The first rays of the morning sun were just beginning to lighten the crests of the mountains to the east of the Truckee Meadows.

A fresh blanket of snow covered the valley floor and as usual, the weather report had gotten it wrong--the forecast had called for clear skies and temperatures in the mid-50's. Instead the temperature had dropped to ten below zero and the storm had dumped over a foot of new snow.

Colonel Norton W. Ritter, USMC, had already passed a minor accident on US 395, but since the Nevada Highway Patrol was on the scene sorting out who had done what to whom; there was no reason for him to stop and help.

The Colonel was on his way to a new posting at Edwards Air Force base in southern California, where he was to take command of a special unit of Marines and Air Force personnel.

He had received orders to join the unit when his tour of duty as CO of the 2nd Force Recon Battalion at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina came to a close. Normally, a stateside tour of duty He had applied for orders to Japan or to Okinawa, hoping for Japan, so when he got the orders for another stateside tour he
was mildly surprised.

Colonel Ritter departed Camp Lejeune on the twelfth of December, driving his Dodge Van. For all of the trips that he had made back and forth across the US, he had never driven cross country;
he had always wanted to see some of the country he had sworn to protect and defend, so he had elected to drive, instead of flying, being able to look out, not down on the landscape and wonder what he had missed.

Four days after leaving North Carolina, Colonel Ritter pulled up in front of his cousin's house in Ely, Nevada late in the afternoon, where he had made arrangement to stay on his way through. He and his cousin had a great reunion and early the next morning he headed for Reno, where he figured to spend the night, after driving for eight hours and considering the weather report had mentioned foul condition over the Sierra Nevada range for that evening; he knew from growing up in the Reno, that to challenge Mother Nature in the mountains during a snow storm was plain stupidity, besides, he had a friend in Reno that he had stayed in touch with and knowing Carl, he was always ready for a cold beer, no matter how cold it was outside, especially if he was buying.

Colonel Ritter was coming up on the Keystone Avenue exit when a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper pulled in behind and followed behind him for a short distance before turning on the red and blue lights. Glancing down at the speedometer, Ritter saw he was going 20 miles an hour less than the limit. 'I didn't know Nevada gave tickets when wheather is as shitty as this. He pulled the Dodge van over to the right, stopped at the foot of the exit ramp, and rolled down his window. The trooper followed him to the side of the road and parked behind him, got out of his patrol car and walked up to the side of the Colonel's van.