We started out the day heading for Lake Tahoe, but Mother Nature intervened.
We are never the earliest of risers; today being Christmas made it even more appropriate to sleep in. So it was 9:00 when we finally rolled out of bed.
Our day began with opening presents. We had opened the big ones at home, so we didn’t have to shlep them around for two weeks, but we brought our stockings with us. That made it feel a bit more like Christmas; it would be easy for it to become just another day, except with nowhere to stop for lunch.
We used the RV park’s showers, which were much roomier (and had more hot water) than the ones in the van. There was only one problem with this plan, which we figured out at the last minute – only one set of bottles of shampoo and such! So we had to go one at a time.
As I was walking away from the van, heading to the bathroom, I looked back and saw both dogs, tied to each other with their walking leash, trailing after me. Somehow they’d gotten away from Wayne. I wish I’d had my camera with me; the “busted!” looks on their faces when I saw them was pretty darn funny.
We got underway just before noon (did I mention it was a leisurely day?). We didn’t have any breakfast foods with us, so when we saw an open Denny’s we stopped there. I haven’t eaten at a Denny’s in *years*. I didn’t have very high expectations, but it really wasn’t bad. There were a lot of families eating there, with several generations represented, and it was actually a little bit festive.
Wind is a Westy nemesis, and today was no exception. At one point the wind was blowing so hard that one of those really huge flags was flying fully extended, and boy could we feel it. We stopped for a Starbucks fix (did you know that most Starbucks locations are open on Christmas Day? No, neither did I. Major points for them!) and after we left the wind seemed to be a little calmer. Or maybe it was just all the caffeine…
It was freakishly warm at this point – 57 degrees with a warm wind blowing. Wayne was hopeful this would mean no snow in the higher elevations. Littte did he know…
Next stop was the Ashland Dog Park. Wayne ran the dogs around and tired them out while I took pictures with my new camera:
(pictures will follow soon)
A funny coincidence – we ran into my acupuncturist and her husband at the dog park. She recognized me; I didn’t know who she was until she said her name. Talk about a context switch!
We continued on our way without incident into California. Went through the unbelievably dumb, huge-waste-of-money agricultural checkpoint. It rained all the way to Weed, and the only sight of interest was the “Go Ducks!” banner someone had hung on a sign by the freeway.
Right after Weed it started to snow, but at first the road stayed pretty clear. Then we turned onto Higway 89, and it got worse quickly. After passing a spun-out car and doing a little shimmying ourselves, we stopped so Wayne could put on the chains. I wish I had thought to take a picture of that, or of the pretty snow on the trees, but I forgot. I hope to become a better chronicler as we go.
The road looked unplowed when we stopped; two plows went by during the time it took for him to put the chains on. Figures! But it was coming down so fast that we actually had a little trouble getting going from the shoulder even with the chains on, so they were still necessary.
We drove with the chains on for about 10 miles, and then the road headed downhill and the snow vanished. So we stopped again and he took them off. We went through several more snowy sections, but never bad enough to need the chains again.
After a long stretch without Internet (how did we survive!?), we went through Susanville and were able to look up the weather in Lake Tahoe. After reading the Winter Weather Advisory predicting several inches of snow, we decided to stop for the night in Reno instead. We went to the Grand Sierra Resort; we’ve stayed there before. It’s a hotel, RV park and casino, all rolled into one.
Getting a spot in the RV park was uneventful; they weren’t very busy (not a big surprise). We then went into the hotel/casino to have dinner. The first thing that struck us was how busy it was; the second was that the vast majority of people there were Asian. At first I was a little perplexed, but I finally figured it out – Jews aren’t the only ones who don’t celebrate Christmas, Buddhists don’t either, and they needed someplace to go when every other business is closed. Well, the Chinese restaurants are open, but they are full of Jews. It all works out in the end. :)
We had eaten dinner in Cafe Sierra before and weren’t impressed, so we decided to go for one of their “restaurants”. I put that in quotes because it’s sort of like an upscale food court, which sort of spoils the fine dining feel. We ended up at Briscola, their Italian option, and were pleasantly surprised. The food was overpriced, of course, but it was tasty.
After dinner we hung out in the lounge and had a drink. This would have been more pleasant without the loud lounge singer and the cigarette smoke, but it was still a good way to unwind after a long day of occasionally stressful (snow) driving.
By the way, at some point during the day we noticed that the water pump was working again. We’ve noticed this before – it seems to not work until after the first time we open a faucet while hooked up to city water. It’s not supposed to work this way, but I guess there are worse problems.