Visiting Mark and Kelley in Truckee

We are just back from short visits to both Boise and Walla Walla. The Boise trip was a quick stay with friends Tim and Susan to deliver many cases of wine which they left with us when they moved to Boise. The Walla Walla trip was more of spendy vacation in which we dined out frequently and visited several wineries all the while celebrating Ann's 60th birthday. Just on the heels of these two drives and after the go-go-go hustle of our highly scheduled Walla Walla visit, our trip to Truckee would be an agenda-less relaxing time to catch up with our good friends Kelley and Mark. 

Before Ann and I got together in 2009, I met Kelley when she was a customer at my restaurant and a local resident. After I introduced Kelley to Ann, they became fast friends. Mark and I are just along for the ride! Sometime after this, Kelley and Mark moved to Showshoe, WV to work at the ski resort.

I feel like the last time that we laid eyes on them was in 2016 when they made a trip back to Virginia from Snowshoe. Before that, we visited with them at Snowshoe for a few days during our annual May restaurant closure in 2015. In a crazy twist of fate, we both moved west at exactly the same time in September of 2017. After closing the restaurant, Ann and I moved to Oregon so I could try my hand in the wine business. Mark and Kelley moved to Truckee to find work in the ski business.

In fact, we tried to rendezvous during our trip out somewhere in mid-America, but we just couldn't coordinate our routes. Ann and I headed north to see Michigan's Upper Peninsula, while Mark and Kelley power-drove a more central route aimed at getting them on I-80 into Reno and Truckee. Bottom line, it's been a long damned time since we saw each other.

Together Once More

After so much hustle recently, Ann and I left Bend and headed south in the direction of California with a plan to hang out, eat in frequently, and, as the name of this blog might imply, take each day as it came and do what we felt when we felt. Our dire need of relaxation drove me to bring food along, mainly pre-prepared, so that we wouldn't have to scramble for restaurant reservations or to find a reasonable grocery in unfamiliar territory.

Saturday morning, October 14, at first light, we roused ourselves, packed our perishables, and joined the southbound traffic on US 97. Seven and a half hours later, we arrived in Truckee, met up with Kelley and Mark, and began the process of relaxing. After three days of taking it easy while taking in the area, we headed back to Oregon on Wednesday the 18th. We had the greatest time and it was so fabulous to hook up with Kelley and Mark once again! The saga is laid out in the following posts.

Saturday October 14: Road Trip to Truckee
Sunday October 15: Easy Sunday in Truckee
Monday October 16: Change of Venue
Monday October 16: Airport Lunch and Donner Pass
Monday October 16: Tahoe Donner and Dinner on the Town
Tuesday October 17: Cruising Lake Tahoe

Tuesday October 17: Wooden Boats of Lake Tahoe

In retrospect, it's a good thing we were never in a hurry. Starting with intense eclipse-related traffic on Saturday morning, we would spend a lot of time at standstills in traffic. In these shoulder weeks after the summer crowds have departed the Tahoe area and before the skiers arrive post-Thanksgiving, the ring road around Lake Tahoe is under construction, with single lane traffic and other disruptions at very many points around the lake. Even when we were headed back to Bend, we encountered a CalTrans road project in the Modoc National Forest that had us sitting still for many minutes. You could look at all these delays as annoyances or you could see them as I do: a perfect metaphor for our relaxing vacation in which we had no schedule and no agenda.

Waiting on CalTrans: a Perfect Metaphor for This Trip