2014 Nevada Derby I 50 - Funder

Fundersgoodidea.com - Full Story

April 9 2014
by Funder

Last Friday I threw everything I owned in the trailer and headed over to Reno. It was rainy when I left Oakland, and it was rainy when I stopped in Yuba City and stole a little bay Arab named Farley. We headed for Nevada and the hope of sunshine.

Derby is one of our early-season rides and almost everybody I know in the area was going. My phone was blowing up all weekend with updates from all my friends, and Aurora was the first over the pass. She reported that the rain stopped and the pass was dry, and there were blue skies in Nevada. I was second over the pass, about two hours behind her, and it was not dry.IMG_1653
It was, in fact, snowing. But Caltrans had salted the roads, and it wasn’t sticking, so we just roared up and over without any problems.

I was briefly sad when I started the big climb from Auburn to Truckee, because my truck just didn’t have as much power as it used to. Poor truckie, you’ve only got 80k miles, are you really losing power already? And then I remembered my extra passenger — it wasn’t towing worse, it was just towing an extra 800 lbs. Simmer down, Funder.

Lucy and Patrick were next, another two hours behind me, and they hauled in slushy snow, fingers crossed that they wouldn’t have to chain up, but they made it too. Mel was the last one over, just before sunset, and she almost had to chain the Corolla, eeek!

Nevada was beautiful as always. I was starving, so I stopped for a burger, then pushed south to Washoe Valley. Right as I passed the 7-11 gas station* in New Washoe City**, the “50 miles to empty” warning display came on, but I was almost there so I ignored it. Hah, stupid truck, my horse has a lot more than 50 miles to empty in her tank. Ain’t nobody got time for you...

Read more here:
http://www.fundersgoodidea.com/2014-nevada-derby-50/