Sacramento and Reno

We started bright and breezy this morning. San Francisco was shrouded in fog today so just as well we are moving on. An hour into the journey the sky is blue and the temperature is rising and we are told the likelihood now of poor weather is minimal. 

On our tour there are 9 nationalities, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Danes, Belgians, Italians, Australians and New Zealand. The driver is American and the tour leader has dual nationality, American/Belgium so you can understand why she moved to the US. Not sure anybody would want to live in Belgium. 

First stop today after 1.5 hours is Sacremento, which grew up in the 1800s as a result of the gold rush. The State Capitol building seems to be modelled on every other one. Maybe there was only one set of plans!

Back on the bus for 10 mins to the old town which was just like the old westerns. Thankfully we were early enough to be ahead go the crowds and virtually had the town to ourselves. 

The pony expressed connected Sacremento to Missouri in Central America which is where the rail road from the east ended. Eventually it carried on west and the pony express died out. 

All too soon we are back on the bus and on our way to Lake Tahoe, which is nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, for a picnic stop on the shore. We stopped at a supermarket and bough our picnic together with loads of fruit and a bottle of wine :-) The lake was beautiful and is the highest, biggest, deepest, coldest lake in North America. 

Now we are on our way to Virginia City for an ice cream stop before continuing to Reno. It's amazing how the landscape is changing, from the overcrowded San Francisco to hills and trees as far as you can see and now as we descend the Sierra Nevada the trees have given way to desert.

Virginia City was another wild west type town where we had the most enormous ice cream. As we head east they seem to be getting bigger and bigger, let's hope we aren't. 

Arrived in Reno and the hotel is amazing, can't believe how many slot machines and gambling tables there are. Preparation for Las Vegas I think :-)

Our room:

The view from where I'm posting this. 

Wifi in the hotel is $5.99 per hour or $9.99 for 24. Rip off thought I and then I spotted a Starbucks in the lobby and hey presto free wifi. We shall not be defeated where there's a will there's a way. 

Time for a swim now and dinner before an on the road start of 7:30 tomorrow.