Monthly Archives: July 2022

Posted in travel

We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

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by Bob Sparrow

Sagers, Budds, VanBoxmeers, Sparrows

The sky was deep blue and the air was clean and thin, very thin – the mountains, still with some snow on their peaks, rose up beautifully before us.  I knew I wasn’t in Kansas or even in southern California anymore – it wasn’t air I could get my teeth into.  I was in the ski mecca of the mountain west, Park City, Utah.  But this time of year, the hills are not covered with “The Greatest Snow on Earth”, but rather we see green ski runs cut out of the mountains, with lift chairs spanning over them, and cutting through stands of pine, fir and quaking aspen.  Summer is indeed a great time of year to visit this magnificent place.

Canyons Golf driving range

The gift of a timeshare week brought the Budds, Sagers, VanBoxmeers and us to this home of the 2002 Winter Olympics, which has done nothing but grow since then.  Our main activity, other than eating and drinking, was playing golf – some good and some bad, both score-wise and course-wise.  We played four rounds of golf; we tried to get on a few private courses, but they must have been forewarned about our golf acumen, so all our rounds were on public courses.  Three of them were south of Park City in the Heber–Midway area, the best of which was Homestead, a good course that they say new ownership is going to make great!  The one I would not recommend is next to Olympic Village in Park City called Canyons Golf.  I see online that it got a 4 out of 5 rating, but trust me, all this course needed was a windmill and a couple of clowns’ mouths to putt into to make it a completely hideous experience.  There was one hole with a 250 yard drop in elevation from tee to green.  The gas, instead of electric, golf carts made it extra special.  See the photo of their driving range – we should have known before we started that this wasn’t going to be Pebble Beach.

Grappa Restaurant

So, my first ‘Don’t’ travel tip is don’t play Canyons Golf.  My second tip might be regarding Park City’s most famous restaurant, Grappa.  The setting is beautiful, an interesting building at the top of Main Street, with lots of deck space for outside dining, which is gorgeous on a summer’s evening . . .HOWEVER, high-priced food is one thing, over-priced, very average food is quite another, and that’s what we got.  So, nice setting, good service, but very average good for a very premium price.  Let’s move on to something more positive.

If you come to this area, I would highly recommend a visit to the Stein Erikson Lodge, which is just over the hill from Park City in Deer Valley.  Stein Erikson was a champion skier and Olympic gold medal winner from Norway, who moved to Park City and built the lodge in 1982 – it earned the prestigious Forbes Five-Star rating and has maintained this rating ever since and is still Utah’s only resort property to have a Forbes Five-Star status.

Alpenglobes on deck of Stein Erikson Lodge

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend staying there, as it is fairly pricey – regular rooms start around $700 a night and goes steeply up from there.  But we just went to look at the facility to see how the ‘rich people’ live – they live very nicely!  We did have a drink on the lodge deck imagining ourselves on a snowy winter evening in one of those ‘bubble tables’ that rotates and keeps you warm while sitting on the deck during snow season – I was to learn later that they are called Alpenglobes.

The other highlight for me was to visit my, and son Jeff’s, college alma mater in Salt Lake City, Westminster College – the campus was quiet, as it was a summer Sunday, but still looked magnificent.  The tour for the rest of the group was not quite as thrilling I’m sure, but they were able to see the brick at the Alumni House that shows the seal for the college that I created.  OK, it wasn’t just me; in my senior year I needed a couple of units in the arts, so I took an art class.  The college board had just come to the art teacher and asked if he could have his students create a new crest for the school.  Two nights before the assignment was due, I invited my football teammate and center, Bruce Takeno to the local pub, The Sugarbowl, to help me create something to turn in.  With the help of a few beers and the lions on the Coors beer bottles, we scratch something out on a bar napkin.  When we had a rough draft, Bruce, who had much greater artistic skills than I, and lived in Salt Lake, said that he would take it home and ‘make it pretty’.  What he handed me the next morning, slightly resembled what was on the napkin, but done

Westminster College crest

My old college girlfriend was still there!

in oil paint on stretched canvas – it looked spectacular!  I turned it in, and the school board voted it the winner.  I did confess to my art teacher that while I contributed to the overall design, Bruce was the artist in the group.  I passed the class!  It has since been replaced.

Another highlight was just walking Main Street in Park City – it is filled with gift shops, bars, restaurants and . . . more gift shops, bars and restaurants!  Great location, great friends, clean air, great trip!

 

Posted in opinion

CHIRP!

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

               It looks so innocent

The summer doldrums are in full effect here in Arizona.  With temperatures soaring well over 100 and the nightly lows in the mid-80’s, it’s an optimal time to be indoors.  Apparently, it is also the perfect time for our smoke detectors to set off in the middle of the night.  We are no strangers to problems with smoke detectors – they seem to have an almost human-like sense for the most annoying time to go off.  Kind of like the neighbor who blares heavy metal music on the very night you retired early to read a good book.  Last year we replaced all of our smoke detectors and inserted long-lasting batteries.  We were under the naive illusion that we would be spared any problems for the next ten years, by which time we would either be dead or have moved.  Not so fast.

                  Sadly accurate

I’ve had plenty of experience with chirping smoke detectors.  As a new homeowner, I once thought the chirping was a sign that fire was imminent, so I grabbed the dog and ran outdoors in my nightgown, sure that I had evaded a fiery demise.  The neighbors got a good laugh out of that one.  I have also set the smoke detectors off numerous times while attempting to cook dinner.  Most of the time it was simply my inept frying skills or a forgotten pot of soup that set off the alarm, although once I actually did set fire to the oven while cooking a roast.  As the fire trucks rolled up to my house the neighbors got a kick out of that one too.  In our current house the smoke detector in our living room went off one August night.  The problem is it is a 16-foot ceiling, and we don’t have a ladder tall enough to reach it.  Long story short, we ended up calling the non-emergency line at the fire department and three hunky firemen came to fix it.  I thought the response was so gracious (and they were so cute) that I’ve tried to think of reasons to call them back ever since.  Eventually we ended up taking the battery out of that unit, which I later discovered, has rendered it useless.

In any event, our latest foray into the vagaries of smoke detectors has been the smoke detector in our master bedroom (naturally) that has not just chirped but sounded the alarm several times over the past few weeks.  Not a constant blaring, just one scream. Enough to give you cardiac arrest at 2 a.m. in the morning.  Since the unit is only a year old, I knew it didn’t need to be replaced.  The green light was going on and off every two seconds, which I learned means it needs to be reset.  So up on the ladder we went, disconnected the unit, pressed the test button for 20 seconds, and then reinstalled it. Done and dusted!

But it got me to wondering WHY they always go off in the middle of the night.  I did some research with the smoke detector company, and here is what I learned.  The chirping is caused by the relationship between the battery’s charge level and a home’s air temperature.  As a smoke alarm’s battery nears the end of its life, the amount of power it produces causes an internal resistance. A drop in room temperature increases this resistance, which may impact the battery’s ability to deliver the power necessary to operate the unit in an alarm situation. Most homes are the coolest between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. That’s why the alarm may sound a low-battery chirp in the middle of the night, and then stop when the home warms up a few degrees.

Okay – whatever you say.  But in Scottsdale, where the A/C is running at a constant temperature day and night in the summer, I’m not buying it.  This week, a unit on the other side of the house has started chirping periodically – like every 10 hours or so. Always in the middle of the night. I still say there are gremlins built into every unit, intent on ruining a good night’s sleep and triggering anxiety with every “chirp”.  At this point I feel a bit like Bill Murray and the gopher.  Explosives may be my only option.

 

 

Posted in Music • travel

Like a Rolling Stone . . .

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by Bob Sparrow

I checked the bottom of my feet at the end of June and there was no moss gathering on them – it was, to say the least, a very busy month!  After returning from the Welk Resort at the end of May; June was filled with a Coach House concert by Desperado, a very good Eagles cover band, then a father-son fishing trip to Alaska, then our bands’, Monday Knights’, show at Yorba Linda Country Club, followed by our annual Margaritaville party at our home, with some 50 guests in attendance.  A fun, but exhausting month.  You’d think that it would be time for me to kick back and smell the coffee, but as you’re reading this, I’m in Park City, Utah looking for my golf ball in the Wasatch Mountains, visiting some old college haunts and trying to recover from our neighborhood July 4th celebration.

So, the rest of this blog is a pictorial of a hectic June.  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a report from deep within the Wasatch Mountains.

Desperado at the Coach House

 

Son, Jeff and the Old Man in the Sea

With my two beautiful daughters

One of the Soggy Bottom Boys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Willie, stoned at the mic

Parakeets Sarah, Kristin and Dana at Margaritaville

Posted in opinion

HAPPY 4TH – SMOKE ‘EM IF YOU GOT ‘EM

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By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

John and Abigail Adams

Happy Independence Day!  We’ve been celebrating this day for a long time – 245 years to be exact.  The first Independence Day celebration took place in Philidelphia on July 4, 1777 — one year after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress.  It was none other than John Adams who wrote to his wife, Abigail, that he hoped the anniversary of independence would be marked for years to come by “guns” and “bonfires” and “illuminations.” Because the first July 4th fireworks display happened in the middle of the Revolutionary War, some historians believe they were supposed to be a morale booster for the troops.  The celebrations at the time would have also included the firing of cannons, adding to the explosive nature of the festivities and, no doubt, innumerable cases of hearing loss. When the war ended, coinciding with an increasing concern for public safety, those “big guns” were phased out and replaced almost entirely by fireworks. Major cities and towns often sponsored the fireworks displays, in the hope of drawing citizens to public celebrations instead of more dangerous private firework shows.  I’m not sure even 245 years later that we have cracked that nut.

                          Tahoe fireworks

As I have said in previous years, when I was growing up, I thought the 4th of July was one of the greatest holidays.  Each year we went to our cabin at Lake Tahoe to watch the glorious fireworks display.  The fire department was in charge of setting off the fireworks, which were placed on a barge in the middle of the lake. It really was magical to watch the lights from the fireworks reflect on the lake.  It was almost as if there were two shows at once – one, clear and crisp against a dark, night sky and the other echoing those lights over rippling water.  I was mesmerized by it each year and fireworks “on the lake” continue to be one of my most treasured memories.

               A laser light show

So, it was with some sadness I read that when the Lake Tahoe fireworks resume tonight, after a two year pause due to Covid, the traditional fireworks display will be replaced by drone laser lights. According to the north Lake Tahoe civic group sponsoring the show, the shift aligns with the region’s commitment to sustainability and stewardship, and addresses community concerns related to fire risk and environmental impacts. In addition to eliminating the risk of fire and environmental pollution, another significant benefit is the reduced audio impact on domestic pets and local wildlife. It will be a 15-minute show, incorporating over 100 drones, and choreographed to music.

         Happy 4th of July

I’m sure the kids of today will think those lasers are magical too.  I certainly understand the need to reduce the fire risk and Dash the Wonder Dog would appreciate the lack of booming noises that scare the bejesus out of him. But I’m just old school enough to think a laser light show is to fireworks what Cheez-Whiz is to Camembert.  So, this will be the first year that I’m not longing to be at Tahoe on the 4th of July.  Instead, I may resort to something I did for several years in my misspent middle age – light up a cigar and celebrate our wonderful country.  Happy 4th!