Irving Dresden at home in San Francisco, the fateful day he decided to take a bus trip to Reno.
Irving's trip to Reno was uneventful. He was happy to be out of the city and into the mountains, where there was snow.
Though Irving Dresden was not one to succumb to the Reno Temptation, it was at every turn in the "Biggest Little City in the World."
Soon after his arrival in Reno, a major winter snowstorm hit the Sierras, and Reno. Trying to come home the next day, the Greyhound bus ran into immense difficulties and stalled!
After trudging in the bus for several days, the people trying to return to the California lowlands did manage to escape the fate of the earlier Donner party, which perished nearby.
During Thanksgiving week of 1989 (possibly 1988 or 1990) when a friend of mine announced he was missing a native East Coast winter much, and he desired to see snow, I thought little about it when he decided to take the bus to Reno for a day in order to see the miserable stuff. Personally I had no interest in winter, and never missed my native Midwestern ones.
However, what my friend planned, a day-long bus trip and overnight stay in Reno, with a return trip the next day, turned sour when a major winter storm hit the Northern California and Nevada Sierras, and travel was near impossible, even in a large Greyhound bus.
After traveling several times between Truckee, California and Reno, Nevada, and spending at least one night on the bus, the weather cleared several days later and my friend managed to make it back.
Although he no longer lives in San Francisco, he never missed snow again enough to challenge the mountains near here.
"I miss snow here in Sunny California, but Vermont is just too far away… I'll take a day long bus trip to Reno! I'll go get some money, and I'll take the bus!"
—Irving Dresden
"To Reno! 'The Biggest Little City in the World,' American cradle of liberty!"
—Countess de Lave de Mary Boland
"Snow!"
—Bing Crosby
"Snow!"
—Rosemary Clooney
"Snow!"
—Danny Kaye
"Snow!"
—Vera-Ellen Westmeyer Rohe
Rev. 2015