On the Road

The past two days have begun with rain.

I'm glad that the car is set up to sleep in.  It makes it so easy to pull over to a quiet place and get a good night's sleep.

I didn't make it to Reno the first night. Just too tired, and there was a threat of severe weather -- heavy rain, hail and thunderstorms in the mountains. Just didn't seem worth it to do that white-knuckle driving when I really wasn't in any hurry, so pulled off the freeway and spent the night in a rural neighborhood in Auburn. Went for a bit of a stroll in the morning after the rain stopped. There is always something to see: a cat slinking through the wet grass, trailers and RVs in almost every driveway, the school bus on its rounds, birds flitting through the brush. The rumble of traffic on the freeway is in the distance.

You see and hear things that are familiar and things that are not.

New neighborhood in Sparks

Sparks

I'd wanted to stop by to see my sister in Sparks, but she wasn't up to having visitors, so I just explored her neighborhood a bit.

The houses are all brand new, with broad streets and sidewalks. It's a cookie-cutter neighborhood, solidly packed with houses and small yards and an abysmal walk score since amenities (Safeway, CVS, restaurants) are a good mile or more down a considerable hill. There are bike lanes on the main streets, though, and I was excited to find that this development bordered on open space with walking paths and a children's mini-park.

This tee marker is getting buried

The walkways looked inviting, so I set off on a hike. Turns out the open space was a defunct golf course! The walking paths were the paths for the golf carts. (This was the first time that I've actually been on a golf course, but I'm not sure it counts!). The desert is working on swallowing up any relics of civilization, though: the manicured greenways are long gone, replaced by more hardy plants; the rock tee markers are overrun, and even the engravings will erode with time; the pathways are getting covered with mud and debris from the rainstorms that move surprising amounts of material downhill. My boots were covered in mud by the end of the hike.

Open space under power lines 

It was wonderful to get out and smell the clean scent of sagebrush. Puffy clouds scudded overhead, and birds twittered in the brush.  It was remarkably green and pleasant for the desert. Views of Mt. Rose and the snow-covered Sierra offered a beautiful backdrop. I saw jack rabbits, quail, doves, sparrows, a mockingbird, swallows, and a goldfinch, so there is a thriving ecosystem. Turns out it is protected as an open space because there are power lines through it. It's a small benefit to the local animals, when so much of their territory is being invaded by encroaching "civilization."

Fighting technology

I'll get it figured out, but there is a bit of a learning curve. Trying to write the blog on the phone was hopeless. Doing it on the iPad is slightly better, but using the keyboard is painful, and I haven't yet figured out the best way to move photos from phone and camera to iPad. Plus the place to enter text doesn't scroll down, and formatting with fat fingers just plain sucks. Burning through a lot of time and battery power to post this, but it will get better, I'm sure!
Have resorted to parking outside McDonalds, using free wifi, and using the trusty Netbook to get this posted.

Couple of days late; been through Elko, and am writing this from Twin Falls, ID.