Wait--Did You WANT That Tree? My Bad...

Another Nevada 'Holy Shit It's The Endtimes' windstorm today.  Let's see what my street looks like!

Two houses down...the fence took one for the team.

Just beyond that though, not to be outdone, is the one that blocked the *entire* street.

At our house the roof to the chicken run was once again trying to leave, so J. had to reattach it in the middle of all this fun. We hopped into the car to pick up the kid from the bus stop so she wouldn't have to walk home in this shit, and took the camera along because we knew what we'd see.

The local park had one tree just plain ripped in half.

The house was saved from one falling tree by another that held, but the fallen tree DID manage to claim the telephone pole & wire as it's victim. Not to mention the fence.

Lots of trees on houses, in every combination you could think of.

This one thought outside the box and instead of falling on the garage it was close to, went for distance and nuked the house. But it did take the trash can with it.

This one decided to make getting into the house a challenge.

'Welcome', my ass...

Ditto for this one, these two trees had a plan.

"Hmmm, let's see--how can we really make this guy's day a royal pain? I know, let's play, 'Where's The Front Door?'"

Answer: It's under two very large trees!  Have fun!

Could have fallen in any other direction and missed the house. But nooo....

This one said the Hell with the house, let's take out some mailboxes!

And this poor guy had such a downed tree tangle, it looked like a tornado had hit.

This was a crying shame.  Beautiful tree.

Some of them had a really strong 'You shall not pass!' vibe. Not content to block the front door, this little asshole won't even let the poor slob up the driveway and onto the property.

This tree gave the homeowner a break and fell towards the street.

While this one fell IN the street.

The local carwash once again had their roof ripped off, peeled like a sardine tin. We just pulled up and went, Yup, it's gone again.

Yeeaahhh, bet those new owners are thrilled.

At least they won't have to go far to retrieve the roof pieces, they were right across the street.

But it wasn't just trees, entire fences were flattened.

Waved to our neighbor calling his homeowners insurance company from his roof...what was left of it.

Are you a lone tree next to the roadway? Well if there's no house around to fall on, do what you can by taking out the entire neighborhood's Internet, dammit.

During the last windstorm this set of trees really wreaked havok.  Not to be outdone, this time...

...they got points for acrobatics.  Yes, that is a chunk of the treetop hung upside-down in the wires.

Don't know how they got that one down. After this we went home and waited for about 24 hours for the power to come back on...

Winter On Highway 395

Driving highway 395 from northern Nevada to southern California is always interesting, even more so in winter when on average the snow is about 6 or 8 feet deep for several months.  Makes for a challenging drive.

The way the snowplows have artfully and skillfully carved around the snowpoles and signs...

Sometimes the snowplow drivers have been smartasses though.

Oh...did you want to make a call at one of the last surviving, and the only payphone booth in several hundred miles...?  Just to be extra dickish, this particular pay phone is also a Geocache.

In Lee Vining the icicle crop is  just grand, thank you.

And at the bottom of Conway Summit, some crazed skiers have been trying to die by skiing a sheer rock field that terminates ON the highway. Not just a few times, either, as you can tell by the tracks.  These folks made a day of it.

At the top is 395, which curves and drops a few thousand feet in very short order.

At the bottom is the highway again, very suddenly.

The rocks sticking out are just a warning--this area is solid loose rocks the size of your head and fist.  Don't know why someone would risk good skis by skiing here, it's damned dangerous in about 9 different ways.

At any rate, driving 395 in winter is a real maybe/maybe not kinda thing, depending on the weather and your nerves.