In case you were wondering – I didn’t go up to Tahoe. Renting a car with chains for a simple drive didn’t seem to make much sense.

I left the hotel early and dropped my car off at Harrah’s before walking the 1/2 block to Amtrak. Surprisingly enough the train rolled right in on time. Being full, I wound up with a seat mate. Lovely young woman who was headed to visit her parents in the Bay area before returning to Girwood Alaska where she works in the hotel restaurant.

Why is she there? Hiking and skiing why else. As part of the year round residents she knows just about everyone in the tourist support community including both the tour guide and bus driver George and I had this past summer on our cruise vacation. Anyway, we had a lovely chat then settled in to read for the duration.

Traveling through the Sierras was lovely and you can see why I didn’t take a drive in this direction.

Instead of staying on the train to Emeryville as I first intended, I changed at Richmond on the advice of one of the other passengers. As it turns out, the BART and Amtrak stations are co-located in Richmond making the chance extremely easy even with a suitcase and backpack. As apposed to Emeryville where I would have had to catch the shuttle bus to BART. Even given the increased cost (you know that I am pretty cheap) of a whopping $2.5 for traveling the extra distance it was worth it.

From there it was simply a matter of catching the hotel shuttle to the overnight accommodations. And it is off to the airport in the morning.