Change of Venu

In Short:

The Carmelite House of Prayer was damaged in the Napa Earthquake, August 24th, 2014. Apparently, quite badly.  The monks are moved back in, but retreats continue to be suspended for the indefinite future.

This is our usual meeting room for discussion.

So, we are, again, hoping that next year, the clericus can be back at the Carmelite's House of Prayer. We punted last year, and ended up at the monastery of St. John of San Francisco, in Manton, California.  Father Innocent and the other monks were very gracious in their hospitality, but they had to give up their dining hall to make space for a chapel for us, and in the end, I decided it would be much easier in a number of ways to hold the clericus at St. Andrew's, in Lake Almanor, which is also, actually, a bit nearer a major airport.

Please keep in mind that Lake Almanor is most definitely not Napa, nor Sonoma.  Lake Almanor, however, has a charm all its own, and a Church to use and a very nice house to use just down the street from the Church (and a pub just down the street as well!)  The area sits at the middle point of the Pacific Crest Trail, and where the Cascade and the Sierra Nevada mountain ranges butt into one anther.

We switched to beer last year, and toured Sierra Nevada Brewery.  We will continue that theme this year and tour the Great Basin Brewery in Reno (which is the city to fly into!). They have fantastic beer, and the owner is a friend of St. Andrew's Academy.

The house we'll be using is beautiful and comfortable. We'll plan on using the house for our meetings.

The area is wooded and mountainous and will be cooler than Napa.  Average highs are right at 50 and the average lows are right at freezing—and the spikes can take things higher and lower. Please note this in terms of what to bring. A warm hat and jacket are a must, and I find a scarf to be an amazingly helpful little addition.