Trips… past and future

Last weekend I went to Carson City. It was the annual “V&T Symposium” held by the Nevada State Railroad Museum… two days of presentations on Nevada Railroad History, a reception, a banquet, and a shop talk on Sunday…

I drove over after work on Thursday… left at 5:00, I-580 to I-5 north to Stockton, then Hwy 4 across Stockton to Hwy 99 north… then either Waterloo Rd (Hwy 88) or Hwy 12 east until they meet in Lockford… Outside of Clements they split… I followed Hwy 88 across the Molkoleme River then up the Martell divide between Sutter Creek and Jackson… I headed down Hwy 49 to Jackson, past the Empire and Argonought mines, making Jackson about 7:00 as the light was failing.

At Jackson I head east on Hwy 88, past the Indian casino, past the towns of Pioneer, into the high country, beyond Hamm’s Station.

Traffic was light… the sky was clear… the stars were present. The blue tipped snow plow guides had been put out… a sign of the changing seasons… There was snow along the side of the road above 7,500 feet or so.

My biggest fear was hitting a deer in the darkness. Despite the fear the trip was without incident…

Into Carson about 9:00… a friend was checking in as I did… we went to dinner down the street…

We had two days of papers, subjects ranging from the Lighting Express to the location of a 1873 railroad, to the 1939 City of San Francisco accident…

The highpoint of the weekend was the shop talk, by restoration manager Chris DeWitt, in the shop with the McKeen car… this 1910 self propelled gasoline rail car had been reduced to a café-dinner in 1946… followed by use as a disco, then a plumbing shop…

With the end of the plumbing business, Al, the owner chose to save the McKeen (and a second Berkeley built Hall Scott car, also part of the building) to the museum with some support to have it restored as a railroad car.

The car its self is Jules Verne’s dream, sharp pointed front, rounded rear, port hole windows… rivets, lots of rivets… and thanks to lots of work it lives… They tested it on Thursday… we were allowed to inspect it Sunday, but it didn’t run…

The run home was fast… and beautiful… the trees were turning in the Carson River canyon… Maples, Aspen and willow in bright yellow… Higher up the Aspen were past their peak… on the west side the trees hadn’t peaked yet…

I could have stopped and taken pictures… but I didn’t… I am torn… taking pictures says “I was here…” but would my photos be better than a post card… I wasn’t sure… and didn’t see “THE picture…” Sometimes you need to be satisfied with just having seen… without the proof of the 5”x7” photo…

So today, I went to the Brazilian consulate in San Francisco… Tina and I need visas for a trip in January… There is something exotic in having to go to the Brazilian consulate to apply for a visa… The experience wasn’t exactly exotic however…

I arrived at 8:30, they open at 9:00…. There were 18 people in line in front of me… complaining about wrong forms and previous visits… I waited… the doors to the consulate opened early… We took numbers and sat in hard plastic chairs.

I sat, I watched others sit at the 4 windows… they had different lines for Brazilians, for non Brazilians, and for commercial visa contractors… The staff tried to take all groups in fair proportion… The room looks like a cross between a DMV office and high school counselors office… The only thing missing was the elevator music from Blues Brothers…

They called my number about 10:50, and I finished about 11:20, receipt in hand… The staff was polite… no one yelled or threatened or screamed…

Finished, off to the garage to fetch the car… pay for 4 hours (anything over 3 hours is 4 hours) and head south and east towards work… Traffic is so bad that I head south on US 101 towards the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges… I took the Dumbarton.

At work I spent the day filling oil lamps for the night tours starting tomorrow… I spent four hours filling lamps, changing wicks… getting ready… then home to get the cookie dough ready… It will be a long day tomorrow.

Randy