Imaginary Conversations and Random Thoughts

Well everything seems to have found it's place, and we're ready to begin. There are too many pics each day, so the days have been divided into more manageable segments. Today's segment sets up the trip and gets us near to Reno, Nevada.

We called it the Magical Mystery Tour because Miss Tori and I frequently have problems deciding what exactly we want to do. Sure, we want to go on a trip for a few days, but where? Where, where, where?

Since I enjoy doing puzzles and categorizing things, I put my little mind to work making a system. The end result was the Oracular Tour Generator:


This simple deck of cards would tell us where to go, or where not to go. Say we're on a highway, and we come up to an exit to another highway. We pull a card to see if we stay on the original highway, or take the new highway. If we do take the new highway, which direction would we go?


Our first decision was which of two local highways we would start out on. This first draw needed its own special rule modification:


Five of diamonds. Highway 99 north it is!


Can you see how tedious it would be to keep showing you every card? Yeah. Suffice to say, we continued north on 99, above Sacramento to around Yuba City/Marysville. We had a lot of in car pics on this trip. Those little knobby things you see may very well be the Sutter Buttes:


We left 99 to travel east on Highway 20. Some random wilderness:


Here's the Seven Mile House. Why seven miles? I have no idea. Put me some knowledge in the comments.


Here we have the Yuba River:


Here we are looking left:


and a little more central:


and a little to the right at Emigrant Trail:


Yeah, I can't see it either. What I can see is that Joe loves Melissa 4 life, and that they were there just a couple of weeks before us:


I wish I knew more about Emigrant Trail. What a coincidence! Mr. and Mrs. Fluke sponsored a plaque that tells all about it:


At this point, we're still going east on Highway 20, and we were getting close to Interstate 80. The Oracular Tour Generator said we should take I-80, and go west. If you're familiar with this area, you'll recognize that the great and powerful Oracular Tour Generator is just about to drive us in a big fat circle. West on I-80 takes us right back to Sacramento. Well, pardon my French, but screw that noise. I had to make a command decision. Just a few hours into our four day trip, we jettisoned the tour guide. We're going east! We're such rebels! We're practically anarchists! Kinda like the jerks who stole this plaque:


that probably described this here lake. Looking at the map and searching my fuzzy memory, it's possible this is Donner lake. The plaque probably told how the Donners used water from the lake to boil their frozen compatriots before eating them:


We'll end this post with a couple of shots, possibly just before we got to Reno:


and possibly just after we left Reno, heading north on Highway 395:


We had no time to stop in the biggest little city in the world. Besides, we saw it last summer, when we got married there. Our anniversary was just two days before this picture was taken. Happy anniversary sweetie!