2619 Pinnacle View Dr in Meadow Vista's Winchester Country Club is For Sale!

I have an amazing listing in the Winchester Country Club in Meadow Vista. This home belongs to clients of mine that bought a great property in the Fab 40's of East Sac last year. The addition and remodel of that East Sac home is almost done and now it is time to sell their amazing home in the foothills.

This home has three bedrooms plus a separate den/office, three full baths plus a half bath by the pool. All of the finishes in this home are of the highest quality and attention to detail. The ceilings are all over 12 feet high, the walls are hand troweled "American Clay, every sink in the home is custom made, it even has a copper bathtub in the master suite.

The gourmet chef's kitchen has all Viking appliances and there are custom built cabinets by Steve Savage throughout the home as well as custom light fixtures.

The large patio has it's own fireplace (one of four on the property) and the pool and spa are ideal for outdoor entertaining with a built in Viking BBQ and outdoor kitchen. You can sit in your own oasis and enjoy the views of the 14th fairway and distant city lights!

It is amazing what you can do with 3731 square feet and 1.2 acres. This property is so grand that it I was inspired to have aerial footage taken.





You can see the full listing at my real estate site.

A Day Off in the Snow!

My wife and I took a day off to go up to Alpine Village in Tahoe. 

She is taking sit-ski lessons since her feet and legs can't do standard skiing due to here neuromuscular disease.

As always, when Cheryl sets her mind to something, she goes all out. Here she is taking on the jumps on the slopes!

A good day off in the snow

I took my wife to Tahoe for some good outdoor fun on Wednesday. For Christmas she had asked for sit-ski lessons and we have finally made it happen.

Here we are in Alpine Meadows near the end of her first of a several days of sit-ski lessons. Hopefully we'll make it back up several times this season!

Back yard concert

Got to love a back yard concert. This one features the Mekons in my friend David's back yard in Davis.
Must be about 60 of us enjoying the amazing sounds of this group. Not sure how David gets such great talent, but I'm happy to show up, kick in a donation for the band and enjoy some good food, drinks and company.

A couple weeks ago Cheryl and I tested the theory the visiting Yosemite Valley could be done in a day trip.We left our home in East Sac at 7:00 am. With a stop for gas and another stop in Groveland for sandwiches we were in the valley by 11:00.
The waterfalls were flowing at full capacity and the weather was great! We tested out Cheryl’s new wheelchair and the amazing attachment that she has for it. It is called a Free Wheel and it lifts the front casters off the ground so you run on a larger front wheel. Great for off road and other rough terrain.

After a couple light hikes, a great picnic by the river and lots of amazing pictures, we left Yosemite Valley around 5:00 and were back home by 8:30.

It was a long day in the car, but well worth it!

Traveling with a Disability

Cheryl in Turkey

My wife Cheryl and I love travel both within the U.S. and outside of the country. Traveling for us is complicated by the fact that Cheryl has a hereditary neuropathy condition called CMT (or Charcot Marie Tooth disease). It is closely related to muscular dystrophy and the Muscular Dystrophy Association (The MDA with Jerry Lewis) has it under its umbrella of covered conditions.

The impact of this condition is that the muscles in Cheryl’s feet and lower legs don’t receive the impulses from her nerves and now her hands are being affected as well. Cheryl can’t walk very far without exhausting herself and even a visit to a museum can be more than she can walk.

We’ve been using a wheelchair more and more and it has become a standard piece of equipment for our travels. One of the amazing things about our country is that we have the Americans with Disability Act (the ADA) and it creates a lot of accessible options to get around the country and all the buildings and landmarks here. Not surprisingly, the ADA doesn’t extend outside of America and accessibility in other countries is greatly varied.

We don’t let this stop us from doing crazy trips like going to India or Turkey or anywhere we want to go. We just take it as a challenge and an opportunity to bond even closer.

Our travels caught the attention of a group that supports people with my wife’s condition and they decided to write an article about us and traveling with a disability.

This is the link to the article entitled “Profile in Courage”. If you would like to read the whole article (you currently have to be a member to read it on the HNF site), just send me an email and I’ll send you a .pdf of the whole article.

Vacation in India

Well, we have returned and finally recovered from our vacation to India.

We spent one week in Delhi attending the most amazing wedding ever. The cousin of our good friends (Shivani and Ashish) got married in the traditional 4 day long Indian wedding that can make the Oscars look like a casual dress event. We were welcomed by our friends family who invited us to stay with them and we were treated like family throughout our whole visit.

Our second week was spent traveling out to see the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Amber Fort in Jaipur and the surrounding countryside. The Taj Mahal is more amazing than any pictures can convey. The sense of peace and tranquility there combined with the perfection of the massive white marble structure was awe inspiring.

My wife and I have been fascinated with India for a long time and as usual when we do crazy travel we did a lot of research before going. I can honestly say that I don’t think anything could have prepared us for India. While it was a great country to visit (and we only saw a little corner of it), we were thankful to return home to all the comforts of America and the beauty of East Sacramento’s tree lined streets.

Writing this blog from the comparatively un-crowded (even if every table is taken) coffee shop of Peet’s on 38th and J St, I have returned with a deepened love for India’s culture as well as a greater appreciation for everything it means to live in America.

Travel Med Inc.

While I love East Sac and all the great properties here, there is a vast world out there with many wonders to explore. My wife and I have been invited to go to India and meet up with some friends who will be visiting their home country and attending an amazing wedding there.

We can’t pass up the opportunity to see a 1000+ person, 4 day wedding, the Taj Mahal and so many other great experiences that country has to offer. But travel to India brought up the question of “do we need any shots to make sure we don’t bring an unexpected mosquito borne souvenir home”?

We looked at the out of pocket expense if we were to use our health insurance to ask questions and get the shots and we were surprised to find out that our insurance doesn’t cover vaccinations. Insurance would cover treating Typhoid Fever if we got it, but it would cost us hundreds of dollars to see someone about getting a vaccination against it, plus an unknown amount for the shots themselves!



East Sac’s own Travel Med Inc to the rescue! For $45 dollars each we spent over an hour and a half with the very knowledgeable staff finding out about everything that we could catch in India, getting shots to prevent the worst of it and finding out how to avoid all the other things we don’t want to ruin our trip. Not only did they educate us about how to avoid the mosquito’s that carry disease (I didn’t know that mosquito’s are attracted to perfume and black clothing), they sent us away with a personalized booklet about India and what to expect there from a health perspective.

Ok, no feeding the monkeys (rabies is painful, amazingly expensive to treat and deadly if you don’t treat it), we will pre-treat all our clothing with a natural mosquito repellent, no eating raw fruits and vegetables and a slew of other little details, but now we are ready for our upcoming and amazing adventure!

Thanks Travel Med!

Great things about Sacramento

One of the great things that I love about living in Sacramento is all the things to do outside of Sacramento. Don’t get me wrong, we have lots of great restaurants, the American River to raft down or take the bike trail along for so many miles and countless other wonders of this great city.

But it also has easy access to so many other great places. You can take a short 2 hour drive to Lake Tahoe for a great day trip. If you want to go to San Francisco, it’s only 2 hours away. Take a 3.5 hour drive to Yosemite Valley if you want to see one of the most amazing natural wonders of our country and the start of the National Parks system. Drive 3.5 hours to Carmel and Monterey Bay (and while your there, you have to eat at Nico’s in Carmel!) if you want a tranquil getaway to the ocean. Drive 4.5 hours and camp in the Redwood National Forest if you want to see some of worlds tallest trees.

All in all, I’m very happy with living in East Sacramento and being able to get away to so many great places. My wife and I have done each of these this year and are constantly reminded that we have a great life. Returning home to our sun soaked city is never a problem at the end of a little getaway, it’s just another great opportunity to take the raft out or go for a long bike ride or hang with friends on the patio of a wonderful restaurant….

Life is good!