Summer 2022 Day 8

Today was one of the longer driving days, and mostly on 2-lane roads, plus I was changing time zones, so I got an early start. It was a beautiful morning for a drive!

Ignore the initial wandering about south and north while I was having a “discussion” with the GPS … the day was really spent almost entirely on US 50 traveling to Reno NV.

Maybe I have unrealistic expectations based on growing up in the Midwest and living in the Northeast now, but I would generally expect to see a greater amount of traffic – or any traffic at all! – on a US Route. Instead, this is a typical view of other vehicles on the road for most of the day:

But occasionally, I was treated to something like this:

Don’t get me wrong – it was a very enjoyable and stress-free drive, although it was a tiny bit unnerving to be out of cellphone reception for hours on end, and almost never to see anything other than fences, interesting outcroppings, and the (very) occasional cow!

I didn’t hit much traffic at all until a couple of hours before Reno, but I certainly did go over pass after pass after pass … and I don’t even want to talk about the beating my overall gas mileage is taking on this route (although it’s actually still a hair above 50mpg which is still great for a car this big).

My hotel room also has a good view to the West, the direction I’ll be headed tomorrow morning:

My route tomorrow will take me along US 50 again across the Donner Pass (hungry, anyone?), through South Lake Tahoe and Placerville (formerly called Hangtown), and on to Oakland CA!

Updates may be infrequent for the next few days as I’ll be in Oakland for Haley’s wedding, but will resume by Monday evening (day 13) when I’m back on the open road.