We thought the Red Lodge, 4 miles down the road but 40 trail miles ago, was a great deal. And, it was. But this is an incredible deal. $50/night, 3 blocks from the lake, 1 block from the Heavenly Gondola. Granted, we don’t have a 60” TV in our room, but we have screaming internet. There is laundry onsite as well as a computer room and a nice common area with fully stocked kitchen. I think people live here because it’s so cheap.
As far as affordable housing goes, I don’t believe real estate agents. They just don’t want to sell less expensive houses. There is affordable housing around. We don’t want a McMansion (although I wouldn’t turn one down if someone wanted to surprise us…Christmas is just over 2 months away). I took a walk through some of the neighborhoods around here, and these are not million dollar homes. I do believe we could find something here if that’s where we decide we want to die. I’m just not ready to pull the trigger yet, figuratively or literally.
Digit Alice had a perfectly sized resupply box waiting for us when we arrived. Since we modified our plans (yet, again) this will be our last hotel stop on the TRT. We will hike for 6 consecutive days to finish up next Sunday in Tahoe City. We have just enough extra food from our last leg for everything to work out perfectly. We just have to modify an old saying…”The trail, and Digit Alice, provides.”
Bunny doesn’t like to walk when she’s not hiking. She will eventually evolve into an amoeba that used to have really developed appendages. She did agree to make the trek down to the 7-Eleven if I would agree to invest in our retirement plan. Alas, she spotted candy and forgot all about financial planning for the future. We walked out of the store with $20 of chocolate and no lottery tickets. No retirement any time soon for us.
After our failed attempt at retirement planning, I decided to go for a walk down to the lake while Bunny started consuming some of her chocolates. I walked all the way to Nevada (one block) then followed State Line Road down to the beach. I could have (and actually wanted to) spit on the casinos across the street. Instead, I ventured down to the shore of Lake Tahoe to watch paragliders and geese enjoying the airspace above the lake. There were a few homes in the area I could make do with (in a pinch).
I did manage to get Bunny to go for a beer down the road at an establishment called Basecamp. This is an ideal business for me and two friends: Dave Watts and Cain Budds. These are two friends I’ve met in different lifetimes that haven’t met each other. It is our destiny to work together. Basecamp was a microbrewery, restaurant, hotel, live music venue. Dave will handle the brewing operation (with Cain’s assistance) and Cain will be the primary live music (Cain is a guitar professor in Louisiana and outstanding musician). I know of a couple hotels for sale on the West Coast. I will be the day to day operations manager. My primary responsibility will be to skim off the top. This will have to be post careers for all of us for this to work. Now all we need is a financial backer willing to not see a return on investment in this lifetime and we’ll be golden (Pony Boy).
Alas, these plans will have to wait another year or two. We’ve got to finish the TRT, PCT, CDT, and TA before we can consider settling down. I’ve also got to reconfigure the business plan to include Bear. He would have to be our front man, maitre d, because no one can handle confrontation and diffuse situations like he can. He did manage to keep me calm through over 1000 miles of hiking together. He just let his guard down one time when I spun out of control.
Tomorrow, we hike. The TRT is about to be crossed off the list.
EFG
Congratuations on completing another milestone!
The pictures have been fabulous. I lost the camera with our pictures of this part of the world…and of San Francisco….and Manzanar…and Donner Lake and the tunnels and… the list goes on. Dan says that when we can travel again, we will do it again.
Heavy frost here this morning and a low of 27. Warmer next week.
Where do you catch your plane?
Stay well.
I bought a 2TB hard drive for our pictures plus we back up to the cloud. I also keep copies on a couple of computers. I don’t want to have to do these trails again. We finished hiking today (10/18) and fly back on 21st. I’ll give you a call when we get settled in.
Great!