Out of the pressure cooker, out of the traffic

Lee Radtke wrote me early last week to tell me he had decided not to seek the open Carson City supervisor's position, but not because of anything I wrote.

Lee has been recovering from an illness and decided being a supervisor might be a little much for him.

"After reviewing the requirements and time commitment of being a supervisor I felt it would be too much," he wrote. "So I guess I'll keep helping the Children in Transition and the Special Ed. children and stay out of the pressure cooker."

The wires are heating up with ideas to repair the C-Hill flag destroyed in last month's 100-mph windstorm.

Costs for replacing the flag are running anywhere from $3,000 to replace it using similar material to upward of $20,000 for a more permanent memorial.

Sign designer Josh Buscay is proposing using treated wood to rebuild a flag that will last. Josh's flag would consist of about 156 panels of painted sign board.

According to his e-mail to the C-Hill Foundation, he has a few pieces of the old flag and the material is faded and tears easily.

Building the flag out of treated and painted wood will make it last a lot longer, according to Josh, but it will cost quite a bit more.

The foundation is meeting next month to discuss what action they will take to restore the flag. The flag was erected in honor of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. It survived a year and a few months on the hill before high winds from last month's storm stripped it away.

Last weekend, the wife and I took a little jaunt into California to enjoy the day and get away a bit before school started.

I will remember this trip as the journey of stupid questions, because it started and ended with one.

As we were pulling up to the bug station at Truckee, the California Ag guy took a look at our license plate and said,

"Where you folks coming from?"

I lifted both hands from the steering wheel and answered in a straight deadpan, as if this guy didn't see a thousand Nevada plates a day.

"Nevada."

Apparently my verbal answer sufficed because we were allowed into the state of California.

We drove over Donner Summit on Interstate 80, where I learned something new.

I've met several people who speak trucker, but I-80 is the only place where the road signs do.

I almost lost control of the car at the first sign.

"Let 'er drift, Min Power, Cool 'em off," it said.

Of course you can always tell which truckers aren't up on the lingo, because they are the ones whose brakes are on fire.

We turned down Highway 49 at Auburn and drove down through the gold country into Jackson where we got gas and pulled in for an In-N-Out burger.

At the drive-through we got the second stupid question.

"Will you be eating this in your car?" the person over the speaker said.

"Ah, yeah," I answered as Jenn started to giggle.

Our little trip also served as a reminder to avoid Highway 50 as a route east over the Sierra on a Saturday.

There couldn't have been more than a half-dozen cars on the road to South Lake Tahoe until we hit the top of Kyburz Pass.

Then it was nothing but cars all the way down, and they were all stopped. It took 45 minutes to get to Myers. We were lucky; we could turn off and miss the rest of the mess.

Kurt Hildebrand is former managing editor of the Nevada Appeal. Reach him at 887-2430, ext. 402 or e-mail him at kurt@tahoe.com