Night is now falling on the desert outside of Winnemucca, Nevada. This morning found us packing up early and hailing a cab from the hotel and heading to the Amtrak station at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. We were ticketed to leave from Fishersman Wharf, but that is just a bus stop with no shelter and guess what, it was still raining in San Francisco. So, we decided to leave from the Ferry Building stop instead because they have a waiting room there. We waited there for them to announce the arrival of the bus to take us across the bay and into Emeryville where we would catch the number 6 train, the California Zephyr. You may recall that the California Zephyr is rated one of the top ten scenic trains in the world, so we were pretty psyched to board to see the scenery, and to go home.
Unfortunately, the rain and fog followed us from San Francisco all the way up the summits of the Sierra Nevada obscuring what is supposed to be beautiful views of the American River and Cape Horn. The clouds and fog did make for a pretty setting along the San Pablo Bay, though, with the multitude of shore birds to be found there.
Once we reached Donner Lake and Donner Pass, the sun did finally start peeking through the clouds and the rain slacked off. It had snowed earlier in the week and there was a fair amount of snow on the Sierras.
After we reached the summit and started to descend into a cute little town called Truckee. Once through Truckee, the train was busy as people who were headed to Reno for the weekend were getting ready to depart. After Reno, the train was much quieter and the scenery became much more dramatic and desolate, in a beautiful sort of way.
At least we had finally left the rain and fog behind.
Tomorrow will be a big day of scenery, the canyons of Utah and the Rockies in Colorado.
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