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Published: September 26th 2019
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Donner Lake As dawn broke today, we were traveling through Nevada after leaving Elko and on our way to Winnemucca. This is the first time I can honestly say the terrain can begin to look monotonous. I had thought Nevada was almost all desert wasteland, except Las Vegas, Reno and several small towns, of course.
However, that picture is misleading. Most of the land we crossed today is high desert, and there was very little variety to the vegetation most of the way. Just lots of yellowish scrub grass with pale green bushes scattered throughout, seemingly at random. The terrain does vary quite a bit as we passed by. It is mostly flat, and seems to go on forever. But then, we begin to cross small canyons, some with little streams at the bottom, others with just more desert vegetation awaiting the next flash flood. Then we noticed all the rocks, some little boulders, some huge ones, scattered as if part of some cosmic game of marbles.
Along the way, we see abandoned and decrepit buildings and machines here and there, and every once in a while a group of homes and barns and working buildings. We see cattle grazing, a
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Our view while waiting for clear track coyote or two wandering around, and pass through a small town or two.
Meanwhile, off in the distance, we see the Sierra Nevada, but they seem to never get any closer, even though we've been traveling for hours at 70 or 80 MPH.
Well, we did finally reach the mountains near Reno and started our climb beside the Truckee River to Truckee, CA. The train had to climb 7,000 feet to get over the pass, and it proved to be a slow climb up the most rugged terrain we've seen from a train yet.
We did go to the observation car and had the benefit of a couple rangers to tell us about the ride. One highlight was a stretch along a mountainside where we could look down on Donner Lake about 9 miles down there. It's named after the Donner Party, in case you didn't guess, and it is huge.
As we continued c!imbing, the train came to a stop, which does happen sometimes, usually because we have to let freight trains through. This time, though, a train broke down on the single track somewhere ahead of us, so we could not proceed until the track was cleared. So we sat on the side of a hill to wait.
What they do is send a repair train, which evidently is always nearby, to fix the broken down train. Their objective is to get the track cleared quickly so the freight can go through, so Amtrak passengers benefit in the end. I'm just glad we don't have any tight connections that we'd miss.
As it turned out, we arrived at 5:15, about three hours late, but in plenty of time to check in to our hotel. Natalie counted 29 stops from Chicago to Sacramento, not counting the unplanned ones. The temperature was almost 100 degrees, a little warm for my taste, but Natalie was happy to thaw out.
We managed to find a nice restaurant, had a nice meal, and will shortly call it a day.
Tomorrow night, at 1 minute before midnight if it's on time, we'll catch our final train for this epic vacation. It's been an excellent adventure, but it isn't over until we're home Friday night, so we'll save our conclusions until then.
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Elaine D Lee
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NICE PICS!!!
Can't wait for you all to get home. I want to take a train trip now. I think I would love that!