Reno 08 – Day One

Well, we reluctantly boarded an Amtrak train yesterday (at 6:55 AM no less!!), and departed San Francisco. THAT was a depressing thing to do. I think both Mrs. That Dan Guy and I will agree that SF just may have catapulted to the top of the list of our favourite cities. What a beautiful burg! Maybe we did leave our harps there…

On the plus side, we got to take our first-ever train ride, through the beautiful Sierra mountains. Now there’s the way to travel – super comfy, leisurely, and you can roam around – unlike airplanes, where we are rapidly approaching a day where passengers will all be herded into a cargo hold, and shoved in as compactly as possible. But they will at least drop pretzels from the ceiling, just to maintain the illusion of service. Maybe that’s just my own perspective…

The train ride was a bit longer than we had expected, but overall we’re happy we finally got to experience it. Train travel in Canada is just plain prohibitive – for example, it cost just over $80.00 US for us BOTH to get from San Fran to Reno, but the same distance in Canada would be about $2500.00 US. EACH!! And all you’d see out the window would be prairies and maple leaves. Trains in Canada are essentially as expensive as a few months of college education, with a whistle.

After spending days and days walking around San Fran, the long train ride made us sluggish and sleepy. We played a few slots, had some dinner, then somehow amazingly found the energy to force ourselves back into the casino. Where I won a slot tournament! $100, thank you very much. We must try that again, perhaps today…

We haven’t been to Reno in years, maybe almost a decade. We need to get out today, and see what’s changed, aside from the stunningly full hairline I would have displayed back then.

One thing we’ve enjoyed the whole trip is how Canada has followed us around. We’ve heard Michael Buble, Bryan Adams, Nelly Furtado, Celine Dion, and more while we’ve been across the border, from music and muzak systems everywhere.

Just an observation – we’re anything but homesick :-)

Chow for now!!