Truckee Train Trip Day 4

This day was a lot, in a lot of ways.

I love a hotel breakfast. Hotels are actually under a lot of pressure to be able to accommodate people with certain food restrictions, because they don't get most of the business travel market if they don't.


This was amazing.

The first complication of the day was Truckee's bus system. Here is a picture of the route map on the website, but then if you go to see where the stops are on the map there is a subtle difference:



Just a tiny, tiny, 3 mile difference. I could not get to some of the places I most wanted to go. 3 miles isn't terribly far, but factor in 3 there, 3 back, the 3-8 miles from the stop of additional walking to do the hikes, and also that I am an ocean level dweller up in a mountain town, it all adds up fast. I was feeling the elevation a bit. Usually, if I am going into the mountains, I acclimate first by doing some day trips up Mt Hood, but I didn't this time. A lot of Portland gyms actually have high elevation simulation rooms for people to train, but I don't go to any of those places.

Second complication of the day, the bus driver was blasting political content talking about the evils of globalism and the power of anti-woke politics. The driver got very worked up and at a point called out 'hands up who voted fer Trump!' No hands raised and no one even responded at all, but still, he was basically listening to an antisemitic screed. Then, the next episode was on gender identity. I did my best to drown out the podcast of radio show or whatever with my audiobook and tracked where I was on google maps so I wouldn't miss my stop.

I was able to walk to Donner Memorial State Park from the furthest stop and really, that was top of my list. However, almost everything was closed. the website didn't list any closures. When I got back to town the lady at the info booth didn't believe me, but yup the museum, the gift shop, most of the trails and most of the natural areas were very, very clearly closed for repairs.







But, after some looking around I did find some trails that were open, including the trail to the lake.

The sand was covered in frost and/or ice but I wanted the shot:






I walked several miles, mostly on sand. I may have pushed myself a bit too much because hiking on sand is very different from other surfaces.

My lunch spot:




I wasn't able to get to the summit, the old train tunnels, the main viewpoint over the pass or some nice short historic hikes I'd wanted to do. I'd like to go back and do them, but I wont without a car and a travel companion, which means I can't do it. They are really pushing a car-free Truckee with their transit system and walkability, but I had to get back on that same damn bus with the same damn driver to get back to town and I decided that after that I wasn't going to touch the bus system again. I tried arranging a Lyft or a cab to get me around, but no dice, maybe because it was the off-season.

I hate complaining about my trips. I do a lot of cool stuff and very much do the things I want to do. But this all just sucks. I shouldn’t feel unsafe in fucking Northern Californian ski town.

When I was at the info booth in town trying to find more stuff to do, not only did the lady not believe me about the closures she told a lady right next to me to head out and do the park tomorrow. The info booth lady pushed me to use the bus system to Lake Tahoe and when I said I didn't want to, she assumed that I was just ignorant of Lake Tahoe, because why else would anyone stay in Truckee unless they were here for the free transit to Tahoe? The part of Tahoe that buses go to is where the casinos are. The lady thought I was joking or lying about what I was looking to do in the area, and she wasn't the first one. My travel plans are weird, but apparently pumping money into a casino with a view of multi-million dollar vacation homes is normal.

Truckee Train Trip Day 5

I did some hiking, but I was a bit worn out from the other day. I told myself repeatedly that it's actually okay to relax on a trip rather than try to do as much as possible. I'd really wanted to go to a specific brewery because they have a celtic knotwork wolf design for their logo and I wanted souvenir T shirts that were celtic knots + wolf + beer. It wasn't far, but the only road up that way was steep, icy, no shoulder, very twisty... so I decided that would be a bad plan. I went to Fifty Fifty Brewing instead, which was open early in the afternoon and an easy walk. I could cut through parks and hiking paths and stay away from the roads altogether if I wanted to. It's also a stop on the Truckee local, but nope, sticking to walking.

Fifty Fifty turned out to be a brewery that's won international awards *and* one of their beers is a Donner Party Porter. The T shirts weren't as cool, but overall a good trade off. The porter was really good, but I was feeling the altitude and could only drink about a third of it.





Then I just went back to Gravity Haus and worked on vampire smut in front of a fire:



Working in the co-working space earlier in the day:



I might not go back to Truckee, but I loved this hotel. I doubt I'll go to other Gravity Hauses because the locations don't interest me, but they are very nice.

Truckee Train Trip Day 6

At this point in the trip it really hit me how long I am gone for, which is weird because I was just back from what was one of the biggest trips I'd ever taken. I'd almost panic booked this trip when I realized that two of my dream trips might be about to become impossible, but if I hustled I could kinda sorta do one. I’d wanted to do this trip in late fall and also stop in Colorado, but eh, going through Donner Pass later than intended, what could go wrong? Also, my tickets for the long portion of the trip were stunningly cheap. It’s almost like most people wouldn’t do this trip this time of the year.

I hiked part of the legacy trail along the river, basically until it become snow and ice. (This trail was one of the ones I was asking about doing this time of year at the info center, where the lady literally pushed a map of Tahoe in my hands.)

I checked out of Gravity Haus, but I still had access to the lobby, co-working space and other amenities for the full day, so no having to kill time with my bags before my train. This is highly unusual in my experience and very nice. I wrote out my trip notes sitting in the co-working space while the puppy of another guest kept coming to sniff my boots.

Then, I walked back into town:



On the way I decided to stop into a little coffee shop and I am very glad I did. It was in the basement of a historic building, had lots of local art, and they were roasting and grinding beans on site. I got an oat milk latte.



And the art for sale included stickers by a local artist:


After the previous day it felt good to throw money at a local artist making these designs. I wish there were skiing ones as well as snowboarding, but oh well.

I used some of the stickers in my travel journal layouts that I still need to finish writing:



That stop off for coffee had me feeling much better.

I wanted to take a picture of the train as it approached, but it was running about an hour late and I just assumed I'd hear it coming. I did not:



It is still in motion in that shot, but I was looking to shoot it on the curve coming into town. In my defense, that train should have honked it's horn coming up on those curves and it did not.