disappointed
When we pulled up to the museum gate, opposite this line of stored Union Pacific locomotives (most of which are apparently due for a date with the scrapper relatively soon), we found that the museum was closed. No special signs. The sign on the gate repeated the "open until the first Monday of November" message. But I checked the museum web site on my phone and discovered that the museum had closed for the season three weeks early this year!
We were of course disappointed at not being able to visit the museum, but it's only an hour's drive from Reno, so it's not like it was a catastrophe. And on the drive back through the Sierra Valley, we got to see some wildlife.
In a harvested field north of CA-70 was the largest herd of deer I've ever seen. Lisa counted more than fifty of them spread out over the field. The camera-phone's zoom isn't sufficient to make a good shot here, but I did take this one picture.
The day wasn't a total loss. We went back to Reno and cashed in some coupons and frequent-buyer credit we had at Cost Plus World Market and Grocery Outlet before going home. For a change, we did not have dinner in Reno, as neither of us was especially hungry.
Looks like we'll have to wait until next year to actually use our museum memberships in Portola again.
