November 11, 2008

The Après Lodge

This is the Après lodge.  It is located in North Lake Tahoe (not literally in Lake Tahoe but near) at 8473 Rainbow Ave, Kings Beach, CA  96143  Phone   You can get to the lodge from Hwy 80 and Truckee by trucking Southeast on Highway 267 from the east end of Truckee.  The Lodge is easy to find as it sticks out like a plum in a peach pie.  It has this pastel blue almost turquoise look to it and it is huge.  Lots of parking room, lots of sleeping room and most importantly, lots of partying room.  You can also see the fence around the hot tub in the above photo.  Even though the lodge can sleep about 30 people, the hot tub can only hold 29. That is 29 members if everybody is standing up and without a swimsuit. ;=)

 

This is going to be a little pictorial tour of the lodge. For starters, there is a dining and kitchen area in the lodge with sufficient room and flexibility to service a full lodge of merry makers.  There is enough food capacity in the kitchen to cook up several different dishes simultaneously so that when the food is served, all of it is fresh and hot.
 
The kitchen counter is spacious and functional.  All the cupboards and drawers are labeled with contents so that a minimum amount of time is spent locating pots, pans and utensils to cook with. There are three refrigerators with two spacious refrigerators being reserved for events.  Yes, that is a dishwasher located next to the sink.
 


<-----This is an alternate (usual) dining room setup.  Sometimes festively decorated to match the theme of the party, in this case, the last party.  Our leaders of Lodge Events are quite enthusiastic and will do what it takes to inspire attendees to party.  For instance the photo of the dining room at the top was set up for a recent Oktoberfest dinner with German wine (in blue bottles.)
The living area is spacious with lots of sound equipment to blast out the dancing tunes.  Once you are in the living area you will notice the personal touches added by our many members since the Lodge was purchased in 1976.  There are paintings, awards, and even a display case of previous awards won by our club and individual members.

It is too bad we do not have an active club historian.  For instance, a club member redid the kitchen with marble counter tops, I am not sure who it was.  The shield at the left is a contribution as well as the signs at the front and back of the club. The signs were done by Bill Bartz, a former club president for two years, the shield was done by?
Proof that there is dancing "fun" at the Lodge.

 

The sleeping areas are varied from functional to comfortable. The functional part are bunk beds squeezed and shoved into a few of the larger rooms, sometimes six bunk beds to a room, sometimes four.

The "Deluxe" rooms are by design more comfortable.  For instance the beds in room # 8 are a twin bed and a queen sized bed.  (My favorite room.)  The rest of the deluxe rooms have a pair of twin beds. The twin beds are easy to shove together to make a "King" sized bed.

One sleeping room is designated for "snorers"  Now why would anybody want to sleep in that room?  Well, this is your only option if you are asked to leave any one of the other rooms because of your snoring.

All rooms are "coed." Everybody is suppose to wear pajamas as a courtesy to the other members.  I am told that in the past, one member insisted on walking around in the nude.  Just be aware that not everybody is comfortable with that.

Notice that there are three showers upstairs and one downstairs as well as the same number of toilets.

 

 

Can you guess if these people are having fun or not?  This photo was taken 1/10/2009, on a ski race weekend at the lodge.  This hot tub is a fun feature for the lodge, especially when it is snowing or raining.


 

Some photos of actual rooms: the QZ bed in room #8, twin beds in room #7 and bunk beds in room #1.  Notice that the twin beds in room #7 are easily shoved together to make one king sized bed.

Lodge occupancy is by individuals.  There is no price break for double occupancy.  Each person pays for a bed whether it be shared or not.

There is no laundry service at the lodge so you must anticipate and bring your own towels and bedding.  If you forget, there are several thrift stores in the area where you can buy clean towels, sheets and blankets.  Also, if all the beds are taken, the lodge is full and you will not be allowed to stay overnight.  In another words, sleeping on a couch or the floor is not permitted.

 

Now, I hope you know what to expect at your lodge. Bernadette, our current president year 2008/9 says, "The lodge is like my second home."  She treats it like her own personal property.  We encourage all of our members to think like wise. Treat the lodge as your home away from home and like your own home, be responsible for helping keep it clean.  Nothing can discourage our membership from using the lodge faster then arriving and finding the place in a mess.  

If you make a mess, please clean up after yourself.  If you see a mess, just like at home, take a few minutes to clean it up.  If it is really bad, notify the lodge manager so that he can notify the people that last used the lodge to let them know it is unacceptable to leave a mess and that they can lose their lodge privileges.

We do have a cleaning person to come in to do some deep cleaning for us every month or so on an as needed basis.  The less we need to use her, the more $s we have to spend on our events.

What does it take to get to the lodge from the bay area?  I am glad you asked.  I live in the West Gate area of San Jose and door to door for me is about 234.22 miles.  It is possible to drive straight through on one tank of gas but you wouldn't want to do that.  
 
Gas at Tahoe is always 50 cents to a dollar more per gallon then in the Sacto area.  You should gas up in Sacto on the way up to Tahoe. If you gas up in Sacto, then you should have enough gas to do some side trips in Tahoe and still be able to return to Sacto to gas up cheaply again.  

 So you want to stay at the lodge, maybe have your birthday party there, marry your favorite daughter off to that bum down the street, or just use it for a jumping off place to recreate from.  All these are possible and more.

Where else can you rent a place for a wedding that has accommodations for thirty people at a total cost of only $600 for one night?  Do it in the summer time so the ceremony can be held outside or on one of the many wedding boats right on Tahoe.  Just think Dad, a wedding for under $5000 with enough money left over to go to McDonalds afterwards.

Yes, the lodge is a fantastic resource for our club.  The more we use it, the easier it is to do upgrades and fixes.  It is the revenue from the lodge that allowed us to install a hot tub for instance.  As already mentioned, if you have a large private function you want to do, get a hold of the Property Manager or any board member, and see if it isn't possible to hold that special function at the lodge.

Want to hold a TGIF at the lodge?  Get a hold of any board member and let them show you how to do it and what you need to do to pull it off.  Chances are you will discover how fun and easy it is to lead a "Lodge" event.

Just think "Lodge" every chance you get.


by Jim Huffman
Assistant Web Master
last update 4/6/09

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