When he was brought to the screen in 1935, as interpreted by William Boyd, he became a respectable cowboy hero who did not smoke, drink or swear. Although Boyd came to the silver screen in the early 1920s and was a matinee idol, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong Cassidy character while making 66 "Hoppy" films, 31 of which were filmed in and around Lone Pine.

The Museum's updated Hopalong Cassidy exhibit has an extensive range of memorabilia including original film posters, comic books, plates, lunch boxes, clothes, toy guns, milk cartons, watches, games, table lights and much, much more. I was especially fond of the roller skates.
I loved this Django Unchained Dentist Wagon, driven by Christophe Waltz in the film.  It was donated by Quentin Tarantino. Mr. Tarantino filmed much of Django Unchained around the Alabama Hills. He used the Film Museum’s theater to screen and share his love of old westerns with the rest of the crew. Oh man, I wish I was here then!
Filmed here in the summer and fall of 1938, Gunga Din remains to this day the largest production ever filmed in the Lone Pine area. The production company created huge sets, hired over a thousand extras, and built a tent city to house the cast and crew. It is recognized as one of the rare films of its era to stand up well to modern sensitivities. The film is about three British sergeants and Gunga Din, their native bhisti (water bearer), who fight the Thuggee, a cult of murderous Indians in colonial British India. It took 104 days of shooting in the intense desert heat. That was twice what most pictures took at the time.

According to the Museum's website, when discussing the movie Tremors, "When we talk about monster movies we don’t mean intelligent, visceral examinations of things that can destroy us – we mean great, big, silly films where we see the monsters gambolling about in broad daylight, gleefully munching up extras. The best example of a “killer B” film is a low budget horror-comedy gem named Tremors (1990)." While it has been almost 30 years since seeing this film, I am happy I'm not one of the extras getting munch up. The 'star' is pretty scary!

Okay, how cool is Robert Downey, Jr as Tony Stark or Iron Man? Super cool. And there he is, in all his awesomeness, standing in the Alabama Hills. Wow. Next stop for us to spend the night in the Hills that are so immortalized on film and to walk in the footsteps of many of our most admired actors and directors!

I have been coming to this little 'island' since I was a young child.

We moved from San Diego, around 1970, when my dad accepted a job with the Irvine Company to be the Marina Manager. His office was upstairs in this building. Though here often, I didn't really care about history then like I do now.
As we strolled Balboa Island's main street, Marine Avenue, we stumbled into the Balboa Island Museum. What a great find. Jennifer Keil, the Museum Director, was a wealth of knowledge and so delightful to speak with. She really knew her stuff.
The museum, housed in a 1947 cottage, tells the history of just how this place came to be the residential community it has become. It started with William S. Collins, a man with a vision. During the first decade of the 1900s, the unspoiled beaches of Orange County were being rapidly snapped up by developers, who were eager to create new towns to make use of new transportation opportunities. In 1902, Collins and his business partner bought approximately 900 acres of land centered around Newport Bay, including half of Balboa Peninsula and the swamplands that would become Balboa Island (named after Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who discovered the Pacific Ocean for Europe in 1513).

They teamed together with Pacific Electric baron Henry E. Huntington to form the Newport Beach Company. In 1905, Huntington extended his red car service to the new town of Newport. Collins began developing the mainland and peninsula, but his real dream was to create a series of small, luxury islands in the middle of the bay. It seemed like a pipe dream. But a dredger was purchased and an island was formed with bay sand and silt. The story is a long one, filled with broken dreams and promises, but 100 years after its true beginning, Balboa Island is still thriving and the perfect spot to spend a warm almost spring day!
The Museum's exhibits offered us a chance to travel back in time to learn as much as we could about this area. This vintage cottage showcases artifacts and photographs depicting early island life.

I delighted in the Hollywood Hallway. Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to spot a movie star or two on and around Balboa Island. Many celebrities owned homes and/or docked their boats here.  Shirley Temple and Buddy Ebsen lived here. They even created the film Captain January together (1936). The one that we always knew about was John Wayne and his beloved yacht, the Wild Goose. Boating by his house was always 'a must' when I was a kid. That said, I wish I would have seen Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball aboard the Desilu. Wow.
A very big part of my memory here is riding aboard the Ferry. In 1919, Joe Beek, still a college student at the time, saw the possibilities for Balboa Island. He was granted permission to begin a ferry service between the Balboa Peninsula and the Island. Starting with one ferry – basically a large rowboat with a small motor – Joe began offering crossings for a nickel per person. He didn’t have a regular ferry schedule; instead folks who needed to cross the harbor made an appointment over the telephone. Today, the Beek family still runs the Balboa Island Ferry. They now have multiple ferries, in continuous service, that carry up to 3 cars, as well as passengers.

So after filling our brains with as much history as they could hold, we headed out into it all. The first stop was to ride on Beek's Ferry. It could not have been a more gorgeous day to be in Newport Bay.

Wandering about, we discovered treasures along our way. Something about these two faces made me smile. I love whimsy!

I was smitten with this sculpture called Sunsets. I had to know the story... The couple were real people, Herman and Lois Dorkin. They had discovered the Island in the 1940s and had lived there ever since. During one of their daily walks around the island in 2003, the couple — he 92, she 89 — sat on a bench to rest and watch the gentle waters of Newport Harbor. Lois nestled against her husband's shoulder, the brim of her hat pushed against his rosy cheek, and closed her eyes. He wrapped his left arm around her lower back and she gently rested her hand on his leg. This sweet scene was witnessed by artist Miriam Baker. Long story- short, the Dorkins agreed to having their images immortalized for all to delight in. I just love her expression of contentment.
Lunch was at Ruby's at the end of the Balboa Pier. There we watched the seals steal fish off the anglers' lines. What a crack up.

Home for the night is The Newport Dunes, a camping resort we have been coming to for decades. What a great day of learning, exploring and remembering.