Let me say up front that we had a wonderful trip to Reno. Kim and
Bill are great hosts and planned what seemed an ideal agenda of activities designed just for us.
On Saturday, we went to Lake Tahoe, stopping first by Donner Pass. There was a big lake, a clear creek, a nice short trail, and a museum where we learned about the Donner Family’s struggle in 1846 when they got snowed in with 22 feet of snow and spent the winter there. The picture is of a snowshoe for horses.
We went from there around Lake Tahoe (about 75 miles). One place we stopped and spent more time was at Emerald Bay. The next picture is looking out over Emerald Bay and to Lake Tahoe beyond.
There is a picture of the Castle we hiked about a mile down to see.
Then we hiked up about .3 mile to Eagle Falls. The picture is Lucinda, Bill, and Kim at the Falls.
The snow plow cuts through deep snow and sends it way up and to the side away from the road. In some places there are snow poles about 12 feet tall along the road to mark the edge of the road for the snow plows.
On Sunday, we went to The Bridge Church where Bill is Pastor. We enjoyed the service and met a lot of folks.
Sunday afternoon we rode to Virginia City and briefly on to Carson City. We went through the mining museum at Virginia City and saw lots of mining tools, maps, and information about the mines and their tunnels. The picture is one of the signs that explained why mules were used in the mines instead of horses.
On Monday Kim took us to the National Auto Museum in Reno. I really enjoyed this museum and saw many cars with names I did not know. One of the volunteers said that the museum has 60 or more examples of car brands that are no longer manufactured. One that impressed me was the 1931 Rolls Royce with an entire body made of copper. Not only that, Bill and Kim know the owner who has loaned it to the museum.
On Tuesday, Kim took us to Pyramid Lake. It is a little smaller than Lake
Tahoe and much less developed. One interesting thing is that the Truckee river which comes out of Lake Tahoe, runs through Reno and empties into Pyramid Lake, is the only inlet into Pyramid Lake and there are no outlets from Pyramid Lake. Yet we saw pictures (one taken only a day or two before) of people who caught large cutthroat trout. The pictures lined a wall of the store we stopped at.
As special as the things we saw and did were, what made them all so enjoyable was the quality and quantity of time we spent with Erin and Josh and with Bill, Kim, and Curly. We were treated and fed royally.
