Truckee River in Reno
View of mountains and Truckee River from  the ‘Rivers Edge’ campground in Reno, Nevada

We are now heading to Las Vegas to see “Jersey Boys” at the Paris Casino.

Our first order of business was to get over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We took I-80 East from Sacramento and went over the infamous Donner Pass to Reno. It is hard to imagine those Conestoga wagons crossing these mountains way back then – not hard to see why they had so much trouble.

The GMC did pretty well but the climb was about 7000 feet overall and most of that was over a 40-mile stretch – pretty tough. Everything ran well – I think the driver’s side exhaust manifold needs to be replaced but it can wait until we get home. The engine periodically had some strange kind of performance issue – seemed like a misfire or something – but it was only during the heaviest climbs, at high altitude (5000+ feet), and it stopped if I let my foot off the gas and then resumed. We’ll see what that turns into as we proceed.

We took 3 1/2 hours to get to Reno and probably used a lot of gas but we won’t find out until we fill up tomorrow morning. We are camped at the “Rivers Edge RV Park” on the Truckee River in Reno, Nevada. It is a pretty nice place even if it is in the approach path of the Reno Airport. The jets come in pretty low but not very often. We are hoping that they quit early tonight.

We took a walk along the river and rested after two pretty intense weeks of work and visits. Carol got some tickets for “Jersey Boys” for Thursday evening and we should get there on Wednesday. Tomorrow we expect to drive down highway 95 to Tonopah, Nevada, spend the night at a casino or whatever and then arrive at Las Vegas on Wednesday.