Trains and Grizzly Bears, A Canadian Roadtrip - The Trip Home

Saturday, September 28 - McCall to Winnemucca, NV

We have a fairly long day today, but because we will be returning to the Pacific time zone and gaining an hour, we were in no rush to leave.  Val was feeling much better this morning, she still has a pretty heavy cold, but she doesn’t feel so sick.  It was sad to have to leave as we have had a wonderful time with Cathy and Heather.  Their home and the area they live in is so wonderful and they are the perfect hosts, making us feel welcome and very comfortable.  Thank you so much Heather and Cathy, we really hated to leave your wonderful home and beautiful area.

We were on the road by 9:30 Pacific time and drove back to US 95 and headed south.  The weather was cold, but sunny this morning.  They are expecting rain and maybe even some snow tonight.  The first part of our drive was through the wooded mountainous area, but before long we found ourselves in a more agricultural area with rolling hills.  We saw lots of onion fields and trucks full of onions and also fields of alfalfa, hops and corn and at one point we saw a giant pile of potatoes that was very impressive.

We also lost the sun as we headed south and the cold weather continued.  We stopped for a quick lunch and continued heading south towards the Oregon border.  As we neared the border, the agricultural area ended and the land became very desolate with very few towns.  It also started to rain lightly and by the time we actually entered Oregon, it started to rain quite a bit harder.

Our destination for today is Winnemucca, Nevada, an overnight stop on Interstate 80, but we had to cut across the southeast corner of Oregon to get to Nevada.  This is a high desert area and very remote and desolate.  The rain continued on and off with some very heavy rain as we entered Nevada.  As we drove south through Nevada we could see some snow dusting the mountains to the east and west.

We finally reached Winnemucca and decided to have an early dinner before we checked into our hotel.  Cathy and Heather use Winnemucca as an overnight stop when they drive up to McCall and had recommended a Mexican restaurant called Chihuahuas’s Cantina and Grill.  We found it and had a very good dinner, our first real taste of Mexican food since leaving home.

From there it was off to the hotel and we were checked in before 5:30.  We were staying at a Holiday Inn Express and to our surprise, it had a casino, I guess almost every hotel in Nevada has a casino.  Not being able to resist, we decided to try our luck in the casino for a little while, not expecting much as these kinds of very small hotel casinos really don’t pay very well.  We ended up being surprised as I broke even and Val won a jackpot of just over $400, a very successful night.

Val felt much better after winning $432 at the Holiday Inn Express.

After the casino it was back to our room where I caught up on the blog and we spent the rest of the evening relaxing.  Tomorrow we are taking the short drive to Reno where we will spend a couple of days. Our stop in Reno is meant for us to do a little more serious gambling than here at the Holiday Inn Express, but I doubt we’ll do as well as we did tonight.

Sunday, September 29 - Winnemucca to Reno, NV

It was cold and damp when we woke up as it had rained during the night.  We slept in a little as it was less than a three hour drive to Reno, our destination for the night.  Val was feeling much better this morning, but still is coughing quite a bit.  We hit the road around 11:00 and headed west on I-80 towards Reno.

We could see snow in the mountains to the south of I-80 and it was quite pretty.  As we gained in elevation there was actually snow along the highway; not much, but snow nonetheless.

We arrived in Reno around 2:00 and found one of the main roads through the downtown was closed for the annual week-long Street Vibrations motorcycle event.  That surprised me because I had checked before we left and didn’t realize it didn’t end until this Sunday evening.

Oh well, it didn’t really affect us as our hotel was not on the main street.  We usually stay at Harrah’s Reno, but this time we decided to stay at the Silver Legacy Hotel and Casino.  A couple of years ago we had done a little gambling there and liked the casino and they have started offering us a two night comped stay so we decided to take them up on it.

The Silver Legacy is part of three hotels / casinos linked together called The Row.  The Silver Legacy is in the middle with Circus Circus at one end, and the El Dorado at the other.  It was quite cold in Reno when we arrived, but the valet was in the parking garage and after leaving the car we were quickly inside and checked in.  We were given a newly refurbished room on the 30^th floor with a great view of the mountains to the west and north.  The room was very nice and we were very pleased with our choice.

The view west from our room.

After getting settled in, the first order of business was to get something to eat as we hadn’t eaten lunch yet.  We chose to eat at the café in the hotel and the food was good, but not great; kind of typical of a hotel coffee shop.  After eating we did some gambling before returning to the room for a little late afternoon relaxing.

After our rest time, we returned to the casino and did some more gambling.  We do like the casino here much more than Harrah’s, where we usually stay.  As the evening wore on we realized that we had eaten such a late lunch that we weren’t really hungry for dinner, but knew we had to eat something.  We chose to be decadent and have desert for dinner and we both had a hot fudge sundae; we felt a little guilty, but we are are on vacation.

We finished our desert and decided to call it a night.  Tomorrow will be a free day in Reno so we don’t have to get up early and can do what we want.

Monday, September 30 - Reno

Today is the last day of September and the last day of our vacation before driving home tomorrow.  We lounged around the room relaxing until around 11:00 and then headed back down to the café to have some breakfast.  Our breakfasts were pretty good and afterwards we walked over to the Circus Circus to check out their casino.

Everything is attached so you don’t even have to go outside to go from casino to casino.  The buildings are built over the roadways and you wouldn’t even realize you were in a different building if you didn't know the layout.  Circus Circus is suited for people with kids as there is a huge arcade area where the kids can play while the adults are in the casino where the kids aren’t allowed.  The Circus Circus casino was much quieter than the Silver Legacy, but we did find some slot machines to play with moderate success, but soon made our way back to the Silver Legacy.  Next we decided to go the other way and visit the El Dorado.  The El Dorado was busier and more lively than Circus Circus so we stayed for a while, once again with moderate success.  I say moderate, but the truth is, Val continues to do well and I continue not to, so I say that averages out to moderate. 😉

We went back to the Silver Legacy and decided to have an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant we had spotted.  When we got there it wasn’t open and a security guard told us it should be open, but wasn’t.  I called the hotel and they told me it wasn’t open on Monday’s so that was that.  The only other dining option we considered was a Ruth’s Chris Steak House, but we really didn’t feel like that heavy of a meal so we found ourselves back at the café where we had another OK, but nothing special meal.

After our dinner, we did the final gambling of our stay in Reno and I managed to have a couple of big wins to salvage my gambling for the trip.  Val did quite well and ended up with almost all of her money she started out with.  I returned with much less, but enough so I didn’t feel too bad about losing.  We went to bed early as we wanted to get a good start in the morning.

We really enjoyed our stay at the Silver Legacy.  The hotel is very nice and we liked the way they kept the hotel area separated from the casino.  We liked the casino here especially since there are three casinos joined together for more variety.  Also having the three casinos joined gives you lots of eating options although you’d never know it from how we ate, but we are at the end of a long road trip and are just tired of eating out.

Monday, October 1 - The Drive Home

We had a six and a half hour drive home today so we intended to get an early start today, but it didn’t go as planned.  We overslept a bit, but did get on the road around 9:30.  The drive over the Sierras on I-80 went by quickly, but we did make one stop to get gas and since we hadn’t eaten anything before we left, we picked up some pastries to satisfy our hunger.

When we got on I-5 in Sacramento, we found we were sharing the road with many, many big trucks.  There wasn’t much other traffic, but the proliferation of semis continued all the way down I-5.  We made pretty good time, but we stopped several times to stretch our legs and take care of other things which delayed us a little.  😁

We finally reached the turn off for highway 41 that would take us the rest of the way home, but we hadn’t had anything to eat so we stopped for a late lunch / early dinner and that delayed us further.  We finally got home just after 5:00 and found everything just as we had left it.  We unpacked a few things we needed, but left everything else for tomorrow as we were tired and just wanted to relax.  It had been a great trip and we had really enjoyed it, but after being on the road for 32 days it felt good to be home.