Don Quilici's Outdoors: Amtrak fun between Reno and Sacramento

Seven fun-loving people from this area spent last Saturday and Sunday, February 12-13, traveling on the Amtrak passenger train between Reno and Sacramento, Calif.

--See Don Q's Outdoor report

Those seven were: Mary Bottoms, Bob “Slick” and Lynda McCulloch, Elaine and I, all of Carson City; and Sal and Catali Quilici of Dayton.

Like our train ride of one year ago, the purpose of this trip was to take a leisurely train ride over Donner Summit, to see the winter snow along the way in the high country, to visit Old Town Sacramento, to spend the night in Sacramento and then to return home the next afternoon.

If you have ever given any thought to taking an Amtrak passenger train ride, here is some information that might tempt you to go:

Our Amtrak train reservations were made on the Internet at website here
and then several days later, Elaine picked up all seven tickets at the Reno Train Station, while we were on our way back from a weekend at our cabin in Plumas County, Calif.

Our 2011 Amtrak roundtrip ticket fares were: $99.90 per person for adults and $94.35 per person for seniors.

Our weekend itinerary was scheduled to begin Saturday morning at 8:36 a.m. for the five-hour ride to the AmTrak station in downtown Sacramento. As usual, westbound AmTrak from Chicago was late (but not too bad this year) and we finally left Reno at 9:10 a.m.

We arrived in Sacramento at about 3:15 p.m., and then had a short walk to our hotel (the Capital Plaza Holiday Inn). After checking into the hotel, we went out the back door, walked through a tunnel under a city street and emerged in Old Town Sacramento, which is a great place to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of all kinds of shops, stores, restaurants, etc. in that part of Sacramento.

Then, when finished with our sightseeing, we returned to the hotel for a great dinner in their restaurant, before turning in for the night.
On Sunday, we left the Sacramento AmTrak train and bus station at 11:06 a.m., and arrived back in Reno at about 4 p.m.

It was a fun time, both days, and these are some highlights of this year’s trip:

Once we were on the train and on our way, Sal, Slick, Mary and I waited in the coach car to reserve our seven seats, while Catali, Lynda and Elaine went to the observation car to hold seats for all of us.

The plan worked to perfection: We got our coach seats reserved by the conductor and the ladies had our observation car seats waiting for us.
When we were all finally together in the observation car, we broke out our munchies (doughnuts, salami, cheese, bread, crackers, chips, potato chips dip, veggies, apples, oranges, mixed nuts, candy bars, etc.), and drinks (water, Bloody Mary’s, whiskey, brandy, beer, etc.).

Then, it was party time for us (and some passengers near us) as the train slowly began to climb toward Donner Pass on a gorgeous day of bright sunshine, unseasonably warm temperatures, no clouds and no wind.

We left Reno behind us and passed through Truckee, before we began to encounter winter-looking bare trees and bushes, plus more and more and bigger and bigger patches of snow along the railroad tracks.

As we slowly climbed higher and higher, the snow patches gradually merged into huge snowfields of deep, pure-white snow.

The ever-changing scenery was spectacular, and Elaine and I took digital photographs of everything from a group photo, to the AmTrak train arriving in Reno, to the stores in Truckee, to snow drifts near Donner Summit, to downhill skiers at the Boreal Ski Resort, to an ice-free Donner Lake, to the train station in Colfax, to the Flea Market in Roseville, to all the motorcycles and horse-drawn carriages in Old Town Sacramento, etc.

Here are some of the memories of our 2011 trip:

— The old abandoned cars, pickups, trucks, couches, easy chairs, refrigerators, stoves, crates, boxes, bottles, cans, clothing, wood, metal, etc., all the way down to just pure junk, strewn next to the railroad tracks.
Sadly, the human race makes pigs look squeaky clean. That trash was disgusting and it marred the landscape at many different locations.

— All of the graffiti on the box cars, oil cars and flat cars in the train yard at Roseville. I guess it must make you feel important to have your “artwork” on someone else’s property, but I don’t understand that type of logic.

— The many different neat people we met on the train, including the couple from Michigan who were on a six week trip to the west; the trio of a brother and two sisters who were commemorating the memory of the loss of their dad who loved trains by taking an overnight trip to Reno; and the couple from Fernley who became our new friends during those two days.

— The crazy, round-about way that we had to walk to travel the two blocks from the train station to the Holiday Inn Hotel. You have to cross three major intersections by walking in three different directions at each intersection to avoid being run down by the automobile traffic.

— The fruit trees in full bloom, the lush-looking green lawns, the colorful flowers that we will not see for quite some time in this part of the country.
06. The panhandlers who we seemed to encounter no matter where we went. Every one of them wanted one dollar for food.

— Cassandra, the cocktail waitress at the hotel’s lounge who remembered all of us (Yipes, especially me!) from last year’s trip.

— Sal and Catali having to check into another hotel room, because someone else was already in their assigned room.

— The neat folks from Southwest Airlines, who we met in the cocktail lounge, and who tried to persuade Lynda and Elaine to go to work as stewardesses for Southwest. Right on!

Finally:
Why don’t you also round up a group of friends and/or relatives and take Amtrak to Sacramento some weekend in the near future?

I guarantee it will be a fun trip, and don’t forget to take you cameras.

Bet Your Favorite Pigeon
Bet your favorite pigeon that he can’t tell what really caught my eye while we were wandering around in Old Sacramento.
If he grins and says, “It was all of the people with all kinds of tattoos on their fingers, hands, arms, necks, legs, ankles, heads, etc.,” he could have also been visiting in Old Town Sacramento last Saturday.
Note: We saw one guy who had tattoos all over his fingers, both arms, all around his neck, up the back of his neck and over the top of his head. YUK!

— Don Quilici is the Outdoor Editor for Carson Now