Ally B. Gravina

Photo Credit: Jane Tyska/AP

On Monday morning, enough smoke still lingered here to irritate the eyes if one stayed outside long enough, and it smelled like the acrid end of a burning incense stick.

But that didn’t matter to those among the steady trickle of cars that made their way across the Nevada line, crossing Lincoln Highway as it turned into Lake Tahoe Road. The residents were glad to be returning to their homes after being forced to evacuate because of the Caldor Fire.

Signs that days ago had warned of danger and urged them to flee now welcomed them back.

Outside the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Stateline, Nev., Carolina Cumpa and her husband loaded their white Ford Explorer with the items they’d hurriedly thrown into the vehicle when they evacuated their home more than a week ago … read more.

Photo Credit: Stuart Palley

It has been some time since Californians have been able to say this, but on Thursday the weather offered a reprieve.

CalFire officials pronounced Thursday “a good day” as the Caldor Fire — which has burned more than 210,000 acres and forced the evacuation of South Lake Tahoe — passed the community of Christmas Valley above the granite-walled Tahoe basin without much incident.

The stiff southwest wind, gusting for days as high as 40 mph, died to just a light breeze overnight. The Caldor Fire moved only slightly and the firefighters’ strategy of steering flames south and east toward the burn scar, now free of fuel, left by the massive Tamarack Fire earlier this year may be working.

Even the air was crystal clear with only a whiff of burn on the breeze … read more.

Photo Credit: Jae C. Hong/AP

The alert came via text Saturday: Leave. Now.

So Clay Cunningham and his wife packed what they could and fled their house in Meyers, Calif., near South Lake Tahoe.

But nearly as soon as they reached their daughter’s home, another evacuation order arrived. The Cunningham’s moved again, to nearby Kingsbury, Nev.

Then on Monday, the raging Caldor Fire began to descend from the Sierra Nevada mountains, threatening much of the populated Tahoe region. Thousands of people on the lake’s western and southern shores were forced to evacuate.

The Cunninghams were part of the exodus, driving in multiple cars with their two adult children and small dog. By early Tuesday morning, they had reached the Carson City Community Center in Nevada, where they set up a tent in a grassy patch next to the parking lot … read more.

Photo credit: Stuart W. Palley

Dawn Hoefler was organizing donations for evacuees of the massive Dixie Fire when she received a warning. A different, fast-moving blaze was closing in near her Northern California town and she needed to leave.

Hoefler and her husband were soon packed and in the car, calling other neighbors near their home in the Sly Park area of Pollock Pines to make sure they were evacuating, too. The Caldor Fire in El Dorado County had gone from several thousand acres Monday, to more than tripling in size the next day, and was up to more than 68,000 acres as of late Thursday … read more.

The existing Truckee library, a modest brown building set in the middle of town, opened its doors in 1976 when the town’s population was roughly 2,000. Today, Truckee boasts more than 20,000 people if you include Martis Valley, yet the library remains that same 4,500-square-foot space built nearly 45 years ago.

Friends of Truckee Library (FOL, or the Friends), a nonprofit founded in 1971, is the main force working to get Truckee a new 20,000-square-foot, $25 million library. And while the idea of a new library has been in the works for a while, the project is gaining serious momentum. It feels like the stars (or should we say communities) are aligning to build a space that will function well beyond the stereotypical, old-school home to the Dewey Decimal System … read more.

Pandemic or not, when was the last time you went out on a Saturday night in Reno and saw multiple musicians perform, learned about gleaning through an interview in a hot tub, toured an art opening at the Depot Gallery in Sparks, learned the ins and outs of recycling in Washoe County, caught a stand-up comedy set, and learned that you could make an LED light with some household items you probably have in your junk drawer … read more.

Truckee’s main drag has a mixture of storefronts—an old-timey chocolate shop, restaurants for any taste, souvenir t-shirt shops, and boutiques at multiple price points. And since 2012, one of the pillars of downtown Truckee has been Bespoke. The shop, which initially found a home on the corner of Donner Pass Road and Spring Street, offers a place for local and small-batch artisans to sell their jewelry, pottery, greeting cards, housewares, and more. It’s a gift shop with intention—with things people want, made by people who build from and with their hearts … read more.

In a year that's been merciless on artists of all kinds, Bryon Evans, Tsanavi Spoonhunter, and Myrton Running Wolf each have new films on the festival circuit.

On the surface, Bryon Evans, Tsanavi Spoonhunter, and Myrton Running Wolf are three very different filmmakers. They are each at different phases of their careers. They have different interests. Different backgrounds. Different motivations. However, the three have a lot more in common than one might think, aside from the fact that they are award winning filmmakers with a connection to Reno. Running Wolf and Spoonhunter are Native American and have formal, journalism-focused educations. Evans and Running Wolf have both recently won awards in the thriller/horror genre. Evans and Spoonhunter are new to the film festival scene … read more.

For the past 16 years, Marianarchy—a biannual Reno-based music festival fundraiser—has raised tens of thousands of dollars for community members in the service and arts industries experiencing financial hardship. This weekend, for an emergency Marianarchy, things will be a little different. (This is 2020, after all.) The beneficiary of the weekend’s offseason virtual event is the festival’s home base for the past 10 years—Jub Jub’s Thirst Parlor.

On the outside, Jub’s is a watering hole with a bright red façade and a sign made up of white block letters on Wells Avenue. But on the inside—both literally and figuratively—Jub’s is a Reno institution that started as a Burning Man camp; it’s a home for quality and diverse live music; a matriarch of the Reno live music scene. But, like most homes for live music nationwide, the venue is feeling the effects of COVID-19 … read more.

Every weekday since school started on Sept. 2, Ashley Bierwolf’s sons — who are in kindergarten and third grade at Kings Beach Elementary School — have had what she describes as structured and constant teacher interaction. For her kindergartener, the day starts with a morning meeting where the class sings a song, and the students get a chance to say hi and check in with their teacher and classmates. The remainder of the day is structured and virtually supervised by her son’s teacher. Her third-grader is also busy and engaged with school all day, she says.

“I was really nervous about how this was going to go. And the district and the teachers have really stepped up. They have been doing an amazing job,” Bierwolf said of the current distance learning model. “It works really well for the kids and for me.” A product analyst for Clear Capital, she recognizes how lucky she is to work from home on a flexible schedule.

Distance learning is working well for her family — and for many other parents in her circles — so Bierwolf was curious when the Truckee Tahoe Unified School District sent an email to student families on the evening of Friday, Sept. 18, announcing the district’s possible transition to an optional hybrid model of learning, with the first day of in-person instruction happening on Oct. 15. “Possible” because there are still a few factors up in the air — including guaranteed rapid testing, the arrival and installation of the in-demand and back ordered MERV-13 air filters, and a signed memorandum of understanding (MOU) with agreed-upon working conditions within the hybrid model with Tahoe Truckee Education Association (TTEA), the local teachers unions and the district. An update on these aspects of the pivot to hybrid learning is expected to be shared at the Oct. 7 regular school board meeting. TTEA was scheduled to meet Oct. 6 to further negotiate the MOU … read more.

Downstairs in the Reno multidisciplinary art collective the Potentialist Workshop—underneath a theater, an art gallery, and an artist workshop—is the Loud As Folk studio, the brainchild of local musicians Spike McGuire and Greg Gilmore. The space has wood floors and high ceilings, which produce a warm, magical reverb that lends itself to “raw, authentic, portraits of songwriters,” according to McGuire.

The studio, along with dreams of a one-day record label, always took a back seat to live shows for the pair. McGuire and Gilmore are both touring musicians and actively involved in the Loud As Folk monthly songwriter showcase, which McGuire founded.

However, when live shows came to an abrupt halt at the start of the pandemic in March, promoters, performers, and producers (all buckets McGuire falls into) scrambled to understand what the industry landscape would look like in the coming months … read more.

The Crystal Bay Casino had five and a half hours of notice from Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office on the evening of March 17 to send their patrons home, clear the money from behind the cashier’s cage, and lock their doors. The directive came on the same day as the governor shut down all nonessential businesses and encouraged residents to stay home, and only five days after Sisolak established a medical advisory team to direct his office’s policy response to COVID-19. California’s stay-at-home order wouldn’t begin for another two days. Nevada’s formal stay-at-home order was declared on April 1.

“Most casinos don’t even have locks on their doors,” said Bill Wood, general manager of the CBC. Luckily, the North Lake Tahoe casino does have locks, so Wood and staff were able to secure the space a mere 30 minutes before the government-mandated midnight shutdown. That evening, the establishment’s iconic marquee, covered in a blanket of mid-March Tahoe snow, read “Stay Strong Tahoe. We got this. See you in a month.” … read more.

Wild River Grille provides the community with a digital concert series in response to COVID-19

Donning a white dinner jacket and black fedora, local musician Alex “Muddy” Smith sat at his home in Reno last Friday night to play a two-hour digital concert for more than 70 households enjoying Wild River Grille’s COVID-19 take out menu.

“Hey, I’m live! And a minute early,” Muddy said over the restaurant’s YouTube channel. “Man, I’m so excited to be here because this is the beginning of the Wild River Grille’s Band Together.” … read more.

Once landscape painter Phyllis Shafer first saw the West, there was no turning back

At the opening reception for the exhibition Verdant Dream: Landscape Paintings of the American West, Phyllis Shafer, 61, met a young couple and their son—three of the 400 people in attendance that night. Shafer looked at the young boy and asked what his favorite painting in the show was. “And he points immediately to ‘Loggerhead Shrike,’” she said. It’s a stylized, abstract landscape painting with sweeping views of the Eastern Sierra, as seen from Bishop, with two loggerhead shrikes—small, gray songbirds—in the foreground. “How come you like that one best?” Shafer said. The boy responded, “because that’s the one we’re taking home.” “Loggerhead Shrike” was one of the show’s 35 paintings that sold. In fact, Verdant Dreams sold out entirely before the first people walked through the doors for the reception … read more.

It is a Wednesday evening in late July and five sailboats are circling the starting line in the brackish waters of the Navesink River. Nearly halfway between Red Bank and the Oceanic Bridge, they jockey, ever-so-politely, for the ideal start position. The competitors – a junior racer sailing solo in an Opti, a Sanderling captained by the mayor of Fair Haven, a family in an O’Day 19, and two other boats – await the sound of a horn, which indicates that the first race of the evening has begun … read more.

Contemporary dance thrives in Manhattan’s religious spaces

Nacera Belaza, the Algerian dancer and choreographer who performed as part of the Crossing the Line Festival in October, twirled across the floor at Danspace Project, circling around a dimly lit floor with two other performers. The three dancers orbited each other hypnotically, evoking a distinct spiritual feeling. The Danspace location only underlined that feeling: it is a fully functioning church … read more.

tg STAN & Dood Paard present Art by Yasmina Reza

As the audience mills about with the houselights still on, three men who will soon reveal themselves to be the characters in a raucous, experimental version of Yasmina Reza’s Art, roll a tarp-covered trailer onto the stage. Instructing the audience to continue talking among ourselves — “We will begin in seven minutes,” one of them says. “Something happened and we will tell you about that later.” — they retrieve items from the trailer and put up the set for the play … read more.

California’s Carr fire kills 3 more, in addition to 2 firefighters

Fueled by an incendiary combination of scorching temperatures, dry air and unpredictable winds, the deadly Carr fire doubled in size to 80,906 acres on Saturday — almost the size of the city of Philadelphia. The wildfire has forced thousands to flee, torched 500 buildings and killed five people — three civilians and two firefighters … read more.

In this third installment of Moonshine Ink’s Tiny Porch Concerts, we welcomed Clementine and Daniele Gottardo to our back porch sanctuary, where they played a serene version of “I Thought About You,” a slow, jazzy tune written in 1939 by Jimmy Van Heusen with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. We chatted with Clementine later via email about being a member of an all-ladies rock group, how playing a cover is different from playing an original, and the legalities of playing someone else’s songs … read more.

Over the course of two summers in the late 1960s, a chunk of the Haight Ashbury psychedelic rock scene was picked up and dropped off in Kings Beach at the building we now know as the North Tahoe Event Center. A converted bowling alley with 10-foot ceilings, the building was then a concert venue called Kings Beach Bowl that hosted the likes of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Neil Young with Buffalo Springfield, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Grateful Dead — to name a few … read more.

Garrett Dutton, the lead behind alternative hip hop band G. Love & Special Sauce, doesn’t really care what you call him. “Call me G. Love, or Garret, or G,” he said when I kicked off our interview with the ever promising “What is your name?” question … read more.

“If you can’t do this, get out of the business,” David Letterman said in response to The Suffers’ 2015 national television debut on The Late Show.

Since then, the eight-piece group from Houston has released their first album, filmed with NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, advocated for Hurricane Harvey victims, and toured all around the world. Their most popular song, “Make Some Room,” has more than 2 million listens on Spotify. In March, the high energy group will play their second Tahoe show at the Crystal Bay Casino. This is the only free show on the tour, with tickets typically fetching up to $30, so take this opportunity and run with it … read more.

Sitting with Anne Bennett, 79, we speak of Lady Gaga, Tony Bennett, her days as a bohemian, eating more kale, painting, and her sister’s perfect behind. The 19-year-resident of Tahoe Donner appears to be totally with it, but she explains this was not the case three months ago when side effects from an emergency surgery appeared in the form of dangerous brain seizures. The seizures left her in need of full-time care. These health problems and subsequent need for around the clock healthcare galvanized Bennett’s neighbors into providing her with the care she needed … (read more).

Achieve Tahoe, formerly Disabled Sports USA Far West, was founded 50 years ago by the late Jim Winthers, a World War II veteran of the Tenth Mountain Division and director of the Soda Springs Ski School. To recruit participants, Winthers and other vets would walk around Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco talking to wounded Vietnam soldiers, mainly amputees, about coming up to Tahoe to ski … read more.

When most people think of Tahoe-based companies their minds immediately go to the service or outdoor industries; rarely do they think of tech and app development. This is most likely because Silicon Valley, the mother ship of tech, is only 220 miles down the hill … read more.

It’s no secret that mountain bikes are expensive, especially for a teenage boy who grows like a weed. For Luca Robillard, 14, and his mom Annie, who live in Truckee, a June trip to Coffeebar turned into the opportunity of a lifetime when the single mom and her son ran into professional mountain biker Katerina Nash … read more.

Four years ago if you had asked Shawn Whitey, owner and founder of Truckee’s Morgan’s Lobster Shack, whether he wanted to open a second location in Reno he would have said absolutely not. However, since opening in 2013, the profits from his Truckee business consistently grew from 1 to 4 percent every month and this success drove him to consider expanding into a larger market … read more.

Billions of pounds of produce go to waste every year because of imperfections.

This produce is not rotten, it tastes exactly the same, and still packs the same nutrients as a visually appealing item, but because of cosmetic defects, large-scale grocers are unable to carry the products. The result is that consumers believe their bell peppers, carrots, lettuce, peaches, everything, should look perfect and uniform, every time. Thankfully, the paradigm is beginning to shift as consumers learn that their food should not look the same every time — in fact, if it does, there is a bigger problem. But this isn’t a story about GMOs and pesticides … read more.

Picture this: You’ve been hiking since Mexico, just over 1,000 miles; you’re craving a cheeseburger; you’re running out of water; and (shocker) all you can think about is a deep tissue massage. You’re a little less than halfway through the journey that is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, so the adrenaline and nerves of beginning have fully dried up, but the finish line isn’t exactly in your sight. You do, after all, have 1,650 miles of hiking left until landing in Manning Park. Currently, you’re traveling through the Sierra Nevada range’s iconic Sierra Buttes, and you could really use a pick-me-up … read more.

First Place for Best Business Feature 2018 by The National Newspaper Association

At the bottom of its beer and wine list, Pianeta, a 19-year-old Italian restaurant in downtown Truckee, presents diners with the option to buy a six-pack as a gratuity for the kitchen staff. When customers place the order, a ticket not only prints at the bar for accounting purposes, but also prints in the kitchen; to which the kitchen staff then responds by banging pots and pans so loudly that the purchasing patron (and the entire restaurant) hears the acknowledgement … read more.

Michael Golden bikes every day on his lunch break, why?

Chances are, if you have ever driven on SR 89 right around lunchtime you have seen Michael Golden on his daily ride. But, have you wondered what the heck he is doing out there? He certainly doesn’t look like your stereotypical cyclist — mostly because he doesn’t wear the uniform (you know what I’m talking about) … read more.

“We made it to states!” is not an uncommon phrase to hear broadcast in the halls of a school. Varsity football, jazz band, debate club, ski team — all competitive extracurriculars that culminate, over the year, in a champion. What about, school bus driving? Not necessarily something associated with a winner, right? Wrong! The competitive school bus driver circuit is called the International Bus Roadeo, and the 2016 California state champion was from the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District — 29-year-old Derek Bosserman … read more.