Day 3: to Reno

Woke at 8am to another bright sunny day. Google said it was -9°C outside, but it didn't feel that cold. Drove up the old Donner Pass Rd to the summit of Donner Pass. The drive up looked spectacular in the early morning sun, everything was so crisp and clean and fresh looking. I had a specific shot in mind, so packed up my gear and wandered down the icy path to the tracks again. Made myself a little seat out of the wind and waited. And waited. And waited. An hour passed and still nothing, not even a blip on the radio. Sorry I lie, one hirail truck went by. I waited a bit longer but eventually gave up; even for Donner Pass this was excessively quiet.

Went back to the lookout over Donner Lake and had some lunch. While waiting I heard that the West bound Amtrak was due into Truckee in 30 minutes (quite late) so I headed down and found a nice spot.

Soon I saw some headlights, but using my camera as binoculars (200mm of optically stabilised lens is very handy!) it appeared to be a freight loco. Uh!? Well the reason for the delay soon became apparent as the train pulled into the station with an ex-Southern Pacific AC4400 on the front, and a pair of P42DCs behind it. Obviously something broke somewhere along the line and a backup was called in.

Bye bye Californian Zephyr.

After that I hit I80 East and soon crossed into Nevada, where they know how to make roads. Pulled into Cabelas at Boomtown, a rather odd location for an outdoors shop I thought. But then, if you put gambling and hunting in one location, you have 95% of Nevada's pastimes covered, so maybe it makes a lot of sense!

The parking lot was massive, and SUVs and pickups outnumbered cars 10:1. Serious SUVs with suspension high enough to drive normal cars under made up about 10% of the vehicles (vee-hick-ills). Cabelas was something else. Imagine something the size of Bunnings, but for outdoor sports. They had a gunnery. They had isle of ammunition. Isle for waders. Quarter of the store for fishing. An in-store grill. They had a recreation of an African safari, complete with a lion eating a zebra, a life size elephant , coyotes, etc! They had a shooting range for kids, think circus sideshow style. They had a real life aquarium with absolutely massive carp. Above the shoes there was a stuffed mountain lion, and a grey wolf. They even had a rocky mountains section with elk, deer, moose, goats, squirrels, and so on. And then there was the gear… it took me half an hour just to wander round the store!

Quite a store. I got some fantastic help, Tammy led me all over the store showing me different things. They don't just have polypro underwear here. It's called "core shell", and comes in 5 different technology grades, several "milspec", different ratings, 5 different brands, and every size from XL to 6XL.

And therein lies the problem. I'm not XL, or XXL, or XXXL, or even L. Even the M stuff was baggy on me. I obviously need to eat more 14oz steaks and cut back on the healthy stuff! Poor Tammy was reduced to seeing if women's M would fit me! And the jacket I really wanted was all sold out, but the Salt Lake store has a very similar one on hold for me now… in small and medium sizes.

Had much better luck with boots and have some very nice, very fancy snow-grade boots now :)

Onwards I drove to Reno. Decided to look for a motel… why I don't know. On the way though I saw a side of Reno I haven't seen before…

It looked so pretty in the late winter sun, very moody.

I continued on looking for a motel. Well… what a hunt. There are hundreds of motels in Reno. Most are seedy. Almost all have never heard of wifi. I almost checked into a casino, but saw the check-in queue and it made airport queues look tame! I eventually found a motel with wifi and managed to badger $10 off the nightly rate. It smells odd though, and I can hear the guy next door with his lethal sounding laugh. I just hope he turns off his TV soon.

Went to dinner at a diner, ordered a $9.99 plate of friend chicken, was enough there to put KFC out of business for good. The gravity must be different here, because there is no other way they could fit so much on the plates and not crush them. I finished about half of the meal.

After dinner in an effort to escape the smell, I went for a tour of Reno at night. Well… what an experience!

Lets start the tour with the "World Famous Wedding Chapel" that is right opposite my motel:

Most major credit cards, but no American Express or out of state checks sorry. Marriage parking is available.

They also say that no appointments are necessary!

Walking down the street there is no shortage of neon.

Or interesting characters. The Reno Police gave me a few looks and kept on driving past me. Luckily tripods aren't illegal yet. Another man wanted a dollar. Another man (who looked and sounded exactly like the neighbour from American Beauty) was concerned I didn't have a cap for my lens. Another told me he'd moved here 15 years from from So Cal and that he was horny tonight. Great. Thanks. Needed to know that. Another reckoned he would look better in my photos than the boring motels… he had a point too, he looked like he should be centrefold for BlingMonthly, he had a singlet, gold chain round his neck, carefully manicured scruffy facial hair, a tea cosy hat, sunglasses (yep, at night), baggy pants and sports shoes. Quite an image!

So that's Reno for you, a city of many faces. Tomorrow I set sail for Ely, NV via US 50, the "loneliest road in America". I plan to leave as soon as possible, hopefully before the paramedics turn up for the guy next door, his laugh sounds really unhealthy.