About 50 people attended a town hall meeting to learn what Carson Valley residents had to say about their community. I was asked Tuesday morning what I thought and I declined as an observer, but since it's Friday morning, I'll tell you. Nothing I heard last night resolves the fundamental conflict of living here. The thing that attracts people to the Valley, it's beauty, both natural and as the result of hard work, is also the thing that makes it a fundamentally primitive place to live. Carson Valley has been settled for longer than any spot in Nevada, and yet unlike Reno or Las Vegas, its population remained essentially static for more than a century. It is beautiful because it isn't on the beaten path, and it is off the path because of many of the things people said could be fixed about it. The choice is ours'.
Meanwhile, the National Weather Service said we're about to tack an extra 20 degrees onto the high temperatures over the next week. That means it's going to be hot, dry and the snow's going to melt off the mountain pretty quickly. Expect highs in the 90s and lows in the 40s. Be careful with fire, stay out of the streams unless you're prepared for an ice bath, and generally stay safe.
I'm off next week, and I won't be able to do the morning report. The question I have is whether I should continue doing it or just let it die a natural death. It will be three years old next month and the readership is down (I know exactly how many people look at it, and it's not as many as used to). When we started the whole notion of a morning report, it served some purposes. It served as a daily news blog before we had the software to have real blogs, it let me check to see if the Web site was working, and it was fun. Maybe a week away from it will help.
