On tonight's episode of "Undercover Boss" on
CBS, president and CEO Andy Wirth gets a makeover and goes undercover to
Lake Tahoe, Calif. The Squaw Valley mountain is famous for hosting the
1960 Winter Olympics and the epicenter of big mountain skiing. Alpine
Meadows offers a family-friendly atmosphere with excellent snow sports
for the entire family. The founder of the empire was Conrad Wirth,
Andy's grandfather, who was the Director of the National Parks Services
for eleven years. When Andy took over, he purchased Alpine Meadows to
give the two resorts a more family-friendly atmosphere, where Squaw
Valley mainly catered to the expert skiers.
The world has changed a lot. Most people
don't know the names of all the cars on the market. Two cars in a family
is common. People are busy and don't want to take the time to shop for
that perfect car. Families with kids want SUV's. Everyone wants energy
efficiency. Instead of asking how much horse power, people are asking
how many miles per gallon.
To give
you an idea of the depth of the collection, on display is a 1926
Rolls-Royce. Wilbert Grinsven, the curator tells me that there were only
two years that Rolls-Royce manufactured cars in the United States. Those
years were 1926 and 1927. This car is one of the few Rolls Royce's made
here during that time. The auto manufacturer decided that it was not
economically feasible to continue manufacturing autos in the US and
closed its factory here in the states after only 2 years. Another
example of a beautiful old car is a car used in the movie "Driving Miss
Daisy".
you
could try here
Skip: "Not sure, --maybe a skunk, dead frogs, the water
smells sometimes; maybe shit, who knows up here, could be a combination
... let's shut our windows." As another mile goes by it
starts to get a little foggy looking out the window, shadows seem to be
everywhere. Skip sees the thickness of the woods next to
him, as the head lights reflect the fog-lit moon shadows. In front of
him there are hundreds of frogs crossing the road, driftwood had reached
all the with way from the lake up to the road, --it is strange they both
think , and so
they now are thinking more with their body expressions, their face,
eyebrows, the way they look at each other; --they turn their head sharp
as if they sense Lake Superior is right next to them because of the
sounds of the waves are becoming louder again, but they know it is a few
hundred yards to the side of them, yet all this driftwood laying about,
they seem to be fixed on for the moment, as if they were on a levy.
I had just started on another beer when someone dropped a few
coins in the juke box. The music was bad country. To my utter disgust
the first song that played was that "I want to stick a boot up your
butt" super-patriotic, ultra-jingoist thing by the guy in the
buy quadrasteer truck commercials. The people around me began to sing
along loudly. I'd never been in a fraternity in
college and only had one brother, so I never had to prove much in my
lifetime. No initiation rights, crazy acts of bravado. Not even tested
in war or proven to be a man. Sure, I've had some success in business,
but sitting in that truck with a man like Harvey just brought all those
male hormones to the front burner. Hot or mild. Just what kind of chile
man was I to become? I know that $20,900 is a goodly sum of money, but in 13 years we
more than doubled our money. And that is looking at just the financial
aspect of it. The many wonderful hours we had working on something
together that we both love, you can't even put a price tag on
that. However, if you would like to get more out of the auto
museum, you may also want to purchase the Auburn Inn overnight package
which is for $129.99 but this would be good for two people already.