Sleeping bags, sunsets and running on empty

The Donaldsons

It was already dark when we got back to the Gutierrez residence at Northstar in Truckee CA last night. Truckee is about 15 minutes from Lake Tahoe.

Max had mentioned that the driveway was on a bit of a slope. It was dark when we got to his house and after assessing the driveway, I realized that it was more than a little slope. It was quite steep actually!  At least for the 32' Rolling Thunder!

At first I thought it might be best to back in, but that proved unsuccessful, as the rear end of the RV scraped the asphalt right away. Rolling thunder has a rear end that sticks out about 10 feet from the rear tires, so even on driveways that have an “average” slope, the backend scrapes. There are metal pads on the bottom rear end of the coach specifically for this purpose, but it always gives everyone in the RV, including me,  a bit of a start every time it scrapes.  On some driveways, it pretty much sounds like the backend just fell off.

It's steeper than it looks!

After reassessing the driveway, I decided I would drive straight in at a slight angle.  I'd have to give it a little gas, of course... Or as my grip brothers would say, "ramming speed…" Vroom, vroom. Hit it! Rumble - Scrape - Screech... Success! I made it up the driveway, and even did it without leaving an unsightly scrape on the asphalt! 

With a long day of driving, and the exciting evening of boating on the lake, that was all I had left in me.  But with Rolling Thunder now leveled in the driveway, my work was just about done! Or so I thought... 

After a nice dinner, and some chit chatting with our peeps, I went to prepare the RV for bedtime.  I needed to lay down.  Wait.  Oh no. Jasper just peed on the last clean comforter I had packed. Caroline was already asleep, and the house was now dark, so I didn’t want to take a chance and wake anyone up trying to wash the comforters that I had now stacked up in the RV shower, along with the rest of the dirty clothes.  Because of Covid, most of the RV campground's coin operated laundries are closed. So we now had laundry for days piling up…

But then I remembered that I had thrown a couple of kid size sleeping bags into the belly of the RV last minute when I was packing.  This should be interesting. I should also mention that we were not able to hook the RV up to the power in Max’s garage, as it kept tripping a breaker. So, we would not have the luxury of full electric services this evening. And by the way, it gets a little chilly here in the mountains at night. I guess we’ll see who wins the sleeping bag tug-a-wars tonight!

As the sun came up the next morning, I laid in bed staring at the celling above.  Clearly the kids had won the sleeping bag war, as I was cold and had no covers.  The kids had totally hogged both sleeping bags and I was left with just a fury toy Australian Shepherd puppy curled up next to my face.

No one else was up in the RV or in the house, so I decided to take Jasper for a walk. Their house sits at the base of the Northstar Ski resort. It’s a quiet neighborhood with lots of trees, so our walk was quite enjoyable!

Once everyone had stirred, I asked Caroline if I could throw a couple comforters in the washing machine upstairs. Hopefully I could catch up a little on laundry today, before heading off to the lake for some more inner tubing and fun with our dear friends!

Truckee CA

I did need to grab a few things at the store, but since it was so tricky landing Rolling Thunder in the driveway, Max said I could use his his truck!  The kids and I spent the early afternoon picking up a few things at the store and checking out Truckee.  This was the first time I had stepped into a store since we left!  It was a Safeway store.  We used to have Safeway stores in Los Angeles back in the day.  In fact, the mom of my very first friend growing up was a checker at the Safeway closest to our house.  That Safeway, and all the others in Los Angeles have long since closed.  I think they are all now Vons and Pavilions.

JJ Airtime

We met up with everyone down at the lake later in the day. The water was a little rougher today than it was yesterday, so it definitely made for some exciting inner tubing behind a boat! I even got to drive a little bit.  The varying shades of blue in this lake are incredible!  It's pretty great to be able to stop, and jump in this incredibly refreshing water whenever you want.  Jaden and Max even played a little lake football with a nice diving catch by one of St. Mark School Athletic's finest wide receivers! 

Keeping Jasper safe

As we got closer to sunset, the water began to get a little calmer.  The kids each got one last ride on the inner tube before it was time to start heading back.  As Max navigated towards Kings beach, I noticed that he had a worried look on his face. Right when I was about to ask what was wrong, he said, crap, we are low on fuel.  Luckily there was a gas dock close, so we started heading that way.   As we got close to the quiet dock, it was clear that it was closed.

Shortly there after, the boat went vroom, gurgle, gurgle and silence...  we had just run out of gas. Luckily, Max had already started cruising towards the nearest beach so that he could get the women and children to safety (Jasper too). Sorry, I just had to say that.  When a boat is sinking (thank God we were just running out of gas), it was always the women and children who got on the life boats first.  I know this because of the movie, Titanic.  Well, and also the Van Halen album...

Because of Max's quick thinking, he got the boat safely to the nearest shore so that we weren’t stuck out in the middle of the lake. Caroline and the kids got off the boat, and warmed up on the beach.  We waited for the AAA boat to show up with fuel.  It's not really AAA, but it's kinda' the same concept, only on the water!  Max is going to be so pissed at me for publishing this. Sorry dude, I just write about what happens on our trips. I think no less of your skills as a captain, as I did before getting on the boat with you yesterday!  We are just the lucky friends of a friend with a boat, who got to spend an amazing two days on Lake Tahoe with said dear friends! Much love, my brother!

One might think that this is where the story ends, but in boating, this is never the case.  We still had to get everyone back home!

After the AAA boat captain, who had a St. Bernard puppy that was the size of a full grown German Shepherd (Jasper would not leave my side...), got us up and running again, we had to figure out how to get everyone offloaded at Kings Beach.  Max decided to drop the everyone off on the pier that is near Kings Beach with all of our stuff.  I stayed on to help him.  The boat rocked pretty heavily as we pulled up to the pier, but we were successful in carrying out this mission!

El Capitan Max

Now for the hard part.  Max and I had to tie off the boat to his mooring, and because the kid with the dingy had gone home for the day, we were going to have to swim it!  It's never a dull moment when the Donaldson and Gutierrez families get together anywhere on this planet!

The water was much warmer than I thought it would be.  We had to bring some more items in that we didn't send with the others, so we piled them up on the inner tube and swam towards shore.  Once I could touch the rocky bottom of the Lake Tahoe, I had to pause and look back at the moonrise over this grand lake.  Yup.  It's moments like this that give me pause in the day to day, and reminds me that we, as humans, have an ability to make something that most might think totally sucks (running out of gas on a lake at nightfall with a boat full of kids), by simply adjusting the way we look at it.  Yes, we ran out of gas.  But, there was never a point where anyone was in danger.  The boat was not damaged. And two good friends, who happen to be dads, got to go night swimming, and enjoy the beauty of the great outdoors in a way we would not have if this had not happened.  Oh and this may fall into the TMI category, but I did pee in Lake Tahoe as I swam back.  But only because I wanted a true, and full, great outdoors experience! ;)

I could stay here for another week, but I have been trying to get us into Yosemite since the night we left, and finally got a pass for tomorrow.  You have to enter the park on the day it's issued, or you lose it.  So, we need to head out in the morning, because everyone should experience Yosemite at some point in their life.

I sure hope those comforters are dry when we get back to the house...  Good night Lake Tahoe.

Day 9 – August 2, 2020  

Start: Truckee CA   

Destination: Truckee CA 

Where we stayed: The Gutierrez Family Driveway

Mileage: 20 miles (on water)