From Reno to San Francisco

Campground and mountains in the morning

Truckee

Truckee

Truckee

Truckee railway station. This is where the train came from that woke me up every night.

Up near Donner pass

Weather clearing up near Sacramento.

I don’t know how many people really read this blog but since I know it is at least 4, I decided to write another entry. But instead of writing about how I ended up with my car I figured it’d write about my little road trip from Reno to the San Francisco Bay Area.

So after spending a nice and satisfying week in Reno the time came to head for the Bay Area. No problem, right? The weather’s fine, the winds blow and the birds are whistling. Right.

Several people have now told me that there was a drought for years. Of course on that very day that I was done with my work and ready to cross the Sierra Nevada, the drought was over. And that meant serious snow and rain storms. When I woke up in the morning the mountains were covered with way more snow than on the other days and it was snowing all the way down into the valley to the campground. On my way to UNR campus I turned on the radio and -oh heavenly joy- there was a tire chain warning up the mountains. In fact, highway patrol would send you right back into the world’s biggest small town (Reno) in case you didn’t have any tire chains with you. Now my rental car is my home alright, but unfortunately it does not have tire chains. So I drove to the campus in order to finalize my work there and find an alternative route over the mountains. Turns out ALL roads within a 500 mile radius had tire chains required. A little desperate I went to do my work.

In the late morning hours, finally the tire chain requirements were lifted. But every single person in the herbarium that day told me to get some chains anyway because the state troopers will probably send me back if wouldn’t have any. So right before I left town I went and spent a whole lot of money on chains. Since I did not know how to put on tire chains, I did a little internet research and found a helpful and informative video (probably not safe for work, depending on your boss):

Turns out tire chains were not needed. Oh well. But it was still snowing; the higher I got up into the mountains, the more snow fell. And just so that you know, the road I took led right up to Donner Pass. Yes, that’s the place where the people ate each other because of snow and cold! On a more positive note, on my way up I stopped in Truckee which is quite a picturesque little mountain town.

I drove past the mountains towards Sacramento and the snow turned into rain. But I am not talking about your ordinary “well this is quite some rain” rain. I am also not talking about the “woha, this is an incredible amount of rain” rain. I am talking about a sheer column of water falling down from the skies. Now Germany in a way is the home country of rain so I have seen all varieties of rain, including the beloved “it doesn’t matter if you have a hat, umbrella and coat, I’ll simply pour from the bottom up” rain. But this was special. People on the interstate literally drove slower than old people walk.

Right after the rain passed I had the extreme joy of coming to the Sacramento area. The uncountable amount of rain drops was here replaced by cars. We were a solid gigantic metal slug, all wet and annoyed by the weather crawling upon I-80. But to top this experience off, my aunt’s car navigation system did not lead me to Sheila’s house but rather decided to get me onto a lonely street half a mile away from her house. And then take me about 17 miles down that very same road where there was no light at all due to the clouds, hardly a house and nothing but more rain and cows. I stopped at two ranches but nobody even knew the name of the street she was living in. So I decided to just go back and search around more. I finally found it. This whole trip should have taken me about 3.5 hours. It took me close to 7.

The evening was quite nice though. There was excellent beer and lots of it. And we went to a bar owned by Sheila’s and Ben’s friends. There’ll be live music with some local guys, they said. Turns out it was Al Lebowitz from ALO playing! I’ve got video proof of that. I still can hardly believe it.