Jimmy Byrd and students
This was not to be a fund raiserride, but two things changed that. First, due to drought, we must build a water tower for the school and second, the Richard Mascarello family has offered to match any donations up to the total number miles ridden. So keep the water flowing for the kids and hit the donate button.

Also, instructor Kevin Lee is a auctioning off a 2 week paragliding course in southern Oregon to support the school.

See it here.


TO READ THE FLORIDA TO CALIFORNIA LEG CLICK here or go to lostboater.blogspot.com

Monday, July 26, 2010

day 4

Since I only had 44 miles to go to Reno today a got started a little late for me around 9 am. I decided to wander the way I really like to and find interesting people.  I turned 44 miles into 104 wonderful miles.

The temperature stayed in the 70's most of the day and the sky's blue. At Trukee, I weighed getting on the interstate or via the two lane roads via Lake Tahoe. Interstates, even if your much slower than the traffic, can be a lot safer than crowded two lanes, I chose the two lane route and made it safely.




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In Loyalton I met Richard and his son Larry.  They were splitting wood for himself, his mother, and another son.  That is a big pile of wood.  Having the logs delivered is cheaper he said than going into the woods to find wood to bring home. He figures he has 4 months to split all this wood.  That is a big job.

I really like signs like this......

.....next to signs like this.
I did found some wild flowers and interesting pictures.
On down the road I went in to visit with theTrukee hotshot crew.  Their area had a few small fires last night started by lighting.  That was good for them as they really make their money when they go fight the fires.  Setting around on standby does not pay all that well.
"Grizzly" ( I have no idea why they call him that) has been fighting fires since 1988 and not one of those was in his beard.
Danny and Jeff were wet with sweat and working on sharpening saws and refuelling after last night.

My neighbor had wanted me to do the Donner pass on the last trip.  Well, Vicki, here it is and I lived to tell about it.
Going up and over the two passes before and after Lake Tahoe, Big Red did well. One area of the climb was steep and we were back to about 45 mph, but I imagine with Scoot it would have been about 20 mph.
The view of Tahoe was  great.  After the Mount Rose summit it was a pretty steep decent with 20 mph bends in the road.  Most people were in a bigger hurry than that and I got out of their way. That is, until we came around a turn and the traffic was stopped because a 18 wheeler had turned over in one of those 20 mph turns. He just missed going over the side.  After that, everyone slowed down
So far I have been good at keeping my speed down, usually below the speed limit if traffic permitted, so as to continue the Scoot mentality of slower is better.  I have to admit that I did cheat just once.
I rolled into Reno about 12:30 and stopped at Joe's Diner.  Oddly, it closes at 1 pm, but they let me stay as long as I wished.  Lauri, the cook,  tried to take a picture but his hands shook so much he could not do it, so Danielle called Taylor the bus boy to do the job.  They were all a lot of fun, but Danielle was just a "cheerleader for life" as the others say.

a little shaky
I skipped the casinos and chose the Quality Inn.  Only fair quality but they let you park your bike on the patio for security reasons.