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!!!!!

Granite Flat Campground, along Truckee River, California

I don’t know what it is that brings us to Granite Flat just about year after year since we first found it back in 2013…or was it 2014.  It is right next to fairly busy, busy at times, highway 89 to Lake Tahoe.  On the other side is the Truckee River, which can be running real high, like this year, or real low, like it did the first year we were here.  But we get use to the car and trucks…the trucks are the loudest, passing by, and many times when we use it we have few neighbors.  Also, the $11 per night (golden pass rate) is real nice, but other then water spigots where you can fill your tanks, there are not other services…no dump station, pit toilets (we always use our own toilet anyway) and no  showers (again, we always use our own showers too).  I think what we like about it is that the weather, in the summer, is so nice.  Today, while Sacramento is at 107, giver or take a degree…we are at 89.  By 8 pm we will be at 78 while Sacramento will still be at 100.  Mind you, we will have to face those hot temperatures tomorrow…but for tonight, we will bask in the cooler temps, and with lows in the 40’s, close windows and use blankets.

    

June 26, 2015 above, June 22, 2017 below

    

WOW, the Truckee River is really high this year!   I read a news report about a month ago that said that by Federal Court Order, dating back nearly 100 years ago, that Lake Tahoe could only reach a certain height, and that they ‘had’ to release water at the dam into the Truckee River (only river that exits Lake Tahoe) to bring it down to that level.  Well, they have been releasing lots of water for nearly two months now, after Lake Tahoe finally filled up after the drought conditions over the past few years.  Perhaps they need to have the Federal Courts re-exam that court order issued so long ago….

    

Every year we have been here they have had signs about bears in the area…but unfortunately we have never seen one.  This year they have added Bear Proof containers at many of the camp sites.  Although motorhomes, campers and trailers don’t need them, tent people sure do.  Now in Lake Tahoe there are MANY cases where a bear had gotten into a car in the middle of the night just to get to a candy bar, or grocery bag which has been left in it.  The results are ‘not good’, to say the least.  (Sometimes these break-ins are in the day time too!)  However, most RVers will awaken and scare the bear off if they try to get into a motorhome, trailer or camper.  A good honk of the horn, or a barking dog, normally does the trick.  Good thing they have installed these bear proof containers, unless it makes RVers a more likely target now….

We did not get site 54, our favorite site…it is a handicap only site, but some else had it today.  So I picked this “first come-first serve” site along the road for two reasons….don’t have to unhook the car, and it has had shade the entire time we have been here.  For one night, it is very doable…better than a Walmart or even a Cracker Barrel…although the later we are able to go inside and get a good meal at.   Tomorrow, before it gets too hot down in the valley, we will make our way to Sandy and Arny’s house…I am sure “someone”, namely Bubba, will be very happy about that!

Day Trip to Truckee – Electrical Cord Burnt

On Thursday mom, dad, Marcia and I took the 90 mile trip up to Truckee to enjoy the wonderful blue sky, 50 degree weather, snow on the ground from last weekend’s snow storm, and relatively light traffic.  At the summit we turned onto old highway 40, and got this view of Donner Lake, similar to the one that Marcia and I got during the summer.  Only bad thing…left my camera at home.    

On our way out of town we stopped by the blood factory so that dad could get his pro time test that he gets every few weeks.  There were six large turkeys in the parking lot…wonder how long that will last with Thanksgiving right around the corner.

It is hard to imagine that 169 years ago the snow was 5 to 10 feet up in this area while the Donner party was stuck down by the lake below.  Oh, how Northern California could use that snow this year!

We ate lunch at Smokey's Kitchen, a place that Marcia and I ate at over the summer.  Back then the place was packed, it took nearly an hour to get our food, but it was very tasty then.  Yesterday, we were the only ones there when we arrived, it took us longer to decide what to have then it took for them to cook it, and by the time we left there were 20 or so people in there. Dad and I had burgers, Marcia had a Veggie Omelet, and mom had a Spinach Salad.  Marcia and I splurged and got a rack of beef ribs to go, and had them for dinner. 

After lunch we took a little drive around town, went by our favorite Truckee campground and hit the road.  At our campground, by-the-way, they had closed off all by a handful of camping spots…the only one being used was by a person in a car eating their lunch.  With temps in the teens at night, one could understand why no one is camping…and everything looked to be free.   By 2 pm we were back home in time for dad to catch another episode of the “The Five”.

Today we had a small electrical issue.  Our 30 amp plug had burnt out.  Had an extra, better plug in the storage bin, and Arny, who is an expert at this stuff, attached the wires for me.  I had attached these set back in the fall of last year, and the black wire (left side) was not tight enough, allow for an arch which causes heat which causes breakdown.  The wires and cord are still in good shape, and the newer plug has more secure attachments, so I think we are good to go again.

Speaking of “GO”, we leave next Friday….but first, someone turns the big “60” and a few days later we celebrate our Ancestors fall celebration. 

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.”

Last Heat Wave – Heading to the High Country

I can clearly remember some HOT September days growing up in Sacramento.  Although most of my classes in grade school were in air conditioned rooms, there were also some which were in the dreaded School Bungalow classrooms…today I think they call them “pre-fab temporary learning centers”, so something like that.  Back then they were made of wood, no air conditioning, windows on one side, and to bring in a breeze one would have to open the door across from the windows.  Every September we seemed to have a few of these hot days…as we would in May or very early June.  So each year we would have three to six or more days of 100 degree weather during the school year. 

     

I can still remember the “duck and cover” drills in case of an Atomic Bomb going off nearby.  By Junior High a teacher showed some atomic bomb blast films, talked about the destruction zone, the fire outside of the total destruction zone, and it did not take long before a student, not me, ask, “Why do we have these duck and cover drills when there won’t be anything left of us after the “bomb” hits the state capital?

The outlook for Tuesday and the next ten days is HOT HOT HOT, especially for the next seven days.  Tomorrow dad has a doctor appointment in Sacramento which I am going to drive him to.  Mom has her after surgery check-up tomorrow morning, and I think the surgeon is going to be very pleased about things.  So we will be putting up with one HOT day…

…but Wednesday morning we are headed up to the 6,000 foot level…which will bring us back to the Truckee / Donner Lake area.

In anticipation of being in a National Forest Campground for a week to ten days, I loaded both of our Kindle Fire HD-7’s with Amazon Prime movies to watch.  Last time we were up there we watched two movies “on-line” and ate up 8 gigs of our 40 gig aircard for the month.  This way we will watch movies “off line” and just occasionally bring the Kindle online to communicate with Amazon.  Once you start a movie, you have 48 hours to watch it…then Amazon needs to “talk to” your Kindle to verify that everything is ok…then you take it off line again.  “IF” we want, we can go to the McDonalds or the Public Library and delete items off the Kindle and load new ones on. I have items in a “want to watch list”, so downloading is all I will need to do…which depends on the speed we get.  

So back to Granite Flats National Forest Campground we go. 

Now those temps we can handle”!