Sacarmento to Reno

Since we got home early enough to eat dinner at home Tues evening, we were rested for our next day of touring. Wednesday our friend John Laffey joined us for a day in Old Town Sacramento. We went primarily to visit the California State Railroad Museum. This took most of the day, so we split it with a short walk around the old town.

This is a shoreline view of the the Sacramento River. We liked the contrast of the two styles of buildings.

Old Town looks like this with modern shops in the old (looking) buildings. As with most old towns like this most of the original buildings were burned or swept away in floods. Many were rebuilt more than once.

We don't know anything about this bridge except that it is a vertical draw bridge.

After we thoroughly visited the railroad museum we walked next door to the little historical museum. We only had an hour and a half until it closed, but that was enough.

This was only one of the many interesting exhibits. The irony of this method of mining was that it killed itself. The monitors washed the mountain into the rivers which raised the water levels and flooded the farms and towns. Public pressure stopped the miners.

We have remarked that we always forget to take pix of our friends. We did it again! We did get our picture taken by John, though!

There were several historic trains on display. This is a box car.

Scene of camp of Thomas Judah who spent years finding the route through the Sierras for the Southern Pacific Railroad.

There was so much snow on the route that the company built long sheds to keep the snow off the tracks.

After our museum visits we met our rock hounding buddies Dale and Shirley (whom we met in Deming) at a little local cafe for dinner and a bit of catching up. Dale is working in the area and we were lucky to be able to meet up with them before we left. All five of us had a good time doing what Escapees do best--eating and chatting. Like us, Dale and Shirley use their found rocks to make silver and wire-wrapped jewelry. Dale showed us all the jewelery he has made. True to our bad habit, we forgot to take their pictures!

Today we left the small but charming Imperial Court Mobile Home Court and rv park in Citrus Heights and headed up the mountain for Reno. Needless to say the views were spectacular. There is still lots of snow in the upper Sierras. We drove through Donner Pass with our truck performing admirably.

Although the views were great, we could only get glimpses so were glad to get some good pix. There were no pulloffs here, only emergency stops and in some places only to put on snow chains. This is a wooden flume we think is for gold mining.

Truckee River.

Lots of snow left here even though the breeze was mild and the sun was hot. Some places had several feet left.

Donner Lake

Reno

Welcome to Nevada!

Our new home at the Bordertown rv park. We opted for this park although it is 17 miles outside Reno. Our Good Sam's discounts nets us $28 per night. Parks closer to Reno are closer to $40. This is a nice quiet park on the top of a hill with nice views over the tops of the other rvs. After we set up we relaxed the rest of the day. We walked next door to the little slot casino. While we were there, Duane won and lost a dollar on video poker, we bought a paper at the gift shop, and we checked out the breakfast menu at the little restaurant. We walked down the access road for not quite a mile to the CA border and back again. Now you know why this town is called Bordertown. We read, and watched tv and relaxed in general. Tomorrow, more touring!

Enough for now,

Louise and Duane