We had Glenny to ourselves this past weekend as Kyle was at his bachelor’s party weekend, sampling every amazing barbecue joint and fine whiskey club in Dallas with his best buddies.

The three of us took a nice walk into the Truckee River Marsh area on the backside of our neighborhood. It was beautiful as ever, although quite a bit changed in character this year with the lake level so much higher.

Kyle and Glenny recently acquired two motorized scooters, which Glennis brought up to the cabin and we were all hot to try out. Tommy and I used the new scooters and Glennis used a Tahoe rental scooter. Tommy led us on a zippy ride on the South Tahoe Bike Path. This led alternately through residential and marshy wilderness areas and was clearly very popular with scooterists and traditional cyclists both.

The scooters were awesome.

It was fun and we got to cover much more ground in a short period of time than we would have if we’d walked. Paula learned a good lesson about remembering to take her right thumb off the accelerator while applying the left-hand brake. We will definitely do this again, it was lots of fun.

Monday Tommy and Paula took a short hike on the “Saddle to Ski Run” Trail, which was full of switchbacks. We started about 2/3 the way up the mountain and descended.

We then took a small break to eat lunch, and climbed back up to the car. The greenery was still very lush and full of wildflowers, birds, chipmunks and lizards. No bears. Very enjoyable.

At one point, the Heavenly Ski gondola passed about 30 feet right overhead. We could see passengers laughing and waving. Here’s a video:

Right under the gondola.

That evening we had salmon, Glenny’s homemade sweet potatoes leftovers and grilled zucchini, all prepared outside on the flattop grill.

Next day, Tuesday, there was a planned power outage for the whole neighborhood for all day, so Paula took advantage of the good reusable ice packs Glenny and Kyle had left. She froze them on Monday, then got up at 4 am Tuesday while power was still on to put 5 of them in various shelves in the fridge, then tape the fridge and freezer shut with duct tape sealing the edges. We figured we could go about 12 hours without any loss of temp this way and it worked.

We took advantage of the no power situation to have what we like to call a “retirement day”. We ate breakfast at Heidi’s, South Lake Tahoe’s amazing breakfast pancake restaurant, then drove to the Heavenly shopping village. Paula decided that this was the day to muster her bravery and take the scary ride in the ski gondola to the top of the mountain. Here’s a short video when we were about halfway up:

Gondola happiness…

Near the top, the gondola stopped at an observation deck and we were able to get out and walk around the nice patio area. The featured picture for this post is us on the observation deck. We got some individual pics as well:

At the very top was the Ski resort playground. There was a rock climbing wall, a roller coaster, water tubing, zip lines, panning for gold, a couple nice lodges, and of course skiing (but not in the summer).

Once back down to the village, Paula got two tee shirts, one short and one long-sleeved, and we wandered until it was time for the matinee showing of the New Mission Impossible movies. It was great and awesome to see the special effects on the big screen. The theatre was small and nice, and there were only 12 other people in our theater room. Movie popcorn and lemonade served as our lunch. Power was back up at the cabin by the time we returned, and Paula made fresh halibut, carrots and onions and grilled zucchini on the flattop grill. A word of praise for the flattop. It cooks well and fast and has enough surface area to make everything at once, usually. And no pans to clean!

Wednesday was too windy for pleasant kayaking, so we each took a much-needed run. Tommy was able to do 8 miles comfortably at 6240 feet (the elevation at the cabin) and Paula for the first time ever was able to run the 3 hills on El Dorado Street without stopping. So at week 5 we are finally fully acclimated. After our runs, Paula did laundry, cleaning and did kitchen prep work and Tommy did the grocery shopping and attended to the car. Tommy also does the vacuuming, as the cabin’s ancient vacuum requires major surgery with every use. We were happy to have Glenny and Kyle arrive for a dinner of Cornish hens, Caeser salad and cornbread. Then we ate treats and watched “A Few Good Men”, and toddled off to bed.

Thursday turned out to be a perfect day for kayaking and we took advantage of it in the middle of the day while Glennis and Kyle worked. This time we paddled west to Camp Richardson on southwest shore of the lake. It was just under a 6-mile round trip, which was our longest yet.