Hellllooo from South Lake Tahoe! I'm currently sitting in the corner of a local coffee shop using their internet while sipping a Mexican hot cocoa. Dan and I are down here because we went to the Renaissance Faire yesterday (which was a blast). We're going to spend our Sunday hanging out in South Lake Tahoe and maybe going to the REI in Reno.
This touristy town isn't where our project is, even though that would definitely have been pretty sweet! Our fourth and FINAL project is 2 hours north of here in Portola, CA... a tiny little town about 45 miles NW of Reno. We're working at Grizzly Creek Ranch, an environmental education camp, doing infrastructure improvement. What does "infrastructure improvement" entail? Well, it means we do pretty much everything from cleaning out cabins and helping to prepare meals in the dining hall to setting up the camp's tepee village and constructing new challenge course elements. Pretty sweet deal all in all, and the staff at the camp are super chill. It's a cool final project we think.
It's definitely been the most adventurous of our projects. We're living out in the woods in the Sierra Nevadas. We live in tents. And we're experiencing the wintry-est weather we've experienced all year! We've gotten more snow and rain than sunshine, and it's been colder than its been warm.
The weather is just a little ironic: in the winter we got summer weather, and now that it's summer we're getting winter weather! As a recap, we were in the Coachella Valley in January and February where it got into the 80s during the day, and now we're in the Sierra Nevadas where it reaches the 20s at night. Crazytown.
I have to say though, sleeping in a tent when it's freezing rain or snowing is a pretty cool experience. It makes me feel like a legit outdoorsman. The view from my tent is beautiful. In the fact, the entire place is beautiful. And despite the inherent discomfort of living out of a tent, it's an experience I'm going to look back on and appreciate. I mean, if anything, I won't be complaining about my living situation ever again! So all in all, good stuff.
Plus, we do have a lot of modern conveniences, so I can't claim that we're total BAMFs out here in the woods. We have access to electricity and laundry at the camp, use the bathrooms in the pool house to shower and brush our teeth, get wireless internet--albeit extremely slow wireless internet--in the lodge and are fed three times a day in the dining hall, so we don't have to tackle the adventure of trying to cook over a campfire (which unfortunately we aren't allowed to have because of the risk of wildfire).
The town of Portola is a little place of about 2300 residents, and they have the requisite amenities such as two gas stations, a hospital, a library, an overpriced local grocery, a handful of restaurants, and... not too much else, unfortunately. Plus, in line with its small town nature, Portola closes shop around 5pm, so we aren't able to do much after work (which, coincidentally, ends at 5pm every day). Portola and the surrounding area do have a smattering of great hikes, however, so it's a great place to be outdoorsy.
To get to all of the major services we have to travel to Reno, the Biggest Little City in the World. It's about an hour's drive, but that's where we find the airport, car rental, Greyhound station, and anything that is in any way franchised or a chain. We have to get approval to travel there, however, because it's outside of our 25 mile driving radius.
Well, it looks like Dan is wrapping up here in the coffeeshop, so I guess I better wrap up this post. We're currently about to start Week 4 of our 8 week long project, which means we're almost halfway done! And being done is without a doubt at the top of my Most Wanted Things in Life Right Now list. ;-)
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