What a Difference a Day Makes

[kevin_standlee]

I did not rush this morning, and left the hotel around 10 AM or so. I have had some worry that the rear fuel tank on the Rolling Stone is leaking (again), based on how fast the gauge seems to be going down, but I can't smell fuel the way I could the last time this happened, nor were there any drip marks; however, I was keeping a close eye on it and I topped the tank off at Rocklin just in case.

Yesterday was a nice if somewhat hectic afternoon spent with my sister. I hope to do that again sometime when I don't have to rush off to a meeting.

I posted this photo yesterday of the heavy, thick smoke filling the valley of Donner Lake near Truckee. Things were different today.



After cresting Donner Summit, I stopped at the eastbound vista point. (The photo from yesterday was from the westbound vista point, which is higher up the mountain and thus not exactly the same angle as this one.) What a difference a day of shifting wind patterns made to the smoke. There's still smoke drifting all over the west, but today it was less suffocating along my route.

As I was checking out of my room this morning, I noticed the sign near the elevator on my floor talking about their quiet zone.



Zoom in on the second bullet point to see what caught my attention. Circus animals? Either the copywriter was having fun, or else something rather strange once happened. All of the other groups I think I've had on my floor before.

Because I wasn't certain about how long my rear fuel tank would hold out, I stopped in west Reno to fill the forward tank. With gas almost fifty cents a gallon cheaper in Fernley than in Reno, this was a roughly $7.50 extra charge for peace of mind driving home, because I really didn't want to run out of gas just before I got home. As it happens, I really did get back to Fernley with five gallons to spare in the rear tank, which is about the usual 9 mpg. Better safe than sorry, though.

Comments

[garyomaha]

As a former copywriter myself, I think that quiet zone poster was definitely written with some tongue-in-cheekedness. My kind of writing. My only quarrel is door-slamming, which in my experience is more often caused by the mechanics of the doors rather than visitors purposely slamming doors. We might be able to stop it after the first instance, but most of us don't think about doing so when first arriving.

[totient]

You can still have circus animals, but only on weekends.