…it’s winter,

though the downtown cafes ‘n’ such [not shown] did well with their mandated Outdoor Dining

considering it was such a chill and misty V-day weekend.  We certainly did, taking away Gaby’s

Valentine’s Day spaghetti seafood special in brandy cream sauce with lobster…and a pizza*.

The damp persisted unto Monday so we delayed our trip over the hill, catching up on groceries

and packing as the weather blew through and

hoping for a Better Tuesday.  Which it was,

albeit exhausting on the road[s]…80 across the valley and

over the hill with the rest stop at the top closed due to some sort of Police Action

[ambulance, lots of flashing lights…there’d been an abnormal number of cops out, generally].

I pulled off at Verdi, first glimpse of Nevada an abandoned mattress then

gas in Wadsworth, north on 447

beyond the Scenic to pull off at the Limbo turn, whose sign is so often stolen they no longer

bother…lunch in the wind in the lee of the truck.

Gerlach and

finally [a quick trip, relatively] at mile marker 84 the Sand Pass Road eight miles to Wall Spring.

Biting winter winds, winter sunset…

home again.

*and found out, inside, that his boarded-up windows weren’t to protect the historic stained glass after all; someone had already thrown something through two of them and they’d been removed. As it wasn’t the one with the confederate flag the motives remain obscure, although Gaby now flies Old Glory prominently outside the front door just in case.