From South Lake Tahoe, we headed north to I-80, then a bit east to the Truckee River RV Park for three nights.
This park is very tight, in terms of negotiating you way into and around the place with a 40′ rig. We made it, but another guy just ahead of us wiped out a light pole at a tight turn.
We liked this place. There was lots of grass around us, so we were able to let the dogs scamper about and play.
We happened to run into the OWNER of the RV park while the dogs were off-leash, goofing off (i.e. totally against the rules), and he was cool with it. As a matter of fact, he was interested in the Boston Terrier breed (for his mother), and he got a kick out of the three dogs playing grab-ass in the grass.
On Friday, we went into Truckee to shop and have lunch. Truckee, in the winter, is the jumping off point for Northstar Ski Resort. It has a nice little downtown, with lots of boutique shops for women, and one really nice men’s shop.
We had a nice lunch at Casa Baeza, a locals Mexican restaurant. The food was good, and my Margaritas were excellent, maybe the best I’ve ever had.
We needed to find a dog-sitter for Saturday, as we wanted to go into Nevada City to meet up with a business acquaintance of Charlie’s. Luckily, we met up with a 10 year-old gal named Julia, who lives at the RV park full-time (her parents are on-site managers, cousins of the owner that we met). Anyway, we talked to Julia and her mother, Bri, and a deal was struck for a day’s worth of pet care for $50.
We left the dogs in Julia’s care on Saturday at around noon and headed west on I-80, over Donner Pass. That’s the place where westbound traffic must cross the spine of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and it’s the snowiest place in the U.S. (The record is 800 inches in one season!) It’s mid-July now, and there is still snow up there above Donner Summit (7,200′).
We met our friends (Ralph and Paula Bravo) in Nevada City at 1:30 p.m. Our plan was to wander around the town’s shops until 4 p.m., when Happy Hour began at Friar Tuck’s restaurant (where we had dinner reservations at 5 p.m.)
Nevada City is an old mining town from the Gold Rush days. Many of the buildings and houses have that Victorian feel; it reminded me of Deadwood, South Dakota.
The downtown area has a bunch of historical mini-parks, where old mining equipment is memorialized. This one’s a massive rock crushing mill, maybe 15′ tall.
This next one is some kind of giant rock scooping rotary bit (that’s 10′ tall!).
We ran out of things to do and see in Nevada City in about 30 minutes, so we adjourned to a local bar and shot the breeze (and drank) until we could get into Friar Tucks. That’s Charlie, left center, talking to Paula and Ralph (backs to camera).
Unfortunately, we missed out on the local women-only/nude bike race by a couple of weeks. You know what they say: timing is everything!
Our dinner was fun: we had a big fondue party, with all types of meats, cheese, sauces, etc. It was excellent, and made better by the fact that our friend Paula picked up the check. I like that lady! I enjoyed some unusual margaritas…which featured a splash of jalapeno juice. Very tasty!
We didn’t make it back to Truckee until 8:45 p.m. The dogs were awake and in fine fettle.
Our wonderful dog-sitter, Julia, had done a great job!
