2013 CA 4-H Winter Retreat at Tahoe

     This past weekend, January 4-6, 2013, I had traveled up to the 4th Annual California 4-H Winter Retreat at the Nevada State 4-H Camp, Stateline, NV (next to South Lake Tahoe) with the California 4-H Technology Leadership Team, the California 4-H State Ambassadors, and the 2013 California 4-H State Leadership Conference Support Staff.  The main goals of this winter retreat are for the teams to come together to improve their teamwork, leadership, and communication skills while bonding and working together to plan the next year's state leadership conference that will be at UC Davis in July.  Most of the group meet at the State 4-H Office in Davis and carpooled in fleet service vans that can fit 12-15 people.  To save room, and to get up there before the group to explore, I didn't travel up with the group. Instead, one of my best friends, Daniel Rogers, drove myself and Neal Woodall up to Tahoe as he did last year.  We were able to get up to Tahoe an hour before the group.  We spent the time by shopping for snacks and stopping at the Nestle Toll-house Cookie Shop.  Afterwards we got to the camp.  The vans showed up late, so we killed time by playing in the snow.  We gave them a warm welcome of snow balls as they drove up to the camp parking lot. 

Unlike last year, there was snow.  About 3 feet of most fresh power was on the ground.  Made it hard to make a snowman and snowballs.  Having that amount of snow was great.  Nothing but a beautiful amount of snow.  Anytime we had free time, well just a few of us who braved the cold, spent as much time outside as possible.  Daniel and I would walk around camp on the plowed paths and through the 3 feet of snow.  Because I live in southern California, I don't have the proper clothing for the snow.  The entire weekend, except when warm in the cabin with my south park pajama pants and clean socks, my vans skating shoes, socks, and jeans up to my knees would be soaked in the cold snow melt.  Every time I was in the main lodge for our meetings and activities, I would place my shoes by the fireplace and attempt to try my jeans by standing near the flames.  It would work for the shoes, but not the jeans.  On Sunday morning, I even took off my jeans and placed them near the vent to our cabin heater to hope to have the jeans get dry.  It didn't work.  I ended up flying home in wet jeans, shoes, and socks.  Even with being wet, I really enjoyed being in the snow.  Most of the camp had plowed paths to the cabins and the main lodge.  The only thing that seemed to not have a path was the path to the camp beach.  We had to walk through the 3 feet of snow to get to the lake beach, which was about 1/3 of a mile.  The walk is normally not a problem, but it was a workout this time.  I stayed near the front of the group most of the time, which received the hardest amount of work.  About 2/3'd down to the lake, I had to stop to give my legs a break and to catch my breath, since I am overweight and not fully in shape (slowing trying to change that btw).  We made it to the beach, and unlike past years with snow, the entire beach was covered with snow, and so was the pier.  It was beautiful!  We spent about 30 mins there before taking the much easier walk back to the camp.  On Sunday, while the State Ambassadors and a few tech team members were filming videos, the rest of the group had a few hours of fun in the snow.  We ended up in a awesome snowball fight.  We even found snow shovels which were great weapons in a snowball fight.  I used the snow shovel for most of the battle until my arms got tired from all the shoveling.  It was an amazing day until we had to stop to go pack up our things and clean the camp.  On Sunday morning, it started to snow quite a bit.  We had to stop our combined SLC meeting to go out to enjoy the snow.  See the video below!

    For the business side of the retreat, each group would meet separately.  The tech team would meet in the main lodge, which we enjoyed because they had couches and fire places that regulated the heat in the room.  For the tech team, we planned out the rest of our calendar year for meeting.  We also set up our mobile computer lab to run computer updates to the OS, and the software.  One of our biggest jobs was to train our team members about Film Production.  The reason is because the team receive a grant from Best Buy to hold film production traingings throughout California.  With the grant we got new cameras and equipment.  We invited a past member, Ashlyn, to train the teach team and the state ambassadors how to properly film and edit a movie.  After the team members were trained, the tech team worked together to plan out a time schedule and assign team members to run trainings around the state.  I will be working on training youth in Santa Barbara in Feb. and in Ontario in April.  Both groups did meet together to discuss each other's needs to one another for the conference.  Everything seemed quite normal except for two things.  The first is dealing with a guest speaker that has high security standards.  I know the speaker, but it is still hush hush, so I wont say who it is.  The second major issue is the times for the workshops.  Educational workshops at SLC are normally 1 hr and 20 mins.  This year, they are shortening the workshops down to 45 mins long.  For many of our workshops, we have topics that need to be taught at a longer time.  This will be a challenge for the team, and we will have to plan to teach different workshops than what we are used to at SLC.  On Sunday, the original plans for the teams were for both to film their own videos.  Things seemed to have gotten confused, and the State Ambassadors thought they were to film skits for SLC, while the tech team filmed.  Because the entire tech team didn't need to help film, I asked for our video team leader to help film and two other team members.  The rest didn't really have much to do.  Because of the snow, we decided to pack up the computer lab early, and get them in the vans so we can play in the snow.  After that, we spent two hours in the snow goofing off, and at times getting into the frame shots of the Ambassadors filming, which they didn't like.  Yes, the team could have been more productive, but over all we did a good job with our work at this retreat.

     When the end of the retreat came, moods changed.  I honestly didn't want to leave.  I was having too much fun hanging out with friends, meeting new people, doing 4-H work, and being in this beautiful environment.  We packed up and we had left.  Because of it snowing in the morning, we knew there was a chance of traffic and possibly having to use chains to get down back to Sacramento.  Daniel didn't have to worry about chains because we were in his mom's car, which had snow tires and 4 wheel drive.  We were set.  As we left the camp, and headed towards the 50, things seemed to be good.  As we turned onto the 50, the traffic had stopped.  Slowly moving.  It had seemed that one of the highways had a chain requirement.  Not our path which was the 50, but the 89 required them.  This caused crazy traffic.  At this point we were in fear of not making it in time back to Sacramento to get Neal to his 6:00 ish flight.  I was worried of missing my 8 pm flight, especially when it was the last flight out for the day.  Lucky, Daniel knows the area a little bit.  We decided to turn around, and take a side street.  We took Pioneer Trail Rd, which took us through the backside, and it would dead end on the 50 in Meyers.  Doing so would save time.  We had by-passed all the traffic that was at a stand still.  We got back on the road, and slowly go to down the hill.  Took us 45 mins to leave the tahoe basin and could of been an hour longer if we didn't take that alternate path.  We even called the vans for them to take the alternate route that we were taking.  In the end, we made it to the airport in time for Neal to get to his flight.  

     It was a great weekend, and it was the end for my winter break.  I enjoy being in the snow, and that made this trip awesome.  I will say I would never live in the snow though.