My Mom, Marilyn, passed away last November, a couple weeks after her 88th birthday, and a week short of two years since Dad died. My poor little Mom was not very comfortable, and was mostly confused. Very sad to see that happen to anyone, let alone your mother. So she is not confused and uncomfortable now… we decided to wait a while for a memorial service, so we could have most of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren attend.
So we got a beautiful house in South Lake Tahoe for a long weekend, and shared it with as many of the family as we could.
Cherryl and I rode the train from West Palm Beach to Orlando, and then flew to Sacramento. A night there, and then met my oldest daughter and family, and drove to Tahoe. My other daughter and family, my sister and husband, and their daughter and family all met up at this beautiful little 6 bedroom house. Little like the Taj Mahal. Three floors, all with decks overlooking woods.
Friday Loren and I got to see the end of a leg of the Tour of California bicycle race. 645 miles, seven stages, with the highest climb elevation – Carson pass – of 8580 feet. Where we watched, it was steep enough I was tired walking up it, and they didn’t look too tired after riding up from Folsom! (Good that I didn’t have my folding bicycle with me or I’d have had to show them how to ride!)
Saturday we had a nice little memorial service for Marilyn. A few more friends and relatives made it, so about 25 shared the experience with us. Cherryl, Karen and Becky sang a beautiful hymn, we told stories, looked at lots of pictures, and celebrated that she had touched so many of our lives.
Later, some of us went to an amazingly secluded beach. The kids had a great time getting wet and sandy!
Sunday we rented a pontoon boat and spent a little time on the lake. Went to Emerald Bay for a picnic lunch.
Vikingsholm is a “castle” built in 1929, (same year as my mother), by Mrs. Lora Josephine Knight. She was known for her generosity with youth groups and providing education opportunities for young people. She even helped sponsor Charles Lindberg fly solo across the Atlantic! She loved the Tahoe area, and believing Emerald Bay looked like the fjords, wanted to build a summer house that complemented the scenery with a Scandinavian flavor. She travelled through Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark taking photos and doing research. She even had a small tea house built on the small island in the bay. This house is now considered the best Scandinavian architecture in the US. A fascinating history can be found at vikingsholm.com.
Monday we flew to Omaha to spend some time with Cherryl’s mother and sister’s family. The plan was to arrive pretty late, get the rental car, and drive the hour to Lincoln. As soon as we got the little Ford Fusion on the highway, it sounded really bad, like a tire had damage. It didn’t drive too badly, so I actually wondered if it was a truck making noise by us. Leaving the truck behind didn’t make the noise any better, and then the tire light came on… We aired up the tire, called Hertz, returned to the airport, (after midnight by now) and they gave me a nice Lincoln Continental instead! Maybe worth the hour wasted in the middle of the night.
Maybe you thought this blog is about living on a boat… well, we are waiting for estimates and time slots to get our boat fixed up. All the repair facilities are very busy this time of the year, with work that has been scheduled out for a while. So we are trying to get our work squeezed in… We’ll see how well that works!