Sacramento, CA
Yes, it's been a while.

We've been holed up in the Cal Expo RV Park for the past week, kind of as a "vacation from our vacation". I had come down with a rather stubborn cough and needed some recovery time, anyway.

Lots of catching up and pictures to provide. The brevity of the info provided due to my sometimes pathetic memory should be made up for by the images.

Mono Lake was not to be. We had pulled into Lee Vining, the nearest town, to find it covered with snow, and the sole RV park in town shut for the season. We got some incredible pics of the lake, tho'.







Back down 395 we went. We decided to hit the Nevada border by night fall. We drove over 8,000 foot passes, then in to these green valleys, and hit one more lake before seeing the state border:



We ended up staying the night at the Carson Valley Inn in Minden, NV. Food was excellent and the RV park provided by the Inn was adequate. The mountain scenery was amazing.



We pulled into Reno about 12:00 PM. We were going to stay at the Bonanza Terrace RV park, but a lack of response from them regarding spaces available resulted in us staying at the Reno RV Park on Mill Street. We were warmly greeting by one of the owners of the park, who assisted us in pulling into our space. We needed to extend our sewage hose, and she just happened to have an extension available (cost us 27 bucks, but still...).

We spent the next day getting housekeeping chores done (laundry, cleaning, etc.), then set out to explore the area.

Mike and I are considering moving to either Las Vegas or Reno when our travels are complete. Two good friends of ours were already living and working in Reno, and proceeded to show us all aspects of the town not just the evening we first arrived but over the next few days as well. We were encouraged to visit such places such as Virginia City and Pyramid Lake, as well as a few of the neighborhoods in town: We set out to see Virginia City that Thursday. We did stop to take a few pictures of Truckee Valley and Reno on the way:





Virginia City, at about 5,000 feet above sea level, was COLD and I had forgotten my jacket (boy, did I get spoiled by Southern California weather). I also noticed that lots of "business for sale" signs were hung on some of the older buildings, possibly victims of the current economy. That didn't seem to dampen the spirits of the folks still working there, tho'. The restaurants were bustling and the scenery was absolutely stunning.

















On Saturday, we decided to take a walk from our RV park into downtown Reno and go along the River Walk:







We later did some strolling around downtown Reno and had some lunch there before heading back to the RV Park.





The next day, we drove down to Pyramid Lake. The area around it was really desolate and full of signs saying "Do Not Go Into the Lake Without a Permit" (well, this was on an Indian Reservation). The Lake itself was quite nice.





On Monday, literally the day without clouds in the mountains, we drove up to Donner Pass and took some pictures:






We later drove to Lake Tahoe, had lunch at Rosie's Cafe in Tahoe City.



We then drove around the lake, on both sides of the state border, and took our time stopping and enjoying the sights.











We stopped at one more lookout, where we saw Carson City in all it�s glory.



We left on a beautiful Tuesday morning and headed over the mountains to Sacramento. We were going to boondock at our friend Dan's house in Orangevale, but, while un hooking, we got some strange looks from the neighbors. Mike became rather jittery at all the attention, and we decided some time at the Cal-Expo RV park would be a better use of our time (suburban and urban California has never been friendly to RVers.).

There's not much to see in Sacramento, outside of the State Capitol (where Arnold Schwartznegger's being sworn in as governor on Monday, which accounted for the buzz around town this past week). I've been a little too under the weather to get involved in it all, with the exception of hanging with our friend Dan, not getting out of the trailer until Thursday, when we went to see the latest Matrix movie (I don't recommend, it, btw - and I'm a big Matrix fan). This past week has mostly been resting and enjoying friends.

Our next stop will be Larkspur, where we'll be seeing family and more friends. Even tho� the San Francisco Bay Area, until a couple of years ago, had been our lifelong home, we�ll provide pictures of that part of our travels for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully, the gap between posts won�t be so long, and the text not so shallow!

See you then!

- posted by Bigstarlet @ 10:25 PM