Goodbye San Fran, hello Nevada

3rd Sept

Goodbye San Francisco. Left the hotel and lugged our luggage up the road to the National car rental office. Waited in the queue for one and a half hours. No exaggeration. No seats to sit on, was in the sun for part of it, was not fun. Finally got to the desk and handed over my reservation number. Clerk tapped away and produced a form for me to sign at 150% the quoted rate, for 2/3rds of the required time. So I dug my heels in and insisted that they honour my online reservation. Ended up asking to see a manager because the guy I was dealing with was so useless. Anyway another 45 minutes later I had my car at the correct rate and we were off.

It’s a nice car, a Hyundai Sonata with all sorts of whizz bang features. All those features don’t make understanding the California road code any simpler though. Example: the first traffic light I came to was a flashing red light. Great. But we set off and before I knew it was hurtling across the Golden Gate Bridge at some monstrous speed with half of SF. Pulled into the “vista point” and snapped some shots, then tried to drive out the entry on the wrong side of the road. Ooops.

Golden Gate Bridge traffic. Yup I drove across that.	Note the size of the cable..!
	SF skyline

Then it was off to Sacramento and an agonizingly slow Interstate freeway. Hopped out at Sacramento and was floored by the heat wave; apparently around 105°F which is over 40°C… try that after a cool air conditioned car! Went to a Wal*Mart which was massive ; like the largest supermarket in NZ crossed with The Warehouse in a building big enough to house a 747 or three.

Then it was off to Donner Pass. We climbed and climbed and climbed and eventually found a campsite at the bottom of a ravine. I was excited to hear the trains slogging their way uphill hundreds of feet above us all night long. Our basic campsite (long drop, no showers, running water, etc) was $US25!!! Apparently the parks dept of CA is going bankrupt so prices have been hiked. Ouch.

Night skies at America Fork River in Donner Pass.

 
Morning at the camp site / View from camp site, trains run across the gray concrete retaining wall at top of mountain in centre of picture!

4th Sept

Drove on to Colfax which looks like something out of a Western. Lovely railway station though. Here my CA driving was tested with all sorts of fancy give way combinations. Drivers are forgiving here luckily. Saw the Amtrak California Zephyr arrive. Angela was delighted / horrified to see a little girl waiting at the station wearing: tartan shirt, tucked into her jeans, with big leather belt and cowboy boots and matching hat. And this wasn’t fancy dress! These were her good going-on-the-train clothes!

Main road of Colfax

 
California Zephyr (San Francisco to Chicago daily sleeper train) at Colfax 

Up Donner Pass some more to Emigrant Gap where the railway runs along the ridgeline for a bit. Amazing scenery up here, all pines and rock.

Weaving between peaks at Emigrant Gap

 
Cal Zephyr / Driving down the I80 at Donner Pass

Stopped at Donner Lake after I80 road works put an end to my plans of exploring the old railway tunnels.

Lunch spot on Donner Lake

Cal Zephyr easing downhill high above the lake.

Next we stopped at Truckee and I saw another train. Then we were in Nevada and the casinos were everywhere! There are actually “resorts” which are nothing more than a casino with a series of parking spaces for your RV and shuttle from the parking lot to the casino. I know because we saw one…

Boomtown: “Reno’s newest RV resort”

This was just a taste of things to come! On we drove to Reno, got lost, saw hundreds of casinos, eventually found a helpful gas station clerk and found a Best Buy where I bought a whizz-bang GPS. Had a good chat to the checkout clerk, he suggested we visit Lake Tahoe. So we did, GPS leading the way. Got there and couldn’t find any camping info. Drove round looking desperately for one, couldn’t find anything, eventually (several hours later) we checked into a motel that wasn’t going to break the bank. “Borrowed” the neighbouring motel’s wifi and eventually worked out the plumbing (whole ‘nother story there!). Went down to the lake at midnight to take some photos and had a good chat to some locals on the jetty.

 

… chatting to the locals they suggested US 50 to get to Utah, not the I80 interstate freeway. I was happy to avoid another Interstate (they’re so mechanical; drive on, swap lanes, drive, swap lanes, etc… nowhere to stop and enjoy the view). And so that’s what we did…