The hardest day of driving happened as we started back east. We had gone out for dinner on our second and last night in SF, with Mamta's cousins Ashu and Avani (and their three wonderful kids) and with Mou and Deep. Ashu is a lifelong outdoorsy type. A big adventure sports guy, who thanks to sking trips was familiar with Interstate 80 as it heads from the Bay area to Nevada. He works for Microsoft and carries all manner of handheld computing on his person. He had a vague notion about a storm that was going to hit the pass and he googled it. Sure enough, the next day, all the sources said, was going to be a bad one for driving. We needed to have chains for the tires or snow tires (the car was a four-wheel drive, the other requirement). Deep helped me surf late into the night, with periodic inputs from Ashu, about CalTrans advisories, automotive stores in the Sacramento area, etc. Information needed to prepare for the drive. Finally, based upon Deep's research a plan was hatched to stop in Sacramento, around breakfast time (we left their house a little before 7 AM) to buy chains.
Turns out, stores open late in CA, so we reached our designate mall, that was still closed. So, we just drove on and finally our GPS got us an alternate store in a lovely little town with a big huge mall, called Roseville CA. While we were at it, we also became the first entrants into an REI outlet and bought a bunch of gloves, hats and the kinds of things that we, surprisingly, were not carrying.
Blue skies, finally. But not for long.
Not exactly sure what, looked like it could be an old railroad alignment or actually an aquaduct.
A "chain monkey" on the Nevada side of the high passes, taking the cable off the tire. $15 to remove, $30 to fit.
As Mamta's cousin, and the main instigator of our snow-preparation - Ashu would say, fresh poweder.
An amazing landscape all around us.
A reassuring sign to let us know that we were still on Interstate 80.
You know that you are in snow country, when you see exit signs that look like this.
The view from the car, whilst still up on the pass.
Turned out there was a Gurudwara across the road from where we bought the tire-cables.
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