California at last

Got up early yesterday and hit the road before daylight.  Nevada is more mountainous than I expected and very sparsely populated in the area where we were.

Sunrise on the desert

40 mile desert is actually closer to 80 miles as the Donner Party discovered in 1846

Once we crossed the border into California and entered the Sierras the terrain changed to more mountains and trees.  We are staying in Truckee, CA, about 20miles from the border near Reno, NV and Lake Tahoe.  Truckee is also very close to Donner Pass where the Donner wagon train was stranded by the snow in 1846.  The snow was 12 to 20 feet deep in this area that year.  

The base of the Donner monument is 20 ft high, the same height as the snow drifts in 1846

I can't imagine anyone attempting to get a wagon train across these mountains.

Look closely for the rock climbers

Donner Pass, they climbed the barren rock in the foreground

Top of the pass

The view from the top was beautiful

Donner Lake

The view from the bottom

Donner Lake

View of the pass from the lake

We finally met up with rest of our group.  The weather here is very nice, 70's in the daytime and 40's at night.  This is a very nice campground with lots of trees and very quiet.  Being a resort area gas and food are expensive.  Gas is over $4/gal.  We are getting much better mileage, though, since the truck was repaired.