Truckee California ... Now THAT'S What We're Talking About!

 

Camping along the Truckee River

With CLEAR, BLUE Skies!

With some Snow Geese riding the river looking for food...

Just enough solitude that you can forget the passing cars going up and down highway 89, knowing that as night falls, the amount of traffic dwindles down to an occasional vehicle which can't pierce your good nights sleep.

 

It is even quiet enough that you can hear the river from inside the motorhome if you listen hard enough.  With temps in the high 80's, humidity at a paltry 17%, it feels nice...it feels like you never want to leave until the bitter cold and snow forces you away.

But for one of us, it is her FIRST TIME here at Granite Flats Campground just outside of Truckee, California, along highway 89.  She wants to see everything...she wants to see the other dogs, the other people, the young kids running along the campground road, the little chipmunks, the splash of the water and the sound of the geese.

And when dad goes out capture a picture of the geese, she whines at the doorway to get his attention.  Hey, did you forget something here?  Hey DAD!  I am still behind this door here!!!!

We have not been here since 2017...and things have changed.  There are no more "walk-in, first come-first serve sites, at least not this time of year.  If you have a tow car behind your motorhome, it says it cost another $5 for an extra vehicle, but they did not charge us for the car. (If you have a truck pulling a trailer or 5th wheel, you only have one vehicle and you don't pay the extra $5 either...so it makes sense.)  The campground road is in desperate need of improvement...it is full of potholes, bumps (frost heaves perhaps), and it is pretty hard to get into without a reservation during the Thursday-Sunday time periods, unless you plan way in advance.  They still charge a reservation of fee of $8, does not mater if it is for one night or 14 nights (good luck getting a site for 14 days straight).  Overall, it cost us $30 for two nights with our senior pass ($11 per night plus $8 reservation fee).  When we first stayed her back in 2013 or 2014, it cost us $7 per night, you did not have to reserve.  

We were on the road by 6:30 this morning...both had an ok sleep at the Welcome Station RV Park.  It is really a good park for a one or two night stay...but with little in the area to see without a long drive, it really is just a place to crash and recuperate.

With the highway speeds of 75 mph, the only thing we passed all day was this wagon train!  This one is outside the California Trail Interpretive Center just west of Elko.  Had a few road construction spots, but nothing that slowed us down much. 

Of course, we always have made fun of the BIG "BM" on the mountain outside Battle Mountain as kids, still do today too. 

The smoke from the California and Oregon fires was very evident...had me a bit worried about how it would be in Truckee even though I looked at about a dozen online cameras the past few days.

Here is someone riding in her bed in the back, taken through the rear-view mirror.  Boy, she looks like she has had enough of this driving!

We finally arrive in the Golden State, given the nickname because it takes Gold the pay the taxes they extract from you each year!  (lol)  We had driven the remaining 345 miles into California with stops for gas twice (have to get that cheaper (barely cheaper) Nevada Gas while you can, a stop at a rest area for breakfast, showers and dumping our tanks, and a few more rest area stops tossed in for the bladders. 

It is always nice to see my ancestral home name on a road sign indicating just how far away we are.  Let's see...Sacramento is 125 miles away, Truckee is 19 miles away, so we have about 100 miles left when we leave here on Thursday morning to get to Sandy and Arny's house in Citrus Heights.  But for now...we are going to sit back and chill...after having a nice lamb burger from one of our favorite Burger Stops, "Burger Me", which is just 2 miles down the road.  YUM...and we get to eat there again tomorrow night too!!!!!

Wendover or Bust

Quick post just to let everyone (family especially) know that we did make it to Wendover.  They say that everything is BIG in Texas, but if you click on Will you will see just how large this icon is.  (picture of Will via Wikipedia)  Vegas Vic was erected in 1951, and Wendover wanted its own Icon to bring people into the Stateline Casino.  Will was right on the line, but is now further away from the state line, and is totally restored by the same company that created Will, and Vic, and other large signs, the Young Electric Sign Company.

It has been a busy day, starting at 6:15 when I got up, turned on our church from back in Palm Harbor Florida via their stream, took the dogs out, and then watched our home church.  After that we had an hour to kick-back, then off to Truckee for church again.  After church there, we got some burgers at Burger Me, and back to the motorhome where we hooked up, and off by 1:05, five minutes later than I promised them when they allowed us to stay late.  We arrived in Wendover 8 hours later, and with the time change at the border just a few hundred feet away, it is now LATE.  So pictures of scenic Nevada will have to wait until tomorrow or another day.  Monday is going to be Daddy Daughter day!  Looking forward to it...

Two Weeks for a Concussion, 1,100 Miles Later

Two weeks ago, Saturday late morning, we are camping at Granite Flat N.F. Campground just outside Truckee California.  Daughter, who had a hit on the head with a surfboard just seven days earlier, has been admitted to the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray Utah, which has a Level I trauma center.  Although I never asked, I am sure that many of their trauma patients are from auto accidents, rock climbing accidents, and ski accidents….not so much from surfboarding accidents.  Apparently Stephanie had fallen at her apartment Friday, passed out, and was taken by ambulance to the Medical Center….her third visit to a hospital in a week!  Sunday we arrived, and camped out in their parking lot with electrical hookups for the next twelve days.  She went from hardly being able to talk, not able to stand or walk, to being able to speak fairly fluently, and she walked out of the center on Friday just a few hours after we left to start our trip back to where it began.  Can’t say enough about how excellent Intermountain Medical Center is….all the people, the level of care, the facility are all top rated in my book.   So “Yes”, we are back to Granite Flat….arriving here around 1 pm today.

Of course, if we are headed back to Truckee, we are “probably” going to eat at Burger Me…and this morning mom and dad called to tell us that they are going to meet us at Burger Me for lunch….and what time did we think we could be there.  Well, we were still 200 miles out, so we felt 1:30 would be just about right. Then we decided that they should just meet us at Granite Flat…so when we pulled in at 1:00, there they were waiting for us.

Did not take us long to set up, and we all drove over to Burger Me for a nice leisurely lunch.  We sat outside, enjoyed the sun, little wind, and pesky little “meat bee”.

This little fella (the picture is from Internet….not the same meat bee) just would not leave Marcia alone…and then it went after mom’s burger too.  Well, I finally laid it to rest with a napkin….  After all, a “meat bee” is not really a bee…it is a wasp…a yellow jacket, and the sting can really really hurt you.

Mom and dad made back safely down the mountain to Citrus Heights, and we are just going to kick back for a couple of days before we head back down to the valley ourselves.  It will be strange going back down to near sea level after being above the 4,000 foot level for so long….over 5,000 feet here in Truckee.  But as they say…”It is all down hill from here.”

Truckee–Trains, Cars, Bars and Bikes?

Took a little trip with the dogs into Truckee just to get a feel of the place.  Truckee was and is a huge railroad town with many trains passing through it each day.  There is only one set of tracks over Donner, so Eastbound has to wait for Westbound and vice-versa.  Here is their little Railroad Museum, an old caboose.

It stands next to the old train station, which is now a visitor’s center, Chamber of Commerce office, and stuff like that.

The little train museum, which is accessible to wheelchairs, is so small that it is hard to take good pictures of the wall displays since it is only the size of a caboose…a narrow gage caboose at that (I think).

This is a good depiction of a standard gauge and a narrow gauge.  Narrow gauge came to Truckee in the form of transporting people from Truckee over to Lake Tahoe where they would get on a steam ship to head over to one of the cities along the lake.  Of course the standard rail came as part of the Transcontinental Railroad.  It took six years for the Railroad to be built between Sacramento and Promontory, Utah where the East met the West.

Next door to the train station is an old “Flying A” service station which is now a brewery, or was a brewery…it was hard to tell if it was still in operation or not.

Flying A’s were popular on the east and west coasts from the 1930’s to the 1960’s.  The ones on the west coast were taken over by Phillips 66, while the ones on the east coast were taken over by Texaco.  One can occasionally find a independent Flying A, but otherwise they are pretty much gone.  This replica is noted as one of the few authentic looking Flying A’s in the nation…and represents to Truckee the importance of old U.S. 40, where it is located on.

They just don’t make signs like that anymore….

Another thing I wanted to see was the old Truckee Jail.  They don’t have set hours of operation, and it looked to be closed up this morning.  Truckee’s historic jail museum is one of only a few surviving 19th century jailhouses of its kind in the West and one of the few remaining original buildings in Truckee. The jail was used continuously from 1875 until May 1964.

   

Truckee’s downtown, old U.S. 40 called Donner Pass Road here in town, is known for its “Commercial Row” which includes some shops and a number of taverns, such as the Sierra Tavern (multistory building with ivory colored façade) which was built in 1928 with upper floor added in 1938.  Many of the buildings date back to the 1860’s, and there are a number of drinking establishments here…I am sure they keep the cold winter skier warm at night once they get off the ski slopes.

 

Next to the Veterans Hall above is the 17 ton “Rocking Stone” below. 

At one time this stone would rock with the touch of a finger, even a good wind would make it move.  Indians used it to store food on because the rocking scared off animals, even birds.  It was placed there by a glacier and is only one of 25 rocking stones in the world…however, this stone was CEMENTED in place for fear that it would roll and hurt someone many years ago.

   

Left, train tracks headed west towards Sacramento.  Right, train tracks headed east towards Reno.

 

We enjoyed driving through some of the side streets, some along some good high slopes, to see he local older homes.  One has to wonder how they get down those roads in the winter to the main part of town.

This one here is along Donner Pass Road and is a commercial property which is up for sale or lease.  For a mere $10k per month you can open up this “ready to go” restaurant (which means it is designed for a restaurant, but you have to furnish the insides).  Never could find the price to buy it, I am sure it is up there in the one million range.

 

Tonight we are going back to “Burger Me” for another award winning burger.  This time, I am going to bring it back to the RV because there is a bike race in town tomorrow, right along Donner Pass Road just down from Burger Me.  Don’t want to have to fight the crowd in finding  table.

It is hard to tell which bike enthusiast is here for the race, or just out riding…they are all over the place. It is all part of the USA Cycling National Championships, which were held over in Lake Tahoe and ending here in Truckee.  Here in Truckee the Criterium, which is a bike race held on a short course, will be held.  You can bet we are glad we went to old town today and not tomorrow!