Tuesday, 5-27-97

Last night I fell asleep almost immediately upon returning to the motorhome. This morning we took our time getting up and a round. We were relatively close to home, so there was no need to get in a rush. We got under way at about 10:30AM and headed toward California on I-80. We decided to stop at Boomtown for a preview of the campground. It looks like a nice place for our next RV club outing. From Boomtown, we pointed the motorhome toward Truckee, California and drove up the mountain. I wanted to see the area that flooded on highway US-50, so when we got to Truckee, I turned south toward Lake Tahoe.

A classic view of Lake Tahoe

It turned out to be another fantastic scenic drive. We went down the Nevada side of the lake. We were presented with one beautiful vista after another. The sky was full of white puffy cloud formations that made a nice backdrop for our photos. I'm always impressed with the clarity of the water of Lake Tahoe.

The traffic was fairly light until we approached South Shore. Even though it was a day after a holiday, the traffic was heavy at the south end of the lake. We had lunch on the California side of town and proceeded toward Sacramento. It was a beautiful day for a drive though the mountains.

We saw the area where the river flooded and destroyed several houses next to Highway U.S. 50. The wreckage of the buildings is still piled up on the river bank as a reminder of the disaster. The scene was a strange one with houses and out buildings twisted and piled on top of each other. One house was on its side and half collapsed on itself. We saw the remains of two bridges that had been destroyed by the raging waters. The missing bridges cut off easy access, from the highway, to the houses on the other side of the river. Several houses looked as if they were high enough to escape damage, but the roadway and yards in front of the houses are gone.

It will be a while before things along the river return to normal. Even with all the damage, the scenery was beautiful. It is understandable why people would want to live in the area. The rest of the drive to Sacramento was pretty routine.

Because we were entering Sacramento at the beginning of the rush hour, I thought we could avoid some traffic by going against the commute as much as possible. So I turned south on highway I-5 to eventually get to highways 580 and 680. As I drove down the various freeways, we saw backed up traffic going the other way most of our way home. My plan worked out better than I thought it would. We experienced light traffic in our direction until we reached Sunnyvale. We arrived home in Cupertino at about 6PM. To my surprise, the price of gasoline in Cupertino had really gone up while we were gone. It was $1.42 per gallon, up from $1.35 when we left two weeks ago.