Phillip, a very apt post for all of us to think about tomorrow.
Tom, are you nuts? Of course you shouldn't be walking in a parade with a cold. Forget all the grief of cooking too. Most restaurants have decent Thanksgiving Day spreads so take out the family and give all of you a rest. I hope you feel better with some rest. You need a lot more than you are getting.
Steve, I hate those damp, foggy mornings too. The worst part is it doesn't seem to affect how people drive or watch out for where they are going so the inevitable accidents always occur. That sounds like a neat idea for your friends funeral. I'm sure he'll appreciate his last ride with all of you there. I have been to more police funerals than I ever wanted to and we do the same kind of thing. Agencies show up from hundreds of miles away and it's not unusual for several hundred police cars to be part of the funeral procession.
David, if you look to the right coming down the grade into Reno, you'll see many miles of wood flumes, some of which follow the tracks and some which are closer to the highway. They supplied water for domestic use in Reno at one time but most are only used for local irrigation purposes and are not in very good shape. In the winter, it's easier to spot them since they leak and huge icicles form beneath the leaks. I've spent a fair amount of time in the Boomtown area chasing trains and still don't recall a station or water tank. There are a number of farms houses with wood shingle roofs and some water storage tanks for the farms so that may be what you were seeing. I really miss that area sometimes but the blizzards over the Pass can be a real problem. There have been several instances of passenger trains being stranded in the Pass by snow, the most famous being the SP City of San Francisco for six days in January, 1952. I imagine your truck driver friend weathered the storm at Nyack Lodge, a common place for everyone to take shelter when they can't move anywhere else on the Pass.
It's a cloudy and cool day here in the Southland although I'm sure still mild, at 58 degrees, compared to a lot of parts of the country. This is the first Thanksgiving I can remember in years where some weather event didn't snarl travel across the country. There are no major storm systems anywhere in the US, very unusual for late November. A Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends here.
So everyone. I'm thankful for having good friend's like you!
