The Wings of Freedom Tour of the WWII Vintage Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Consolidated B-24 Liberator and North American P-51 will be at the Minden-Tahoe Airport from June 2-4.

The B-17 is one of eight in flying condition in the United States, the B-24J and Full Dual Control P-51C Mustang are the sole remaining examples of their type flying in the world.

People may explore the aircraft inside and out. The cost is $12 for adults and $6 for children under 12. WWII vets are free.

A 30-minute flight is $450 per person. For reservations and information, call 800.568.8924.

Tours been at noon June 2 and go to 5pm, 9am-5pm June 3 and 9am-noon June 4.

By Sam McManis, Sacramento Bee

A ceramist by profession, and by passion, Eric Peach often leaves his home studio in Auburn, to venture down into the American River Canyon, looking for inspiration in the rushing white water, the winding trails, the abundant wildlife and bountiful flora of a thriving ecosystem.

You can see the result in his works, ranging from playful river otters to fish sculptures to those psychedelically hued fire belly newts.

But you can also see Peach’s love for California’s American River and its foothills in bookstores and at outdoor retailers. The third edition of “The American River: Insider’s Guide to Recreation, Ecology and Cultural History of the North, Middle and South Forks” ($24.95, Protect American River Canyons, 416 pages) recently was released, all proceeds going to the nonprofit Protect American River Canyons, the organization that sponsors the American River Confluence Festival and other fundraising events.

Peach, 64, and wife Paula enlisted no fewer than 44 writers and editors, and 30 photo and graphics contributors, to completely revamp the second edition, published a decade ago. This time around, 15 trails were added, as were scores of new and updated rafting routes, including a new stretch from the confluence down to Rattlesnake Bar. There’s also a complete digest of plants and trees, birds, reptiles and mammals, as well as an exhaustive history of the area, from the Indian settlements up to the now-revived attempts to dam the river.

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Shanen and Dale Ruppel have opened Alpine Sierra Tours & Shuttle Service to provide locals and tourists an alternative to driving themselves to various places in the Lake Tahoe region and beyond.

The charter service is provided 24/7, while tours usually start at 8am. Vehicles include a Honda Pilot EXLthat seats seven, Lincoln Navigator Ultimate seating six, and an ADA compliant shuttle bus for 13.

Trips include the entire basin, going to Sacramento and Reno – including the airports, Carson City and the Bay Area. (The company is licensed in California and Nevada.) Service is also available for groups, such as wedding parties.

“If you need to get somewhere, we will take you. We can be your designated driver and your private driver. We also provide concierge services,” Shanen Ruppel told Lake Tahoe News. “We can pick up mail, beer, whatever you need, referrals to restaurants and entertainment. We provide car seats for kids, phone chargers, and iPod connectors.”

Pricing depends on the number of hours, number of people and extent of the service.

For more info, call 530.544.4646, email alpinesierratours@gmail.com or go online.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Peter Hazel’s fish will be on display in the Napa Valley. Photo/Provided

Peter Hazel is a popular North Shore artist with a colorful mosaic sculpture of a brook trout outside Lanza’s restaurant in King’s Beach, as well as other sculptures in California and Colorado.

On April 9 two new sculptures had a send-off party as they head to Yountville to be displayed as part of that town’s Art Walk. The two sculptures are large – one a 5-foot Sockeye salmon atop a big boulder, the other a giant basket of heirloom tomatoes. Both of these ceramic sculptures have been entirely handmade by Hazel and his team in his studio in Verdi.

They are also working on a 15-foot high daffodil and a series of fish sculptures featuring locally-found sports fish.

By Kathryn Reed

All it took was looking at the tank size and the handle for the water wise evaluator to know the toilet was installed before 1992. In the world of toilets, that’s pretty darn old. Even worse, it’s a water hog.

Toilets already use the most amount of water of any household appliance – 26 percent. And an old one, well, it’s practically off the charts.

That was one of the many lessons I learned when Donielle Morse came to my house this month to perform a water wise evaluation. South Tahoe Public Utility District offers this service for free so people can learn ways to conserve water, identify leaks, and figure out if apparatuses are efficient.

“Not efficient” was the finding for one of the two toilets. STPUD has a rebate offer now of up to $100 if pre-1992 toilets are replaced with a high efficiency toilet that flushes 1.28 gallons. Ours is flushing at least 2 gallons each time.

Donielle Morse tests the flow of water at the kitchen sink. Photo/Kathryn Reed

Then Morse gave me a bit of a lecture about what to be flushing. There was a huge spider in the bathtub when she went to check things there. I killed it with a tissue. It went in the garbage – because she said so – instead of down the drain.

“Only toilet paper breaks down,” Morse, who is a water conservation specialist, told me. “Even tissues don’t break down as well as toilet paper. If you were going to flush the spider, you would have wasted 1.6 gallons.”

And she also said the flushable wipes that are sold in stores are flushable in the sense they go down the drain. The problem is they don’t decompose. So in the water-sewer world they really aren’t flushable.

Before Morse makes a house call she does a little research to see if people are on meters. (Not yet for us.) She looks at water consumption. She checks the age of a house because those built before 1992 are likely to have water-guzzling units. That is the year plumbing codes changed for low flow devices.

A low flow toilet, like in the guest bath, is a 1.6-gallon toilet.

Then Morse asks a series of questions to help her evaluate how our use might be changed to save some water. (I think I would use paper plates before I sacrifice long, hot showers.)

Questions include length of showers, how many a week, how many people in a household and things about irrigation.

Every place there is a faucet she looks for leaks. She even does this with the toilets by dropping a dye tablet into the tank.

Morse has a goodie bag of sorts with her. She leaves me with two aerators for the bathroom faucets. These were easy to screw in. They reduce the amount of water coming out so less is wasted.

Showerheads, kitchen sink aerators and toilet flappers can also be distributed for free of charge if she sees the need and people will use them.

The washing machine was replaced a few years ago, so nothing more to be done in that room. The district still offers a rebate on washing machines, which helped us save some money. Washing machines are the second largest water using appliance.

When it comes to washing dishes, Morse says, “Even older dishwashers are more efficient than hand washing.”

All California households are supposed to reduce their water consumption by 20 percent as outlined in Gov. Jerry Brown’s drought declaration earlier this year.

Snow was on the ground so we could not test the sprinklers for efficiency.

STPUD continues to offer its turf buyback program.

Water restrictions will be enforced this year. Even numbered addresses may water on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; odd numbered on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Morse suggests people adjust their sprinklers monthly to compensate for temperature. A yard doesn’t need the same amount of water in June as it does in August.

“We recommend watering in the early morning or evening to prevent evaporation,” Morse said. It’s also less windy at those times.

There are even high-efficiency sprinkler heads.

—-

Notes:

• To schedule a water wise evaluation, contact Donielle Morse at 530.543.6368 or dmorse@stpud.dst.ca.us.

Lake Tahoe Community College Writers’ Series is celebrating National Poetry Month on April 24 at 7pm with poets June Sylvester Saraceno and Laura Wetherington.

These award-winning poets will read from their works, engage the audience with a Q&A, and sign copies of their books. Books will be available for purchase.

The free event will be in the Aspen Room of the South Lake Tahoe college.

North Lake Tahoe is offering Easter fun from the slopes to the shores.

The Underwater Egg Hunt at Incline Village Recreation Center kicks off Easter celebrations on April 12 from noon-1:30pm. The pool at the recreation center will be filled with weighted and floating eggs. The big bunny will make an appearance for pictures. Cost is $2 for members, $4 for others. For more information, call 775.832.1310.

Tahoe City’s Spring Eggstravaganza & Egg hunt is April 19 starting at 10am. Events include an egg hunt for the kids, a golden egg hunt for parents, face painting, games and more. The free event is at Commons Beach in Tahoe City.

The community Egg Hunt at Incline Beach is April 19 at 11am. The hunt is open to children up to 11.

On Easter Sunday, the Hyatt Regency will have two egg hunts — 11:30am and 1:30pm by the Lone Eagle Grille fire pit.

Gar Woods in Carnelian Bay will have a hunt for a golden egg at 11am with four age categories: 0-3 years, 4-7 years and 8-12 years. Gar Woods will offer a bottle hunt for those 21 and older.

Northstar will celebrate with daylong festivities for all ages, starting with an egg hunt across the village at 10:30am.

Squaw Valley’s annual on-mountain Easter egg hunt begins the moment the lifts open Easter Sunday.

Aerosmith and Train are coming to Lake Tahoe.

The legendary rock band out of Boston will be at Harveys Outdoor Concert Series on Aug. 8 at 7pm. Slash will be opening. Tickets are $89.50-$235.50

Train will be on stage July 25 at 7:30pm. Tickets range from $49.50-$99.50.

Tickets for Aeroosmith go on sale April 11 through Ticketmaster.

By Svati Kirsten Narula, Atlantic

A lot of Internet ink has been spilled over how lazy and entitled Millennials are, but when it comes to paying for a college education, work ethic isn’t the limiting factor. The economic cards are stacked such that today’s average college student, without support from financial aid and family resources, would need to complete 48 hours of minimum-wage work a week to pay for his courses — a feat that would require superhuman endurance, or maybe a time machine.

To take a close look at the tuition history of almost any institution of higher education in America is to confront an unfair reality: Each year’s crop of college seniors paid a little bit more than the class that graduated before. The tuition crunch never fails to provide new fodder for ongoing analysis of the myths and realities of the American Dream.

Last week, a graduate student named Randy Olson listened to his grandfather extol the virtues of putting oneself through college without family support. But paying for college without family support is a totally different proposition these days, Olson thought. It may have been feasible 30 years ago, or even 15 years ago, but it’s much harder now.

He later found some validation for these sentiments on Reddit, where one user had started a thread about the increasing cost per course at Michigan State University. MSU calculates tuition by the “credit hour,” the term for the number of hours spent in a classroom per week. By this metric, which is used at many U.S. colleges and universities, a course that’s worth three credit hours is a course that meets for three hours each week during the semester. If the semester is 15 weeks long, that adds up to 45 total hours of a student’s time.

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Wally

Wally is a big fellow who’s a little shy to begin with. He will need a little time to adjust to a new home, but once he knows all is well, he’s up for head and shoulder rubs and lots of love.

He is curious and playful. He will benefit from exercise and a healthy feeding regimen. He has not been aggressive with other cats at the shelter. Although he was surrendered to the shelter with another cat named Nacho, they can be adopted separately.

Wally is neutered, microchipped, tested for heart worm, and vaccinated.

He is at the El Dorado County Animal Services shelter in Meyers, along with many other dogs and cats who are waiting for their new homes. Go online or the Tahoe animal shelter’s Facebook page to see photos and descriptions of all pets at the shelter.

Call 530.573.7925 for directions, hours, and other information on adopting a pet.

For spay-neuter assistance for South Tahoe residents, go online.

— Karen Kuentz