In the back of my mind, I am starting to think about crossing the Sierras west of Reno. Well, not so much thinking about it as stressing about it. I had researched the Donner Pass. First – it is a well maintained, year-around US interstate (I-80). It is just that I have never driven the pass before. I am from California and have driven in and out of the state more times than I can remember. I have taken I-5 north (and never liked the steep part around the northern border). I have driven out of the state from the south on I-8 and I-10. One time I took I-40 west coming into California. The thing about California is that you have to pass over some type of pass to get into it. With my trailer, I was worried. But I still had another full day to worry about crossing Donner Pass.<\/p>\n
The morning started early in Twin Falls and we got on the road heading south on US 93 to Wells, Nevada and I-80. US 93 was not too bad, no real elevation changes. There were parts that had no shoulder or lane to allow me to get over and let faster traffic pass.<\/p>\n
We gassed up in Wells, NV and turned west. The Nevada dessert was hot but the Tundra performed flawlessly. The temp gauge never moved. I kept my speed at a solid 65 miles per hour. For lunch and gas, I decided to stop at Winnemucca. Apparently, everyone else decided to stop there as well. It was a nightmare getting through the gas station adjacent to the McDonald’s and then finding a place to park. Lesson learned, on the way back east I found a travel stop on the western edge of Winnemucca… easy in, easy out with a Subways for lunch.<\/p>\n
The afternoon heat continued as we continued to make our way west. No significant issues, just a long day of driving… a bit over 450 miles. Well over what I like to do in a day. We arrived at our destination, just east of Reno at the Sparks Marina RV Park.<\/p>\n
Check in was easy and the RV park looked like it had nice facilities. I dropped the trailer in our slot and headed to a nearby Jiffy Lube for an oil change. I was due. Good thing I did as I was low. Dinner was at Applebees. The RV park had a nice pool which I took advantage of with the girls. We slept soundly, with the AC on low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the back of my mind, I am starting to think about crossing the Sierras west of Reno. Well, not so much thinking about it as stressing about it. I had researched the Donner Pass. First – it is a well maintained, year-around US interstate (I-80). It is just that I have never driven the … Continue reading “Thursday, July 2nd [Day 29] – Twin Falls, ID to Sparks, NV (460 miles)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-roadtrip"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9vUOZ-12c","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n0zb.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}