Calpine, Ca

Ok, I left the balmy almost too hot climate of Southern California to travel to Calpine where mother nature is in the mist of trying to make up her mind whether it's Fall or Winter. There have been snow flurries, high winds, and clear cold skies. Temperatures have been in the teens at night and low 60s during the day and my forced air heater has quit. Burrr. My little catalytic heater works OK but the forced air heater heats much faster in the cold mornings.

Where in the heck is Calpine you say? It's a very small community about 30 miles north of Truckee and about 40 miles south of Quincy, California on highway 89 and about a 90 minutes drive to Reno. It was originally an old logging town and now it is sort of a suburb of Sierraville which is about 5 miles down the road. It's located in the middle of the Tahoe Forest. My youngest son, Jeremy, who is a Forest Service employee lives here and has invited me to park in his driveway as long as I need to, which may be for 4-6 weeks. It's a very family oriented small community of maybe 200 residence.

My orthopedic doc has told me I need a "tune up" on my artificial hip. He needs to replace a part which was suppose to last 10 years or so and has only lasted 8 years. It's wearing out prematurely due to my active abuse...hiking, backpacking, cycling etc, which is why I had the hip replaced in the first place. So, I'll have the surgery at the hospital in Truckee and recover in beautiful Calpine at Jeremy's house.

I'm off to Reno to get the heater fixed and see about having an "extended stay" fitting installed on the propane tank to use during my extended stay in Calpine since the nearest propane station is about 30 miles away.