I’ve been putting off writing this post. Week 3 begins with the Greyhound portion of the trip. It was supposed to be the Coast Starlight, so we went from riding Amtrak’s flagship train route to…Greyhound. Yes there are worse ways to have to travel, but…
Greyhound says they have comfortable seats with extra legroom and electrical outlets at each seat. They do, indeed, have electrical outlets at each seat. We got the dubious pleasure of getting two people (who seem to have met on the bus) discuss their criminal history somewhere behind us (we were seated near the back of the bus). They got off in Eugene, OR, along with most of the rest of the bus passengers.
After Eugene, there were only ten of us on the bus, so we stretched out and tried to sleep. Some poor guy got to keep moving his legs to make room for me to hit the bathroom (side effect of the cold I came down with midway through the cruise). He was very nice. I’d been watching the Spurs game on my phone, and he’d been watching the Warriors game on his phone (same game, different phones, different perspectives). Turns out he had tickets to the playoffs games, because his uncle was the Warriors scorekeeper. Pretty cool for him. We parted with friendly well-wishes in Sacramento.
Sacramento had some good moments. We had no trouble picking up our rental car, and when we stopped at our motel to see if they could hold our luggage for us until check-in, they said our room was ready, and we could go up then (8:30 am). Oh, and breakfast was still serving. Help ourselves. Made my day! We moved everything in, got breakfast, and I immediately took a nap for the rest of the morning while Mr. L ran errands.
Originally, we’d planned to go to Yosemite, but before leaving Seattle, we realized we hadn’t allowed enough time in this trip in Sacramento. We revisted the California Railroad Museum; tried for the California Auto Museum, but it was closed on Tuesday, and we checked out the Aerospace Museum of California on the former McClellan Air Force Base site. 
Snow Plow Engine F-16 Recruiting plane — never saw one that looked this good out in the real world.
This DC-3/C-47 is interesting to see in it’s current state. I presume those indentations in the “seats” were for parachute packs. Even so, not the more comfortable way to travel, but it did the job.
Next, we have the A-10 Thunderbolt. These planes seemed to hang in the sky around Westover AFB in Springfield MA. I still love the beasts.
We had dinner with one of Mr. L’s subscribers and talked kerosene lanterns for several hours. After Sacramento, we climbed on the train and headed for Reno. We stay at Harrah’s, because it’s directly across the street from the train station. We walk our luggage to their lobby and check in. This time, we got a spacious corner room. Quite nice.
The Truckee River was raging while we were there. In March, 2015, I remember it being much tamer.
We were in Reno for the Spring edition of Hot August Nights Car Show — much tamer than the mother event in August, but we enjoyed it.
My Dad had a Dart like this for the year he went away to graduate school in the late 60s.
This El Camino SS was pretty original. The custom wheels were appropriate for the time. This engine is pretty clean, too.
The next thing I enjoyed seeing was a Lincoln Limosine. From the photo album, this baby has come a long way.
We climbed on the California Zephyr Saturday night for our ride to Chicago. One thing that always tickles us in Reno is the superb service we get from the Harrah’s Bell Desk. Both times we’ve stayed there, the guys manning the desk have walked our luggage to the train station for us. This time, he took it all the way downstairs to the waiting room. Wonderful guys. They also helped us arrange a rental car for one day while we were there.
Overall, Week Three was a success. Stay tuned for Week 4, and the conclusion of the 2017 Grand Tour Edition.
