Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
It snowed on Mother’s Day, and then it even snowed on the Strawberry Music Festival during Memorial Day weekend! It’s warmer this week, but there’s still lots of clouds and the warm comes and goes. The wildflowers and the flowers in our Garden Courtyard don’t seem to notice, they’re all right on schedule. The lilacs and daffodils are gone, and some of the irises, but more summery flowers are coming, like the late Dutch irises and Carolina Jessamine and roses and big pink rhododendrons.
June’s here already, and it’s hard to believe it (and not just because of the weird weather). Right around the corner we have some Yosemite Courtyard Theater shows, too! June 11 is The Beach Toys doing two shows, one at 7:00 and the second at 9:30. The next day, June 12, the Beatles tribute band Paperback Writer is back by popular demand, doing two shows this year at 7:00 and 9:30. Four shows in two days! Be sure to check our Events page for video of these guys in action!
I tell you, it’s a dog’s life. In and out of the vet this month, plus I chewed through my harness so my mom had to go to Sonora and buy me a new one. What can I say, I got bored, and I don’t want to wear a harness! I want to run around in the flowers and chase bugs! Life is good here at the Groveland Hotel, and I hope to see you here soon.
It’s been such a strange long winter! It was warm for a while, then cold, then warm, then cold, warm, cold, then cold again, then cold some more… it even snowed here in Groveland a week or two ago, and then hailed so much it looked like snow! Meanwhile, the daffodils have come and gone, and so have some of the tulips, and the rhododendrons are about to bloom. They don’t seem to notice the crazy weather, other than when hail beats up the irises.
The Yosemite Courtyard Theater is about to start! Those are always such fun nights, and on Friday, May 28 it all starts at 8:00 with a Tribute to the Legends: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and Nat King Cole. A man named Steve Swan does the show with his pianist Richard Hall, and he sounds so good! He had the same teacher as Frank Sinatra and sounds just like him. This year the ticket prices are lower, and this show is only $19 for a night of music you won’t forget! Hurry and get a seat while you can…
I’m three today, and I woke up to snow! This time of year you never know what the weather is going to do. Earlier this week it was warm and pretty, then last night it snows? And this afternoon, it’s all melted away and the daffodils are shining in the sun.
In our courtyard garden, the early tulips are out, bright apricot orange, and the white hyacinths smell so good. The daphne flowers smell kind of like lemon, and those were the first things to bloom. Anybody walking around in the back, close to where my mom’s office is, could smell them on the air. The daffodils are blooming all over up the street at Mountain Sage coffee house and nursery on the Laveroni property. Hundreds of them come up every year, and they’re so pretty!
Speaking of daffodils, it’s Daffodil Days again here in town. The hotel and other buildings are decorated with containers of yellow daffodils and bright ribbons, each bunch representing a donation to the American Cancer Society during this yearly campaign. If you’d like to donate or help in some other way, you can visit the ACS Daffodil Days website here.
Our Valentine’s Day here was actually three days, kind of. The dining room served their special Valentine’s dinner on the 12th, 13th and 14th, and we had lots of hotel guests, too! President’s weekend was the same as Valentine’s so lots of people came to visit, especially from around California. Couples who wanted to have a little romantic weekend getaway came and had dinner, and wine, and a wonderful time.
We also had a tour group here that has stayed at the hotel before. They’re a group of seniors with Jazz-N-Aweigh Tours that love jazz and love to come back to the Groveland Hotel, and they have a lot of fun with our teddy bears and robes. We took some great video of them, but we can’t get it to work on my blog! So rather than make you wait any longer I’m just posting anyway, and hopefully I can show it to you soon.
The Cellar Door restaurant has been closed for a little while because Chef Greg is on vacation. He went skiing in Colorado, then back to Chicago to visit family. People can’t wait for him to get back, and we can’t wait to see what his new spring menu will include. Yummy!
Like most springs, we’re going back and forth between winter and warm. It snowed here yesterday, but the week before that it was beautiful and the flowers were starting to come out. But that’s spring here in the mountains, you never know what it’s going to do.
Christmas and New Year’s were so much fun. We had lots of relatives over to visit, and lots of guests having special dinners. I got the best leftovers! The dining room was all decorated up, and there was New Year’s confetti everywhere, and it was a tail-wagging good time.
It’s already snowed a few times this winter, and January and February are usually when we get the most. We had a HUGE storm a couple of weeks ago and Yosemite was actually closed for a while! Hundreds of trees were down all over the highways, and there was so much snow that cars couldn’t get in on any of the highways, and the power was out in three counties! Now that’s a big storm.
We had ghost hunters here last night, and I wonder if they saw Lyle? They had cameras and motion-detector thingies and recorders all over the place, like in the basement and of course in Lyle’s room upstairs. I can see him, of course, and he usually leaves because he doesn’t like all the attention. It would be neat to see him on a video, though, because I keep trying to tell people he’s there, but usually the humans just tell me to stop barking.
A few early flowers are starting to bloom already, especially down lower in the valleys. They all smell so good, the little daffodil ones and the mustard and other things I don’t even know the names of. I can’t wait for the almond orchards to bloom, that’s one of my favorite things to see from the car window. And then when the petals fall, it almost looks like snow all over again.
Where did the year go? It’s almost Christmas already! The tree in the dining room looks really cool, and has a fun topper that looks like presents are bursting out of the tree. There’s all kinds of ribbons and flowers and ornaments that look so nice with the new orange color, and of course the rest of the hotel is decorated inside and out.
The whole town of Groveland is decorated, actually! Just like every year, the silver foil and red ribbons and garlands and ornaments went up a couple weeks ago, and it’s like a Christmas card around here. People love to take pictures of it, it’s so pretty and cheerful and festive. And with the big snow we got last week, it was really a winter wonderland. Except the power was out for a lot of people, so that wasn’t so great, but there was a television crew from Sacramento that did a report. You can see just what the town looks like in snow!
And speaking of festive, It’s almost time again for our annual Christmas Feast and our annual New Year’s Eve party. We still have space for reservations, and if you look on the website under “Dining” you can find the menus for what the food will be. Wow, does it look good! The doggie bags my mom will bring home should be amazing for sure. I hope to see you for Christmas!
Dinner at the hotel was wonderful! So many happy people enjoying the delicious food with their friends and family. I’m thankful to have a family that loves me so much, even when I chew things up or get naughty in the house… I think partly they forgive me because I’m so cute. I think it’s my big brown eyes mostly that gets to them.
Today we had our relatives visiting, and one of them is a Great Dane that had ten puppies a few weeks ago! Those are really, really huge puppies. They’ll be eight weeks old on Monday, but they’re already half as big as me! It’s a little creepy, actually. But their parents are nice, so I’m sure we’ll be great friends. I’m thankful I have such interesting relatives!
Mark Twain and Peggy Mosley
Mark Twain visited us the other night! Or… Samuel Clemens, or Pat Kaunert… he has a lot of names! He told a lot of really interesting stories, and my mom Peggy dressed up in her best gown for the occasion, a really actually old one from about 1900 that belonged to Mrs. Armour, of the famous meatpacking company.
Mr. Twain told stories about things he’d seen and places he’d been, some of which were actually true! The dinner was full of recipes from the time that he was here before, the 1800s, and there was trout and apple crisps and beet salad and other delicious things. He told stories while people had dinner, and everybody loved it so much he came back and told even more! He said he had a really fun time and will be back again some day, and that maybe he would bring his friend Bret Harte along too for more different stories.
Did you know that right across the street is a marker for the Mark Twain/Bret Harte trail? They visited up here over a hundred years ago, when the hotel was only about 20 years old! The whole town of Groveland is a California Historic Landmark, and it’s a great place to live.
You know what tree is my favorite? The dogwood! And that’s not just being silly, because this time of year the leaves turn such beautiful colors. Red and orange and pink and yellow and fruit colors and every color in between! Yosemite has lots of dogwoods, and there’s a tree across from the Chapel too that’s full of reds and darker colors like that, a sugar maple, I think. I don’t know the names of trees very well, you’ll have to ask my mom! The waterfalls in Yosemite are really full right now too, so it’s a good time to come visit us before it gets too cold and snowy.
Halloween was a lot of fun. There’s no neighborhoods for the kids to trick or treat in, so they all come to main street from miles and miles around. We had about 400 kids come through, and about a dozen dogs in cute costumes. Some of them stayed right here, too, and there was even a beagle like me! I liked the little fairy princess on the chihuahua the best, I think. The beagle didn’t have a costume, that was too bad. Lots and lots and lots of kids, though, that made up for it!