Day 1: San Leandro, CA - Reno, NV
(Due to intermittent internet access, the posts will not be updated in real time, but simply in order of occurrence.)
Following a tearful goodbye, me and Mom finally set off on our weeklong (hopefully!) road trip to Toronto. As we left rather late, our first stop for the night was going to be in Reno, NV. With a 4pm departure time, we were going to have to step on it if we were going to make it to our motel before 9pm.
Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done when you’re towing a trailer that’s clearly overloaded with almost all of your clothes stuffed in the back of the car! To save the life of our transmission, we grudgingly scaled all the way back to 55 mph. It’s not fun having every other car pass you on the freeway. By the time we finally got onto the main section of I-80, we were effectively the slowest moving vehicle on the road, to the point where big rigs were easily passing us.
The first two hours weren’t too bad - other than the standard fare of nothing but trees and road, there wasn’t anything particularly exciting. That is, until night fell.
At almost the exact same time that night fell, we entered the hillier section of California that leads into Nevada. Normally this isn’t a terrible problem for me, since reduced visibility doesn’t bother me that much. However, the reality of towing a very heavy trailer manifested itself almost immediately - your control over your vehicle just goes to all hell, because when you’re towing, the tail is wagging the dog and most certainly not the reverse.
Further compounding the problem was the almost endless stretches of construction, at several points compressing the road into just one lane…at night…with several daredevils behind you pressuring you into stepping up your speed while going downhill, with a gigantic ravine on your right with construction dividers on your left. I have never been happier to pull off and pull into a motel that’s almost exactly just off the main road. Reno looked amazing at night! Unfortunately, there’s no pictures of that, since I was way too tired to even consider getting out and enjoying the view.
More in the next post!
