We meandered on some of the back roads along I-80. We were on such roads as Ophir Road, Christian Valley Road, Rollins Lake Road, Norton Grade Road and several others. So far, the only familiar one was Ophir Road--I just love the name. At one point we were waiting to get back on the road. The traffic was pretty heavy this time of morning (all the commuters) and finally Larry said: “Ophir heavens sake! We may be here forever!” We just looked at each other. Neither could believe he said that! After we laughed a little, there was a break and we were back on the road again.
The Halsey Forebay was located out Christian Valley Road. The name rang a bell with me, but who knows why. Larry had never been here before. Of course, we were looking for a cache. It happened to be in the middle of a grate walkway that spanned across the fast rushing water canal. As long as we didn’t look down, we were fine. Even a slightly downward glance brought with it a feeling of Vertigo. Good thing there was a chain link fence on either side of the grate to use as a hand grip. Retrieving the cache was “fun” since it was suspended from the side of this walkway. Phew--that one’s done! Rollins Lake was a new experience for both of us. We didn’t have much time to admire it, but it looked like a nice quiet place for a picnic. It was the shortcut back to the freeway that was the real experience. It was a twisty-turny road and if you are inclined to get carsick--watch out! Fortunately, we are both OK on that front! It really truly was a shortcut and took less time, but we were glad to see the freeway.
Just a little ways off the Cisco Grove exit, we found a new little park. Not much here yet, but plenty of parking if a traveler needed a break from the freeway. And did you know there is a residential community in Soda Springs? We didn’t know that until today. It is a mixture of old and new and there are some neat little lakes in the area. We found the Volunteer Firemen’s Headquarters and those were some pretty fancy digs! They had a huge bright green water tower near the building and the cache was at the base of some trees behind the tower. As we left we were stopped by some local residents who wanted to know if we owned some of the nearby land. They were digging a ditch to bring in a water pipeline and were looking for neighbors to share the cost. Not sure whether that was a good thing (we didn’t have to pay), or a bad thing (we didn’t own any of this beautiful land).
What a difference a few weeks make. It was the beginning of the month when we came through here the last time. We stopped at this rest stop then and everything was covered with snow. We stopped here again and there isn’t a patch of snow anywhere. Amazing!
The town of Truckee is an interesting place. We have been here before, but not to the Veterans Memorial Building and not to a local old cemetery We were looking for a multi-cache and the first stage took us to the Rolling Stone monument alongside the Veterans Building. 
The second stage was in old cemetery. These cemeteries always fascinate us. We always stop to read the headstones as the older ones include so much more information than the newer ones. Most of those from the 1800’s or the very early 1900’s include the country of origin--that is the type of information genealogists love! This particular cemetery had a lot of old wooden crosses of different “shapes” and sizes as well as the regular headstones. Unfortunately, the wooden crosses didn’t have any information on them.
We had a quick (and not particularly good) lunch in Truckee. We had to hurry as we could see the thunderclouds starting to form on the horizon. It didn’t take long for the first sprinkles to hit. We had just replaced the “Floristan Sentinal” cache when the big drops fell. I guess it was time to leave the Sierras behind and find a drier location. We were not encouraged as some of those thunderclouds were on the Nevada side. At that point we had our fingers crossed! The rain held off and we managed to pick up a few more caches before arriving at Cynthia & Mike’s house. We figured now we could sit back and relax, but first..... Only one more cache and that was on the way to dinner. Now we get to relax. Tomorrow is another day...
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