Today starts with a scare.
This park has 30 amp electric hookups (many have 50 amps). 30 is usually enough but Vicky wakes me to
tell me that we have no power. We were
running the hot water heater as well as a space heater since it does get chilly
at night. Vicky says she turned on the coffee maker and the power went
out! My assumption is that we exceeded
30 amps and blew a fuse. I go out and
check the circuit breakers (which Vicky had already done) and everything is
fine. So I'm thinking we've done
something serious. I do get us going on
battery power, and am wondering what to do next, when the park ranger knocks on
the door to apologize that the power company turned off power to the whole
resort without warning. So we're fine.
We're staying in Emigrant Gap, CA. We had mail sent to General Delivery,
Emigrant Gap CA. There are 2 post
offices reasonably close to Emigrant Gap, CA.
Today we find that mail addressed to General Delivery, Emigrant Gap, CA actually goes to Alta,
CA which is 15 miles west along
I-80! Post Office logic, I suppose. So we drive those 15 miles, find the village
of Alta and the only store where
the clerk doesn't know where the post office is! Fortunately she suggests I ask the man
outside, who knows. So we arrive, 15
minutes before they reopen after taking a lunch break! Fortunately the nice lady has our mail
package.
The plan after picking up mail was to visit the cute town of
Truckee, which we passed through
with the RV some weeks ago. This is 38
miles east of Emigrant Gap so we travel a long way on I-80. For the last 12 miles into Truckee
we take "Historic Route 40" which has breathtaking views (and some
breathtaking mountain roads!) and eventually brings us out high above Donner
Lake, then down and along the
lakeshore.
We park in Truckee and saunter along the
main street, next to the railroad tracks, to the visitor center (in the old
railroad station) to get a map. As we're
doing this, the Amtrak California Zephyr (San Francisco
to Chicago) pulls in. We discuss the idea of taking the westbound
train, leaving Truckee in the morning, to Colfax (the
next stop) or Sacramento and
returning the same day.
Amtrak has no personnel in Truckee so
we talk to the lady at the Visitor Center. She points out that we can only do the
journey to Sacramento one way and
would have to come back by bus. Going to
Colfax could in theory be done in one day - we would have about 30 minutes in
Colfax, and it assumes both trains would be running on time. This is not Mussolini's Italy
and that would be a big assumption! I do
price up the trip but we decide it's too much of a risk, and coming back by bus
isn't appealing.
I've found the top 3 restaurants in Colfax according to Trip
Advisor and we're ready for lunch. It's
just before 3pm. #1 serves breakfast only and closed at
2. #2 is only open for dinner from 5:30.
So we go to #3 to find it's just closed.
No problem. Across the road is a
a place with some inventive tacos. I
order a plate with one vindaloo (hot Indian) taco, one spicy Vietnamese taco
and one pork belly taco. Vicky also opts
for the pork belly, as well as "al pastor" (pulled pork) and caprese
(mozzarella, basil and chicken). Vicky
soon finds the pork belly taco is too spicy for her so we do a swap. I get 2 pork, and she gets my Vietnamese taco
which wasn't spicy at all. A good lunch
though.
We're following a walking tour of the historic buildings in
this railroad/mining town, enjoying the varied architecture and the history,
when we find an ice cream parlor. So
it's time for dessert. The original plan
was to spend time at the Donner Historical
Park after lunch but it's now only
an hour before that closes and we know we'll take longer than an hour learning
the history, so we save that for another day and continue our tour.
This really is a great little town, and we'll be back
tomorrow. Meanwhile we return to the RV
and the cats, who want to know why we've been away so long.
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