Weekend Trip to Sacramento
One of the things we bought on our previous trip to Sacramento was wrong and we needed to return it, but checking the weather showed the possibility of snow from Friday evening through Saturday evening, so an two-night stay was in order, with us leaving Friday and returning Sunday to avoid the snowfall. I then discovered that the "Anniversary Free Night" coupon I have annually from IHG, which gives me one free night in any IHG property that costs 40K or fewer IHG points, was going to expire on Monday, so I booked one room with the free-night coupon and reserved another night on an ordinary reservation, for which the prepaid rate was a good deal. We made our plans to leave around mid-day on Friday, as I'd worked extra hours earlier in the week to free up some time that day. Besides our retail errand, we planned to go visit the California State Railroad Museum on Saturday, as we've not been there for years.
Then on Thursday, Lisa twisted her ankle after we'd come home from a walk to the post office. It hurt a lot, but she did say she did not think anything was broken, and she declined my offer to take her to urgent care. She wrapped the ankle, applied ice, kept it elevated, and said we'd decide more about making the trip on Friday. I got the pair of crutches we have in our supplies and left them with her.
Today, she said she felt a little better, but still definitely couldn't put any weight on that ankle. She was just barely willing to make the trip, although admittedly if it hadn't been a mix of prepaid and about-to-expire coupons, she probably would have called for an postponement. I said that she wouldn't be able to visit the CSRM hobbling on crutches, and arranged to rent a wheelchair for a week. That's $75, but I can charge it against my healthcare savings account, which is obviously intended for these sorts of out-of-pocket expenses.
We left home around Noon, stopped in Reno to collect the rental wheelchair, and headed west on I-80. It was a nice day to travel. I think people wanting to go skiing should have been flocking to the slopes.
When we stopped at the Donner Summit rest area, I noticed that behind the tall ice walls surrounding the area, there was a rapid flow of water flowing freely. It was very striking, although this photo doesn't look very good.
We made good time, even with another stop at the Starbucks in Colfax. I'm glad of the delay at Colfax, because without it we wouldn't have been able to snag a shot of a very rare piece of railroad equipment.
In Roseville, the Union Pacific (ex-Southern Pacific) tracks parallel I-80 just before Atlantic Street. We spotted a gleaming pair of Southern Pacific rotary snowplows with two Union Pacific locomotives sandwiched between them. I was able to bail off the freeway and quickly park just off the road and (carefully; there was plenty of traffic) jump out to shoot this footage of the rotaries.
The normal way the rotary snowplows operate is in this paired configuration. This allows them to work bidirectionally, and if they get stuck moving one direction, they can reverse directions and escape.
I don't know if UP had to deploy the rotaries during the storms this year, but they presumably had deployed this set up into the snow country and were now returning them to their base in Roseville. I know from my reading about these pieces of specialized hardware that they don't like having to use them to clear the line over Donner, because once they've done so, they're mostly stuck using them for the rest of the season, and they are very expensive to operate compared to flangers and bulldozers. They are, however, spectacular to watch in operation - from a very respectful distance, ideally from a helicopter.
After our chance encounter with the rotaries, we entered the outskirts of Sacramento, where we headed to Ham Radio Outlet, which was also Lisa's first use of the wheelchair other than when we confirmed if fit her after collecting it in Reno. The antenna Lisa bought from them when we were there a few weeks ago turned out to be Chinese-made (it wasn't properly labeled on the package and she didn't discover this until she opened it when we got home) and she wanted to return it. The HRO folks were very good about doing the return. She chatted with them and one of them pointed out a different antenna that might work. Lisa had a look and agreed, and we ended up buying antennas costing more than the one that we returned.
The Holiday Inn Express on Auburn Blvd. is a place we had stayed several times when I was visiting my late sister at the nursing home. I also later ended up staying in the Crowne Plaza closer to the nursing home, but that Crowne Plaza changed into a Wyndham just after we stayed there on our way to catch the train to DisCon III, and the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn Express told me he had heard it was going to close and be converted into apartments.
When we checked in, we made it clear that although Lisa is in a wheelchair, she did not want a handicapped accessible room, because she wanted a room with a bathtub, not a roll-in shower. My Diamond status didn't get me a room upgrade, but the king room we have is acceptable, and Lisa is able to maneuver around the room in the wheelchair. We have her crutches as well, and she can slowly hobble around after a fashion. After getting moved into the room, we went to a nearby Raley's grocery store and bought food and other supplies for this stay. We didn't mind over-buying non-perishable things because anything we don't use while here we can just take home with us.
Lisa got a nice long hot bath, which she said made her foot feel better. We'll go to the museum tomorrow and spend tomorrow night here in Sacramento. The only complication is that because we're here on a back-to-back reservation, I'll have to check out and then check back in; however, the front desk clerk said that the two reservations are for the same room, so we won't have to move rooms.
Then on Thursday, Lisa twisted her ankle after we'd come home from a walk to the post office. It hurt a lot, but she did say she did not think anything was broken, and she declined my offer to take her to urgent care. She wrapped the ankle, applied ice, kept it elevated, and said we'd decide more about making the trip on Friday. I got the pair of crutches we have in our supplies and left them with her.
Today, she said she felt a little better, but still definitely couldn't put any weight on that ankle. She was just barely willing to make the trip, although admittedly if it hadn't been a mix of prepaid and about-to-expire coupons, she probably would have called for an postponement. I said that she wouldn't be able to visit the CSRM hobbling on crutches, and arranged to rent a wheelchair for a week. That's $75, but I can charge it against my healthcare savings account, which is obviously intended for these sorts of out-of-pocket expenses.
We left home around Noon, stopped in Reno to collect the rental wheelchair, and headed west on I-80. It was a nice day to travel. I think people wanting to go skiing should have been flocking to the slopes.
When we stopped at the Donner Summit rest area, I noticed that behind the tall ice walls surrounding the area, there was a rapid flow of water flowing freely. It was very striking, although this photo doesn't look very good.
We made good time, even with another stop at the Starbucks in Colfax. I'm glad of the delay at Colfax, because without it we wouldn't have been able to snag a shot of a very rare piece of railroad equipment.
In Roseville, the Union Pacific (ex-Southern Pacific) tracks parallel I-80 just before Atlantic Street. We spotted a gleaming pair of Southern Pacific rotary snowplows with two Union Pacific locomotives sandwiched between them. I was able to bail off the freeway and quickly park just off the road and (carefully; there was plenty of traffic) jump out to shoot this footage of the rotaries.
The normal way the rotary snowplows operate is in this paired configuration. This allows them to work bidirectionally, and if they get stuck moving one direction, they can reverse directions and escape.
I don't know if UP had to deploy the rotaries during the storms this year, but they presumably had deployed this set up into the snow country and were now returning them to their base in Roseville. I know from my reading about these pieces of specialized hardware that they don't like having to use them to clear the line over Donner, because once they've done so, they're mostly stuck using them for the rest of the season, and they are very expensive to operate compared to flangers and bulldozers. They are, however, spectacular to watch in operation - from a very respectful distance, ideally from a helicopter.
After our chance encounter with the rotaries, we entered the outskirts of Sacramento, where we headed to Ham Radio Outlet, which was also Lisa's first use of the wheelchair other than when we confirmed if fit her after collecting it in Reno. The antenna Lisa bought from them when we were there a few weeks ago turned out to be Chinese-made (it wasn't properly labeled on the package and she didn't discover this until she opened it when we got home) and she wanted to return it. The HRO folks were very good about doing the return. She chatted with them and one of them pointed out a different antenna that might work. Lisa had a look and agreed, and we ended up buying antennas costing more than the one that we returned.
The Holiday Inn Express on Auburn Blvd. is a place we had stayed several times when I was visiting my late sister at the nursing home. I also later ended up staying in the Crowne Plaza closer to the nursing home, but that Crowne Plaza changed into a Wyndham just after we stayed there on our way to catch the train to DisCon III, and the desk clerk at the Holiday Inn Express told me he had heard it was going to close and be converted into apartments.
When we checked in, we made it clear that although Lisa is in a wheelchair, she did not want a handicapped accessible room, because she wanted a room with a bathtub, not a roll-in shower. My Diamond status didn't get me a room upgrade, but the king room we have is acceptable, and Lisa is able to maneuver around the room in the wheelchair. We have her crutches as well, and she can slowly hobble around after a fashion. After getting moved into the room, we went to a nearby Raley's grocery store and bought food and other supplies for this stay. We didn't mind over-buying non-perishable things because anything we don't use while here we can just take home with us.
Lisa got a nice long hot bath, which she said made her foot feel better. We'll go to the museum tomorrow and spend tomorrow night here in Sacramento. The only complication is that because we're here on a back-to-back reservation, I'll have to check out and then check back in; however, the front desk clerk said that the two reservations are for the same room, so we won't have to move rooms.