Winter Holidays 2021
Days 4-6: Reno-San Franciso
Reno is nestled in a valley just west of the California Border. Our initial plan for Alex to ski near Lake Tahoe was thwarted by a blizzard, so we hopped off the train in Reno for two days in the city.
Reno, Nevada
Our Reno hosts were my High School friend Rikki and her partner Matt, a Reno native. We were able to enjoy the best of the town that kept us off the tourist strip of casinos and hotels. Many drinks (we were introduced to and became well acquainted with the traditional Basque drink the “Picon”), much food, and one obligatory visit to the Reno Art Museum later, I left with few photos to share but very thankful for good friends who live in beautiful places.
Amtrak Zephyr
Reno-San
Francisco
We reboarded the Zephyr with a short stint in Coach before moving to a roomette. The seats were far bigger than those on the East Coast trains, and would be have been comfortable for the full day. The day before our scheduled trip the train had been delayed for over five hours during the snowstorm, so we had opted to upgrade two of our seats to still have the privacy of a room just in case.
Thankfully there was a break in the blizzard and our trip was smooth, aside from the fact that the cafe ran out of dessert before lunch.
Christmas
Eve in
San Francisco
The Hilton San Francisco Union Square
The train stops in Emeryville, so the last leg to San Francisco requires a charter bus ride. We were somewhat unceremoniously (considering the epic nature of the train ride) dropped off at a random building in the middle of San Francisco as our final stop.
We checked in at the Hilton Union Square and enjoyed drinks at the Cityscape Lounge, open only to guests of the hotel.
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