I' had a very rough night due to having trouble regulating the room temperature. Not a great way to start our stay here at the Inn at Truckee.
My husband K got up at 7 and I got up at 7:18. We headed to the lobby for breakfast at 7:31. There were very few tables and a very small selection of food. I got instant oatmeal using hot water from the coffee machine, and a packaged cheese streusel muffin, as did K. I was happy to find that they had POG (pineapple, orange, and guava) in the juice dispenser. They also had packaged waffles and breakfast sandwiches to heat. There were bagels, but not really anything to put on them. There was a bowl of oranges.
After breakfast, we went back to the room to get washed up. At 8:38, we were ready to go to church.
As usual, I'd used Google when planning the trip to find a church and a good Mass time. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church was only 7 minutes away (odometer reading 24829). There was a good-sized parking lot for this church that looked like it could have been in Florida. Besides taking a photo of the church exterior, I also took one of the lovely statue of the Assumption just outside it before we went in for 9 am Mass.
There was a very nice variety of people at the church and it felt like they were a good community. The interior wasn't huge, but it was lovely.
At 10:04, we left to go back to the hotel and arrived at 10:11. Due to my poor night's sleep, I took a nap, while K did email. He made sure I got up in time to get ready for the big outing that he was really looking forward to and had planned.
We headed out at 11:50 and drove 2 minutes down the road to the McDonald's for lunch. I was able to use my app to get a free medium drink and I used the fancy machine to make it Lime Coke Zero. K shared it and we made the second serving Cherry Vanilla Diet Coke. My Crispy Chicken Meal- Large (to have fries for both of us) was $9.59. K's two Hamburgers wee each $1.99. Tax was $1.10 and I rounded up by 53 cents for the Ronald McDonald House.
Thus fortified, we left at 12:32 (24833) with K driving. Our destination, Truckee River Rafting, was just 18 minutes away in Tahoe City (24846). We were directed to a parking spot in the lot that really belonged to a restaurant. We went up to a kiosk to check in and get wrist bands. We were directed to restrooms, where I put on my swimsuit under a t-shirt and light shorts. I put on the water shoes that I'd had to busy especially for this outing. K had a pair, too. I also applied sunscreen as did K. I put my phone in the waterproof bag we use at the beach and K did the same with his phone and bag. We got our supplies from the car before heading to the rafts.
The day was gorgeous and very warm. They said that it was the first day they'd had warm weather for rafting. It snowed last week and was 85 degrees today. So, we had good timing. There were plenty of other folks out there. Some had their own rafts and others had rentals. The water was very clear and chilly to the touch and yet some folks pulled to the shore and got in the water. We saw a trail on one side and the road ran along the other. But, there were also houses here and we could see some nice ones.
We ducked under some bridges and pipes. We did our best to get around rocks that were just below the surface or stuck above it. I had to tell a kid to not shoot at us with a super soaker. We hit some areas with rapids, although they were not bad until the end. The river is the only exit for water from Lake Tahoe and flows through Reno and into a Pyramid Lake.
We could look up the hillside and realize how deeply the river had cut over time. We discovered that there was a bike trail along it, too.
Around 2:30, we pulled into a quiet area to take a break. It was pleasant, but took work to get back out of. It did give us a chance to observe some waterfowl. We saw more farther downstream.
Toward the end, we ran into the roughest water. Some rafts capsized. We got hung up on a rock that we'd not been able to avoid. Others tried to bump us off to no avail. I could feel the rock in the center of the raft. We took on some water as we rocked the raft, trying to free it. I finally realized we had to shift from side to side. It took a while, but we were finally free. We were not able to steer well to the dock. So, someone came out a bit and hauled us in at 3:15. You can see in the third photo how fast the water was moving.
We climbed up the hill with the others who had ended their trips and waited at the road for the bus to take us back at the office. When we got back there at 3:33, we grabbed our bags with dry clothes from the car and got changed in the small restrooms.
We left at 3:50 and found more traffic on the road. We reached the hotel at 4:20 (24860), where we took turns showering and K took some time to practice. While he did that, I started looking for a place for dinner. One that had been on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives sounded great.
We left the hotel at 6:41 and at 6:46 (24862), we were in the parking lot adjacent to JAX at the Tracks. It was diner in an old railroad diner car that had been expanded, which was perfect, since it was next to the railroad tracks.
We had no trouble getting seated in a booth at the front window. The menu was extensive and the items that had been on the show were marked. I noted with pleasure that they were offering a special sausage meal with proceeds going to Ukraine. However, neither of us was in a sausage mood.
We decided that we had to try their crabcake slider, because it claimed to be his mother's recipe for Maryland blue crabcakes. However, it came with mango salsa, lettuce, tomato and onion for $3.75. Maryland crabcakes don't do that. It was tasty, though, even if it wasn't a Maryland crabcake. The glass of wine in the photo is my JAX Railyard Pinot Gris ($8), which was a bit dry for me.
K ordered The Love and Comfort Bowl with barbecue pork for $18.99. He really liked it. I got the Kobe Beef Meatloaf, which came wrapped with applewood bacon and a beer raisin glaze on it, Yukon gold mashed potatoes, and steamed broccoli for $19.99. It was quite good.
When we left at 8:10, we took a few minutes to look at the lovely flowers out front before going to the car. The yellow yarrow went really well with the purple plant and the dusty one.
Since the hotel wasn't in downtown Truckee and the restaurant was, K drove us around for a few minutes to get a feel for the town. It was built in tiers due to the hillside, with the river at the very bottom.
When we got back to the hotel at 8:33 (24868), it was getting cooler. We had been using a back to door to go in and out. It should have been locked, but was often wide open, ostensibly for the workers doing a remodeling.
My phone showed I'd walked only 2,406 for 0.89 miles, which was no surprise.
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