Highway History

Holy Jeez! I'm enjoying the Giants' game Saturday evening and keeping an eye on the Twitter Machine for Giants trade rumors and facts...it seems there's a few fires going off around Reno this afternoon...monsoonal flow and dry fuels...lightning...

Damn, an evacuation order is in place for the Bain Street Fire near Virginia City, and NDOT has closed the Geiger Grade NV341...the Red Rock Road fire north of Stead Field (home to the Reno National Championship Air Races) is at 1000 acres now, too.

I can't find any recent update for the fire on Peavine Mountain, west of Reno and home to the Air Races' "Slot" where the Unlimited Racers line up and take the traditional command...."Gentlemen, you have a race" from the Pace Plane Pilot.

I saw the Peavine Fire tweet a couple of days ago...there's been a week or so of lightning caused fires around the Truckee Meadows as the valley around Reno has been called since the westward migration of the 1840's.

A look at Reno's AFD shows the NWS forecasters aware of the fire danger, but predicting mostly wet thunderstorms hence no Red Flag Warnings.

As I watched the Giants game, there were no new fires after dinnertime. Sister K was visiting the Ancestral Digs for the weekend, so I made a special effort for supper. Eggplant Parmigiano with fresh baked sourdough bread and a simple salad of baby green and herbs with vine-ripe tomatoes and sliced almonds.

After dinner everyone napped a bit then watched some TV. The local PBS station ran "A Ride on the Lincoln Highway"!

I'd never seen the show which tells the road's history and shows some of the 3000 miles of America's first coast to coast highway. Part of the Lincoln highway runs right through Truckee and up and over Donner Summit (Old Highway 40) Over the years, I've lived in three different places on the Lincoln Highway. Until I watched the show, I didn't know that the Lincoln Highway splits in Reno and crosses the High Sierra over both Donner Summit and HWY 50's Echo Summit.

The show didn't cover the Sierra Nevada portion of the route, but it did profile the author Michael Wallis and photographer Michael S. Williamson who wrote a new book: "The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate".

Onto my Amazon wishlist it went. I drove the Donner Summit portion last Saturday...it was much more pleasant than the highly kinetic, stressed out Interstate 80 was!

I'm thinking I should explore some of the rest of the Lincoln Highway next year when I head east to Texas for the United States Grand Prix in Austin! Gentleman...start...your...dreaming!