We’ve been planning this road trip for a very long time. Too long. So long I thought it would never happen. I had every stop marked on my extra-large map of the country; never mind we were only going to be seeing a slice of it. It made me feel worldly, all-knowing — no less. I was a mapping menu maniac with my highlighter pen, Google maps, real paper maps and hotel booking app. This part was super fun, aided by my darling girl who is a wanna-be travel agent as much as I am. Our destination was, after all, a special place for her 30th birthday celebrations in Montana, so this was important mapping menu stuff.
First stop was Sacramento. Fairly easy one would think, we go there all the time. “I think we’ll go 680,” says husband. (My least favorite road.) “It looks as if it’s flowing well.” Yeah that. During our stop-and-go traffic lurch from Gilroy onwards, I exercised rare self-control from my side of the car and started to examine the California traffic systems — a very interesting thing to do when you are trapped in your metal box for the indefinite future.
Why are there roadworks everywhere, like everywhere you go? Ah, the infrastructure bill. It is happening all over the place. Signed into law by President Biden in 2021, the law authorizes $1.2 trillion for transportation, and I think we saw a big chunk of that money being spent on our journey. You don’t really think about it until you are on the road a lot and here we were. So, the lovely 680 took a bunch more time than would have my more preferred I-5. There is also the curious “FasTrack” in northern California, whereby the commuter traffic lane (formerly known as the Diamond Lane) has become the “FasTrack lane” and you don’t really know what that is or what you will pay for it until you get the bill for violating said system.
There’s also the new toll system, connected to the FasTrack system, where there are no people to give you your change at the booth anymore, but you had better know how to pay your illusory bill because the invoice will increase, as will violations and tolls daily. I realized that we are all so busy in our commuter driving lives that we never pay attention to any of this. And here we were on 680, but we didn’t dare to go in the Express Lane or “FasTrack,” because we would never get the violations paid. It’s like a human being against a robot. Don’t even try to win.
We did finally make it to Sac, after extending the time of our dinner ressies and we got our room key. This always feels like a good time of the day, once the car finally stops and you can step out. “Blah-blah-blah,” said the front office clerk. Off we went around this fortress of a building, likely housing about 1,000 rooms, but there were no numbers or signs on the buildings or doorways from the outside. Super weird stuff. Was this some kind of special detention center for those of us nuts enough to travel on 680?
We went back to the clerk, who repeated the blah blah. “WE HAVE BEEN ON THE ROAD A VERY LONG TIME, SIR, AND WE CANNOT FIND OUR WAY INSIDE THIS FORTRESS TO OUR ROOM!” My teeth were a little grindy, but I was trying not to lose my rag. “Yeah, that’s why I gave you the blah blah,” he said. Oh, young boy, you are very lucky that I used to be in hotels. Eventually we found our way inside the fortress, and it was actually OK once we were in there. The pool was very nice and the room spacious with copious hot water.
We left for dinner. You can’t go wrong with Hawks in Granite Bay, the restaurant where our son is the director of wine and his fiancée the front manager. Oh, delicious pairings come to Mama, one after the other. A crisp Russian river white with my gnocchi, a mouche bouche of mushroom soup, a petite assiete of filet, shitake and mash, a gourmet bowl of short ribs and corn — all perfectly and appropriately paired — and then we could do no more. No room for the dessert perfection, also known as beignets.
The next morning, it was time to break out of the fortress and head away from the City. I remember my doctor telling me she needed to be near the snow because her son is a skier, so she moved up to Roseville in Sac where she could work, and he could be close to the snow. Ah yes. We climbed up and away from Sacramento and were soon surrounded by lovely green forest and mountains with our ears popping all over the place. Snow measuring poles appeared and signs for snow chains. We were up in the Sierra already. I felt a little light-headed as we approached the Donner Summit and my ears were complaining loudly, but the scenery was worth the ascent.
And where were we going now? We were headed for Nevada. Winnemucca is a good stopping point when you are headed that way and the name is so much fun, it deserves to be said over and over. As a little frontier town, it has some character to it (though we had to go to the Walmart to find actual Winnemucca souvenirs), but it could do with a facelift and someone to work on preserving all the classic frontier features. I could have scooped up some of the vintage neon signs and shipped them home to myself!
Our hotel was located just outside the main street and was very new and lovely — (forgiving the rather cold and dirty pool) — and slap dash next to the Wingers (I thought the hotel clerk said “Swingers,” she didn’t) restaurant where you can have salmon tacos if you don’t want wings. The land beyond was wide open and barren, but rows of tiny houses were being installed, I’m not sure for what, but perhaps Winnemucca is becoming a community for eco-tiny homes for people who want to own their own house? Maybe they are relocating the unhoused from other areas and giving them a tiny house. There were hundreds of these boxes stacked up on the barren land and ready to become a New Town of tiny homes. The journalist in me will have to investigate further.
Nevada has some good ideas, it seems, and all the land in the world to do whatever they wish. It has prisons galore, mining companies everywhere and solar panels. Not a bad use of the unusable land or opportunities for employment. Unlike California, land is super cheap. I could buy 5 acres for $15K was one factoid I noticed. And land for sale signs lined the freeway of mile upon mile of land that didn’t even boast a head of cattle on it.
It took us a really long time to get across Nevada and we finally stopped in Elko for lunch. Do you know the speed limit is 80mph in Nevada and that is also for the big trucks? (A little unnerving.) Husband opted to stay at a rather safer 75.
(“My Mapping Menu” will continue next time.)
