Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Although we didn't get any rain or snow here in Fernley, it wasn't far away.

( More Spring Snow )

I-80 over Donner Summit was closed most of last night. Snow reached the western edge of Reno. Here in Fernley, all we got was wind and a lot of it. It was pretty cold wind as well. Temperatures got to near freezing, and between the wind and cold, neither Lisa nor I felt like tackling more of the yard work.

The wind did slacken off just enough this morning that I could run over to get some milk and other perishables without feeling like the Rolling Stone was going to be blown off the road. Also, for a short time this afternoon, Lisa and I could sit on the (slightly sheltered) front porch watching birds making their way back to the feeder. However, it was not long before the cold drove us back indoors. If it stays this cold any longer, I'm going to have the restart the fireplace again.

A new storm blew into Northern Nevada today. I saw how the storm moved over Northern California (closing I-5 and causing new chain controls and traffic holds on I-80). The leading edge of the storm, with pretty substantial winds, showed up around 1 PM. The National Weather Service has a wind advisory in place, and winds appear to be gusting up to 50 km/h — technically a "strong breeze" verging onto a "near gale." Our plans to get some work done outside were once again postponed.

( Sand Storm Warning )

We get winds like this periodically, but they're not pleasant. Fortunately, we don't have any high trees with big branches. We have neighbors who have trees that if they were on our property, I would have long since had the branches lopped off.

I had an errand that needs doing soon, but after finishing up with Day Jobbe, I went outside to prepare things for that errand and found myself beset by high winds that mixed the smoke that's been blown in from the wildfires with the find dust on which Fernley sits. Even with a cloth face mask wet down to try and make the smoke more bearable, and even with the lower ambient temperatures, I decided that as the errand hasn't yet reached the critical level yet — although it probably will be relatively soon — that staying inside out of the wind and smoke and dust is possibly the best course of action for today.

There's a chance of rain, which would be good for washing the smoke and dust out of the air, but not good if it comes with lightning.

It's even windier today than it was yesterday. There's a High Wind Advisory forecasting gale-force wind gusts. The east side of our house is somewhat sheltered, but from there you can see dust storms kicking up and tumbleweeds (and some larger things) blowing around in the high winds. Good thing we scrapped our plan of driving over to Big R for a load of firewood this afternoon. Even at low speeds, being blown all over the road is no fun, and trying to unload a ton of fire logs with this wind would be unpleasant without full-eye-covering goggles. It is of course much worse at the higher elevations, where I-80 has been closed again today for periods due to white-out conditions.

Yes, I did hear about the Amtrak train (#11, the southbound Coast Starlight — not "Coastal" Starlight the way one person was calling it) getting stuck at Oakridge, Oregon, south of Eugene, after the train struck a large tree, damaging the locomotive. Although it was not great to be stranded there that long, I think Amtrak's decisions were right. I say this as someone who has been through there multiple times both on the train and driving. Power was out at Oakridge (which isn't a particularly large place anyway, and didn't have enough hotel rooms to house everyone even if they'd evacuated the train), the only highway in and out of the area (OR-58) was also blocked due to snow and fallen trees, and as as long as the train had power for heat (which it did), it was the safest place to be. It took a while (more than a day) for Union Pacific to clear the line and bring up a rescue locomotive to drag the train back to Eugene to let Amtrak try to sort things out. And, unlike the time the City of San Francisco got stuck at Yuba Gap on the Sierra route, nobody got killed trying to rescue the train and its passengers.