Sally and I were to go to a James Brown concert at the Nugget in Reno tonight, but it was doomed to failure.
I took the day off work. I’d intended ot work in the morning, and then leave early to head off to the show, but my car was sporting a spare tire, and I didn’t want to drive 250 miles on a spare at 60-70MPH. So I went to Lou’s Tire on 3rd St to have the tire changed.
All was fine, though it was raining. I was the only customer, so I got the tire changed in short order, and we were on the road at 3:00…
Then we hit bridge traffic…
Sure I knew the traffic was bad heading east from San Francisco on a Friday. Sure I knew that ruch-hour would start early. Sure, I knew that the rain would only slow things down further.
I just didn’t know that it would take an hour to get from I-101 at Army to Berkeley.
The traffic averaged about 40MPH from there to Sacramento, and by the time we got there, it was already 8:00. (The concert was scheduled to start at 8:00.) And the weather was only getting worse.
As we headed towards the pass (at about 8:45), we saw signs saying that there was chain control in the pass, and to tune to 1540AM for more info. The radio told us that all tractor-trailers were being stopped, and that even 4WD vehicles needed chains. It’s 55 miles through the pass, and at a maximum of 30MPH, we realized that the show would be over before we got there, so we turned back.
I got a call from Sally’s dad at about 11:00. They’d left an hour before us, and had just arrived in Reno. He told me that it was 20MPH going all the way through the pass, and that there were trucks on the side of the road that had slid off.
I think we made the right decision, but I regret not seeing the show.
Maybe next time. He’s doing a show in Mendocino county too. We’ll try to catch that one.
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