Timmy Wheels - The Story of Tim Musick

Here is something special.  It's a short documentary made a few years ago by Gina Sandoval, an aspiring reporter, who was a senior at the University of La Verne and a classmate of Tim's at the time. 


It won the W.A.V.E. award for Best Spesial Needs Programming and got third place in the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards in 2008 for Television Feature.  It was also featured in the Pomona Film Festival - better known as "Smogdance" - in 2009.

Both Gina and Tim have since graduated and are both continuing their careers. Tim is working occasionally as a play-by-play announcer and is trying to break into the voiceover business. Gina's a talented reporter who should be showing up on your TV soon.

So, without further ado, please enjoy Timmy Wheels...

Timmy Wheels - by Gina Sandoval

Used with permission

THE COCKTAIL HOUR: Catalina Colada

I'm looking up calories for a pina colada and see this..."a pina colada has more calories than a Big Mac."  At 644 calories per drink, yeah, that's pretty heavy.  Unfortunately, I've got two colada drinkers in family, my wife and Tim.  What to do?

Come up with my own.

Watch the Video!

With a little experimenting, most of which you can see on the video above, I did it.  Here is my version of a pina colada.  It tastes exactly like a regular one but only has 125 calories.  If you like pina coladas...whether or not you like walking in the rain...you'll love this Catalina colada.

INGREDIENTS (one drink)

1 1/2 oz Malibu (or other coconut infused) rum

1/2 oz brandy

dash of bitters

1 oz pineapple juice

1/2 oz fresh lime juice

Pour rum and brandy into old fashioned glass.  Mix in lime juice and a dash of bitters.  Fill with ice.  Pour in pineapple juice.

Cheers!

-Darryl

Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

CALIFORNIA/NEVADA: Highway 395 and Nevada's Capitol - Carson City

After crossing the border we’re no longer in the Golden State. We’ve stepped over to a new metal…the Silver State of Nevada. Coming up on highway 395, the mountains drop away from under the road, giving way to the green expanse of the Carson Valley, guarded on the south by the towns of Gardnerville and Minden.

The steep, rocky Sierras still peer at us on the left where they hide the beautiful Lake Tahoe just over that ridge.

It’s not long before we roll into the capitol of the state, Carson City.  It’s not a huge place…Vegas and Reno are both much bigger…and before we know it, we’re downtown and hungry.

Smack in the center of downtown is the Nugget Casino where we can while away a little time at the slot machines and roulette table before heading into the coffee shop to get one of the great under $10 prime rib dinners you’ll get in a casino. Not Morton’s, but for the price it’s hard to beat this tasty, tender slab of meat served with baked potato, veggies, and salad.

We need to keep heading north where we’ll find Washoe Lake. Turning in from the highway, it’s along the eastern side of the lake…home to a family of bald eagles…where we’ll find our bed for the night at the Deer Run Ranch run by David and Muffy Vhay.

Picture courtesy of Wikimedia

Rick Cooper under CC BY 2.0 license

The Vhay’s run an alfalfa farm here and David built this eco-friendly inn into the hillside near the barn.  The name comes from the herds of deer that roam the alfalfa fields where you can see antlers sticking up above the stalks.

It’s a wheelchair-accessible escape far from the busy cities and highway nearby. Bullfrogs croak in the pond and owls nest in the barn. Many varied guests…from the family looking to get back to nature to the gentleman who comes into town for a brothel tour…enjoy the quiet surroundings.

Over breakfast, after David tells us about the brothel fan (he’s not here today), he explains the process of growing and, more importantly, selling the alfalfa nearby. He gives discounts to local ranchers who come and pick it up, saving him the cost of delivery.

Upon checkout, we travel slowly along the banks of the lake looking for the eagles but are not having luck today. It’s back on 395 as we head up the the “biggest little city in the world,” Reno.

We try our luck at the Horseshoe Casino but the heavy smoke and the depressing empty buildings nearby tell us we should move on.

North of the city, we finally leave the ribbon of asphalt that we’ve been celebrating these last two weeks and head west on the big Interstate 80 back towards California.

A bit west, over the state line, following the river of the same name, we end up in the cute town of Truckee.  Truckee is a legendary train town. The station still serves passenger trains coming up from the Bay heading for Denver and Chicago.

The downtown area surrounding the station holds many boutiques, high priced snack shops, and a couple of really good restaurants.

After spending some time here, we turn south at the end of town and follow the Truckee River up the mountain to its source on the north shore of Lake Tahoe where we picnic on deli sandwiches and throw fish food to the giant…and I mean GIANT…rainbow trout living in the protection of the “no fishing” zone where the river begins.

From Reno, highway 395 continues its course back across the border along California’s eastern frontier, into Oregon and the cold, high country desert before reaching Pendleton and crossing over to southern Washington’s tri cities of Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland.

Continuing north, you can follow it to Spokane and beyond, where it finally terminates across the Canadian border where it meets highway 3 in central British Columbia.

Not this trip, though. We say goodbye here in the beautiful high country on the border of Nevada and California on the edge of Lake Tahoe, not far from the mythical Ponderosa.

Truly a different take on California, highway 395 is a beautiful road connecting some of the most lonely, stark, and historical areas of this Golden State.

-Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

TRAVEL TIPS: Finding Deals and Saving Money on Your Trip

Our last two Travel Tips talked about money…specifically managing your money while traveling and getting enough money to take a trip. This last part is about making the most of your money. Particularly, finding deals and taking advantage of them.

When looking for a good deal it pays to be flexible. If you can travel over a range of dates instead of particular days, you can find deals. If you can stay somewhere away from the heart of the action, you can find deals.

Start with airfare. Check the big sites like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz to get a rough idea of what your airfare will be for your trip. Next, check the airline sites themselves as they often strive to have the lowest fares for those who use their sites. Now, unless you need to travel immediately, sit back and wait.

We find that the lowest fares are not usually offered until about 2 to 3 months before you want to go. If you are checking 6 months in advance (as you should to build your budget), the fares you’ll find are not going to be the lowest. Keep checking every couple of weeks to see it they change. The lowest fares usually need to be bought 21 days before travel, so you can keep doing this until 3 – 4 weeks before you need to go.

Also, many sites have calendars that show you how much the fare can change based on the day you travel. You might see that traveling on a Wednesday might be $250 but if you left on Monday, you could go for $99. There is usually a box asking if your dates are flexible that you can check to see this calendar.

Bing.com also offers an airfare predictor that, based on historical prices, can give you an educated guess as to when your particular route will be onsale or if the fare you find is low or high.  Click here for the Bing Airfare Price Predictor.

Another way to find cheap fares is to plan your route around bargain airlines like Southwest, Virgin America, or Jet Blue.  You can generally find good fares for these airlines on their websites but you can also use them for leverage on other airlines. For instance, if Southwest is offering a 99 dollar fare from Los Angeles to Chicago, you will find other airlines like American or United matching that fare.

Hotels have myriad ways to save, let’s start with the obvious…call and ask. Call the hotel and ask for their rate. Then  just ask, “can you give me a lower rate?” You’d be surprised how often they do. Don’t feel bad, the people at the front desk are used to it and a lot of the time they quote you a high rack rate first and have a lower rate in reserve for those who ask for it.

Next, it pays to belong. Have a AAA card? That will get you a discount at most hotels. Work for the government? Most hotels have special rates for government workers and many do not care if you’re actually traveling for work or not. Costco card? American Express? Walmart customer? Not as prevalent, but still, some places will also give you a discount for that too.

How about joining a hotel’s reward program? While I don’t see them offering too many discounts just for belonging (or offering a minimal discount if they do), we do see perks just for being members. Marriott is good for getting a late checkout, upgraded rooms, and more. Best Western and Marriott let you earn free nights very fast. Hilton lets you get points not only at its hotels, but at restaurants all across the country as well.

Since it’s free to join, it certainly doesn’t hurt to sign up and you will get some good perks and freebies over time. Of course, the more you use, the more you get.

Think about a vacation rental. This works especially well if you have a large group. Check sites such as homeaway.com for rentals at your destination. Recently, we had a group of five of us and got a three bedroom, 2.5 bath flat with living room, kitchen, dining room, two terraces, satellite TV, a/c, free internet access, and two pools in Cannes for $1,000 for a week. Divide by 5 and you see that each of us only had to pay $200 for a week in luxury in the South of France.

Consider staying in a different neighborhood. In Los Angeles, for example, you can get rooms in some of the suburban areas such as Pasadena,  Arcadia, or even by the ocean in Long Beach - all perfectly nice areas - for as little as half as much as you'd pay for a premium location like Beverly Hills or Santa Monica.

For both air and hotel, sign up for websites that scour the net for deals. One of the best is Travelzoo.com. You can search the site for deals but the real sweet service is to sign up for their weekly e-mail of the Top 20 Deals. Another couple of sites we like to use for this is cheapoair.com and Airfare Watchdog.

Examples of deals we’ve seen…and been able to take advantage of…in the last year included a $99 mansion room with meals in the Silicon Valley, an $89 room at a resort in Napa Valley, $12 per night all-inclusive in the Dominican Republic, $5 baseball game tickets, and much more.

Other sites like Travelocity, Expedia, and Mobissimo also let you sign up to be notified of deals.  It also helps to have a relationship with a local travel agent that can let you know when they find unadvertised offers.

If you’re taking a road trip, the big expense is fuel. Log onto a gas price comparison site like gasbuddy.com to map out the cheapest gas stations on your route. Become a Costco member to be able to buy their cheap gas and use Costco.com to map out their locations on your route. Get their American Express card to receive a 3% rebate on your gas purchases.

Make sure your car is in tune and running well to maximize your mileage. Plan a route that will allow for minimum stops and traffic.

Another way to save money is to get lodging that includes a kitchen. While we love to go out to eat at local restaurants when we travel…it’s one of the biggest highlights for us…we still like a kitchen where we’ll go to a local farmer’s market and cook some of the best and cheapest breakfasts you’ll find on the road.  We’ll save the money for a nice dinner later.

Speaking of eating, street food is enjoying a renaissance these days and you can get some fantastic food at rock bottom prices if you’re willing to give the street stands, food trucks, and hole-in-the-wall dives a chance. Check with the locals to find the best of the street.

We hope you enjoyed this three-part Travel Tip series on the financing of your travels and truly hope you’ve learned something to apply to your next trip.  If you have some other suggestions that we’ve missed, please feel free to post it in a comment below.

-Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

CALIFORNIA - Our Highway 395 Road Trip Moves Into the Cold Country

Although the area seems relatively flat, the snow and trees give a clue. Just a few miles after leaving Mammoth, highway 395 hits the altimeter at 8,036 feet at Deadman Summit.

An exit leads to June Lake Loop, a back country of lakes, campgrounds, and the June Lake ski area, also owned and operated by the same folks back in Mammoth. We’ve yet to try it out but I’m told if you don’t like the crowds at Mammoth, June Lake makes a great alternative.

Coming down the other side of the summit a very large lake looms in the distance. This is Mono Lake, a brackish, fragile eco-system full of alien looking towers called tufa. 

As L.A. took all the water in this area, they also diverted the streams feeding the lake which has no outlet.  Mono Lake shrunk to the point where islands that supported nesting birds became peninsulas giving predators a bridge to the tasty birds.

Many court battles later, the streams are no longer being diverted and Mono Lake is making its comeback.

The tiny town of Lee Vining sits to the west of the lake, a nice rest stop along the highway.  Closer to the lake, fans of Clint Eastwood movies might recognize the area of the town he had painted red in High Plains Drifter.

At the south end of town, highway 120 begins its westward trek toward Yosemite National Park. Better known as Tioga Pass, this road is blocked by snow and rubble for much of the year. It’s only in the warmer summer season and into fall that you can actually drive that route.

Just north of town, you can pull off to see the crazy tufa formations at the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve.

Past Lee Vining, we’re climbing again. This time to the 8,138 foot height of Conway Summit, the highest elevation along 395.  Coming down from the summit, if you’re here in the peak of summer,you might want to take the detour to Bodie, one of the best preserved ghost towns in the country, a few miles to the east. Now, in the winter, the high country road is closed.

The next big town we come into is Bridgeport, a very pretty little high country town in a valley alongside the Bridgeport reservoir.  I’d been coming here for years…all in the winter…before I realized there was a lake here.  Mostly, I’ve seen the town under a deep blanket of snow where the gas prices will take your breath away.

It gets so cold up here that the Marines maintains their cold weather and mountain training facility to the west of town.  This is not the California of beaches and palm trees you see on the post cards.

Past Bridgeport, we become partners with the Walker River adjacent to the road.  The canyon narrows as we get closer to the state border, a lonely spot with the requisite small casino, Topaz Lake. The Best Western here actually looks like it’d be a great place for a get-away-from-it-all weekend.

After crossing into Nevada, we stop in Gardnerville to have dinner at the Overland Hotel. It’s a creaky old place with a bar and a dining room serving Basque fare.

Being seated, we are given a small carafe of wine, salad, soup, beans, and spaghetti before we’re even asked what we want for an entrée.  We get our steak and fish next, along with some great fries before having a little ice cream for dessert. All very good and filling.

Well fed, we head out back to our car where we join a short Frisbee toss with the kids living behind the hotel. It’s a short drive to our next overnight stop, Carson City, the capitol of the state where we’ll spend the night with owls, deer, and bullfrogs on an alfalfa farm.

-Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved.

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THE COCKTAIL HOUR: My Golden Valentine

St. Valentine's Day just passed. We don't do much about it here at the Musick compound because 6 days later is our day for love, our wedding anniversary.  I do like romance but like to celebrate it every day, not just occasionally.

Watch the Video!

Still, that gives me some inspiration for a new cocktail.  I call it My Golden Valentine because of the dark rum and amaretto that gives it a golden hue before shaking.

Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS (two drinks):
2 oz. dark rum
1 oz. amaretto
1/2 oz. lime juice
splash of bitters
splash of grenadine
3 oz. cranberry cocktail

Put all ingredients into a shaker 1/3 full of ice, shake and strain over ice into highball or pint glasses.

Cheers!

-Darryl

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Highway 395 Kicks it Into High Gear - The Northern Owens Valley

It's been 275 miles on the road, probably time to think about somewhere to lay our head. That would be the heart and soul of the Owens Valley, Bishop, California.


With a population of just under 4,000, Bishop is the big city of Owens Valley. It's here that you'll find the major services...stores, hospital, casino, fairgrounds, and lodging. You can get clean, comfortable rooms starting at around $60 at the peak season of summer, up to the $140 dollar rooms at the Best Western Creekside Inn, the prettiest and most expensive place in town.

It's your choice but we'll not spend too much here...Bishop is unpretentious and uncomplicated. We'll keep it simple and cheap.

In Bishop, travelers stock up for the trip ahead. Sporting good stores cater to fishermen and hunters who flock to the local lakes and forests. It's said that you can walk across Crowley Lake, just north of town, by stepping from boat to boat on opening day of trout season. Campers get groceries and road trippers top off the tanks and drain the bladders for the road ahead.


While many just stop for a minute and continue on, Bishop rewards those who linger a little longer.  

Schatz Bakery is the busiest place in town where you can get varieties of bread and baked goods that range from mediocre to delicious. Grab a lunch to go and cross the street to the pretty city park where you can picnic on the banks of the creek, watching ducklings trying to keep up with mom.


You can get cheap gas and gamble for awhile at the Indian casino at the north end of town.


As we leave Bishop on highway 395, we also say goodbye to the Owens Valley.  42 miles north, although it seems much closer, we come the next big attraction...and I mean BIG.


Local DWP hydrographer Dave McCoy set up a number of rope tows to facilitate his love of skiing in the winter. In 1942, he finally found a good, snowy spot and persuaded the forest service to give him a permit to open a ski area. Mammoth Mountain was born.

The name is apt, the mountain is huge and easily accommodates the thousands of skiers and snowboarders that crowd the town of Mammoth Lakes on winter weekends.

Snow can come down hard here...it's not uncommon to drive the streets of this town in winter with walls of snow ten feet high on either side.


Skiing ranges from the easy bunny slopes to the truly scary and expert slopes of the 11,000 foot cornice.


It's not cheap to ski here.  As of this writing in 2012, an adult full day lift ticket is $89.  Rooms average around $200 a night in season, although we once found a small basement room for around $90. The closer to the lifts, the more expensive they get...easily topping $500 a night for a room next to a lift.


For that price, you will get one of the world's great skiing experiences. Mammoth also operates an adaptive ski program run by Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra that runs around $150 for a full day of skiing and instruction, click on that link for more information.

Back on 395, heading north, we leave all traces of desert behind as we travel through the snowy Alpine forests of the Sierra, Mammoth, and June Lake.  Where we're going is not the sunny California that everybody is thinking of.


We'll be swinging through the Siberia of the west coast in the next leg of this trip.


-Darryl
Copyright 2012 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Highway 395 Kicks it Into High Gear - The Historic and Beautiful Southern Owens Valley

“Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.” – Noah Cross (John Huston) in Chinatown (1974).

It helps to know the importance of Owens Valley when you travel to it. What was rich farmland in the beginning of the 20^th century became the main water source for the city of Los Angeles a couple of decades later. The thirsty city to the south drained much of the water that was here, turning much of it into desert. The Owens River ran dry which turned Owens Lake at the south end of the valley into an alkali flat.

Through much litigation and struggle, the city is slowing returning some of the water but it will never be the same in our lifetime.  Even so, this is one of the most ruggedly beautiful and historic areas in the state. The geography runs from  the highest point in the lower 48 to the lowest point in the entire country.

Coming up from the desert below on highway 395, you pass up some impressive lava formations at the Coso Mountains, on the east side of the highway past Pearsonville on up to Little Lake.

There is a beautiful little lake at the tiny town of Little Lake, marking your entrance into the southern end of the valley.  We’ll be here for another 140 or so miles before we exit via the northern end.

I like to divide the valley into two parts…the southern half and the northern half. Today, we’ll tackle the southern end.

The next town of any size along the highway will be Lone Pine.  This pretty little town sits between those two points of extreme, Mt. Whitney and Death Valley. Just to the west of town, amidst a collection of spires, sits the summit of Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the continental United States at 14,497 feet.

From the middle of town, you can drive up Whitney Portal Road quite a ways up the side of the mountain to the trailhead where hearty hikers can go the rest of the way.  We like the large waterfall here where on warmer days you can have a nice picnic. In the winter, if you can get up here, the waterfall is a spectacular frozen column of ice.

On the way back to town, you’ll see some familiar looking rock formations to the north of the road. These are the Alabama Hills and the recreation area is great to roam around, scramble on the rocks, and even have a picnic. Many, many movies, TV shows, and commercials have been filmed here which is why they look so familiar. You can download a map from the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce to see where some of the more famous movie locations are.

It’s about 85 miles southwest from the nearly 15,000 foot peak of Mt. Whitney to the Badwater in Death Valley. At 282 feet below sea level, it’s the lowest point in the United States.  You can go back to Owens Lake and take highway 190 over to this spectacular national park but, for us, that’s a trip for another day.

After a slice of pizza and a sandwich at the Pizza Factory in town, it’s back on the road. Just north of Lone Pine on the east side of the road you’ll see a small hill with a wooden fence, a monument, and a historical marker (no. 507) sign.

Sixteen bodies lay under the dirt here in a mass grave, the result of a massive earthquake in 1872. About 80 structures stood in town, mostly made of adobe which crumbled readily during the shaking. Only 20 structures were left standing and 27 people were left dead. Those that weren’t buried in their own services were interred here.

Seven miles north of town lies another melancholy site. Manzanar National Historic Site covers the area that was the Manzanar Relocation Center. During World War II, 10,000 people of Japanese descent were rounded up and put here for the duration of the war.

Manzanar in 1942

The camp was closed and mostly dismantled in 1945. For years, it was left alone out here in the bottom of the valley. We’d stop in and have the 550 acres to ourselves to explore. In 1985, forty years after it was shut down, it was declared a National Historic Site.

Manzanar today

Today, you can still explore the grounds, see the foundations of the barracks, see the couple of remaining structures like the gymnasium and the guardhouse, and visit the accessible interpretive center.

Continuing north, we come into the county seat of Inyo County, the town of Independence. Be sure to make a stop to see the old courthouse in the center of town. It was here, a group of vagrants were brought for hearings after being arrested in a remote area of Death Valley. One of them was named Charles Manson, who would eventually be taken to Los Angeles for the murder trial he is infamous for.

On the drive north, it takes little reminding to enjoy the view. The mountain ranges on either side…the steep, abrupt eastern escarpment of the Sierras and the gentler slopes of the White Mountains on the right…both rise over 14,000 feet. In the winter the view doesn’t get any better.

Passing out of Independence, we continue on this classic and legendary highway heading toward the northern half of the stark, barren, and exceptionally stunning Owens Valley.

-Darryl

Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserved

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: A High Desert Drive up Highway 395

While the world rhapsodizes about the mother road, Route 66, many old time state residents also remember another road...Highway 395.

We’re working our way up this old road but we’ve yet to actually put the rubber on that road. After some time exploring the area between the L.A. Basin and the desert in the mountains of the Cajon Pass, it’s back on Interstate 15…395’s replacement here…to finish the climb to the desert.

That’s right…climb.   Southern California has two distinct deserts going informally by the low desert and the high desert.  The low is an extension of the Sonoran desert and truly does get low…way below sea level near the Salton Sea. The high desert is the Mojave desert and averages around 3,000 feet in elevation. It can get bone-chillingly cold here in winter and regularly gets dusted with snow. As we exit the Cajon Pass , we’re at just under 3,200 feet.

Just before civilization, the sign of the Outpost Café tells us we’ve finally found the road. Highway 395 cuts a line due north from this junction, bypassing the towns of Hesperia and Victorville.  When real estate prices were booming, thousands of families came up here to escape the high prices down below. A large portion of them commute hours each way to jobs in Los Angeles and beyond.

Adelanto is the first town along this road. Home of historic George Air Force base (now a civilian airport) it’s not too far to the west where space shuttles would occasionally land on the dry lake at Edwards Air Force base when Florida weather was bad.  You’ll pass the stadium for the minor league High Desert Maverick’s baseball team as you head out of town.

As we leave Adelanto, we also say goodbye to the last remnants of Los Angeles’ suburbs. We are truly beyond civilization now.

After driving several miles, the next spot that can be called civilization is Kramer Junction where 395 intersects with highway 58 connected Barstow to the east with Bakersfield to the west. You can stop here for expensive gas and a snack but we’ re just moving on.

The old mining town of Johannesburg is a photographer’s delight with all the rusting mine equipment strewn about. Just beyond that, the huge China Lake Naval Weapons facility supports the town of Ridgecrest. It’s not uncommon to see military planes taking target practice to the right of the road as you pass through.

Someone had to have been sick of traveling through this large desert to found the next little spot on the road called Dunmovin.  It, and the other town nearby, Pearsonville, mark the end of the desert drive for us. Now it’s a climb up the hill to Olanch, Little Lake and the start of the next part of our 395 adventure, the historic and very important Owens Valley.

That's the next big stop on this road trip.

-Darryl
Copyright 2012 – Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved