Trip to Carson City

 We drove up to Carson City to attend my wife's mother's Celebration of Life and take care of some loose ends.  About halfway there, traffic came to a stop for a few minutes due to construction.  So I pulled out my cell phone and took this photo.  Do you know where we are?

 Lone Pine!  Somewhere in that prior photo is Mount Whitney, though I'm not familiar enough with that mountain to know exactly where.

 When we arrived at Carson City that evening and stepped out of the car,  this very unique cloud form greeted us.  It was really gorgeous.  So I captured it with my camera.

 The next day, we picked up the ashes at this nice little place in Reno.  It was in a very old, but well maintained, house.

 We saw this license plate in Reno.  Can you see what state it is from?

 Returning to Carson City to take care of other business, our journey led us to park on a street directly across from another cremation service!  Peculiar, as I don't recall ever seeing another one in the wild.  Ever.

I think I can even see remnants of snow on the mountain behind it.  And this was taken in June!

 After the stress from our activities, we treated ourselves to dinner on Lake Tahoe.

 We made the journey in this XTS which we found very comfortable and powerful.

 I was surprised by how much I liked it!

A neat feature: the door handles light up in the evening.

Cheers!

Carson City Railroad Museum

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted - been working a lot lately.

While we were in Carson City this summer, we visited the railroad museum there.  I'm not much of a train fan, but I had a really good time there...I'm very glad we went!

Here is one of the locomotives on display near the entrance.  This train used to traverse Nevada and Northern California during the late 1800s.

 The floor was a map of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad and the years it was extended to those places.  It was quite fun to read.

 A look down the aisle.

 The locomotive in the background was a highly optioned model.  Due to the gold rush, this rail line had enough money to get everything brass finished.  It must have been quite the site as it went down the tracks.

 And of course, where the east and west segments of the railroad met.  The location is shown on the floor and a photo of that moment is displayed on the wall.

 One old rail car had a very interesting past.  I'll let you read about it on the card.

 Twentieth Century-Fox bought it to use in western movies, and it was idled in between films.  Eventually westerns went out of style and the car was sold to the museum.

 Here is what the end of the car looks like today.

 Here is the side.  I didn't catch a photo of it, but a little farther down on the right are woodpecker holes from its idle time when the movie studio owned it.

The wood is in such poor shape that braces are installed in the interior, and some reconstruction has been considered.  It will be a difficult choice, keep it original but dilapidated, or restore it?

 For this box car, they chose the restoration path.

 Looking at it from a little farther back.

 Here is why they chose restoration.  There wasn't much left of it anyway.

 A close-up of how it was found.  Restoration was the only way to go.

 I didn't get a photo of the caboose, but here is the placard that went with it.

 My wife listening to the tour guide explain how a steam locomotive works.

 The original Virginia and Truckee Railroad repair shop was in Carson City.  Here are the rules in the shop from 1874,

 And here is the repair shop itself.  Listening to our relatives Neal and Debbie who are from the Carson City area, this building was torn down just a few short years ago.  What a shame.

 Some gentleman has made models of all of the locomotives that were part of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad.  Here are a few examples.

 This passenger car was very interesting.

On top of that,  the tour guide then walked us back to their restoration shop where we found...

 This!  The very car we saw in model form.  It was awesome to stand it!  Those windows feel so Jules Verne.

 We listened to the tour guide while seated in the passenger car.

Very unique exterior also, but I just loved the interior.