Day 2: Leaving Yuba City

We're about to go repack my van and inspect the fuses. After that, it's out to Sutter to stow Lisa's Vanagon at my grandfather's house, and then the prelude to the trip will be over and we'll be hitting the road seriously. We plan to stop in Reno for lunch, and then we have a long slog across the Nevada desert to Wells, which will probably be the next opportunity to check in. This might just be our longest single day driving during the entire trip.

Wells Runs Dry

So here we are in Wells, Nevada, in reasonably good condition despite having driven pretty hard today.

With having to go out to Sutter first, we ended up getting away from Yuba City roughly half an hour or so late. However, we made excellent time up over the Sierras. Passing through Grass Valley and Nevada City, we headed out California Route 20 and into the mountains. Rounding a corner, I saw a large brown-black four-legged creature lumbering across the road ahead of us. It was a bear! Not a very big bear to be sure, but a bear nonetheless. He spotted us and bounded off into the woods.

By a strange coincidence, we arrived at the Nugget in Sparks at 12:58 PM -- exactly when my schedule had predicted it. We had lunch at John's Oyster Bar, and were on course to leave after almost exactly the hour I'd budgeted for lunch when we were waylaid by a pinball machine on the skywalk to the parking garage, which, combined with a stop for gasoline, put us roughly 1:15 behind schedule. That meant we had to drive much harder than I wanted to do, cooking along at the 75 MPH speed limit rather than a more fuel-efficient pace. Thanks to that and stopping fewer times than planned, we managed to get to Wells just before 9 PM, only about half an hour later than planned.

Neither Lisa nor I are impressed. There is one grocery store in town -- which was closed before 9 PM. Even the restaurant at the truck stop-casino on the Interstate closed at 9 PM. Lisa remembered that she had a loaf of bread and some tuna, so we bought some milk and potato chips at the mini-mart in the truck stop and went back to the hotel.

The wireless connection in this hotel is so weak that I had to move the work table over to the window in order to make the connection. And the refrigerator and microwave promised in the room description are not here. This may have to do with the remodeling forced by damage done to the hotel by the earthquakes a while back.

After making a brief circuit of the town, Lisa agreed with my assessment that this place is made of FAIL -- the title of this post was her idea -- and we will be redrawing our plans regarding our return trip. Wells, and eastern Nevada generally, is rapidly falling off her list of preferred sites. Coming back, we may stay one night at Elko -- much nicer hotels there and more services -- and add nights to our stay in Reno at the end instead.

Today's progress: 463 miles, plus diversions and side trips here and there -- such as briefly stopping to look at a wide spot in the railroad called Deeth -- so we may have gone roughly 500 miles. I-80 across Nevada roughly parallels the Union Pacific main line, so we also had at least nine trains we spotted today.