Honeymoon Trip: Day 3

Day three of our trip!  We woke up early again, hoping to see all we could see.  We had breakfast with a British couple on holiday, which was interesting.  They were very nice!

The first interesting thing we got to was Reno, which disappointingly involves a train station way down in a trench, so you can't really see much.  This is what I was able to capture:

Next it was on through the Nevada dessert, until we climbed in elevation into the Sierra Nevada mountains and entered California!  We went through the area of Donner Pass, where those unfortunate pioneers ate one another.  That was a sobering thought!  But now that area is home to plenty of people and the town of Truckee, which looked like a fun place to visit, actually.  They have a former Bank of America that is now the Bar of America, if that gives you any insight into the personalities of those good people!

We watched the scenery go by from our roomette for a while, then it was time for lunch.  This being the final day of the train trip, they were out of certain things in the dining car.  Super Husband had a Caesar salad, but since they were out of chicken to go on top, he asked for bacon.  And they delivered!

The paper hat SH is sporting was acquired during our stopover in Salt Lake City the previous night.  Some other young people, who were California-bound to stay, had managed to win some paper hats from the dining car attendant, who normally only gives them to small children.  When we were making small-talk with them, we mentioned it was our honeymoon and they insisted that we take their hats!  I didn't wear mine around, but Super Husband was lookin' good in his.

After breakfast we sat in the Observation Car for a while, playing Monopoly Deal and a round of Scrabble.  Let me just say that Monopoly Deal is by far much more fun than regular Monopoly.  We were also listening to the California State Railroad Museum volunteer, who was providing descriptions of the towns we passed through and any interesting scenery.  After Sacramento, we returned to our roomette to pack up and get ready for the end of the trip.  We also saw the mothball fleet at Suisun Bay, which was weird, because it was all farm land and a marsh, then BAM!  - big ships.

After crossing the Carquinez Straight, we passed through Martinez ("home of the martini" - we are skeptical) and on toward Richmond ... then voila!  

Emeryville!  We were so excited to get there.  We hurried off the train (which by the way, arrived an hour early!! what???) and picked up our Budget rental car, which had been upgraded for free.  Guess what they gave us?

A Mazda 6.  Why is this hilarious?  Because that's what Super Husband drives at home!  This was a newer model, but it was still pretty much the familiar car we knew (just white, and not the sport version).  Here is SH with the car outside of our first hotel, the Extended Stay America - Emeryville/Oakland.

Despite what you may read on Yelp, this place was just fine.  You can read my review here, so I won't go into great detail, but it served our needs and was relatively inexpensive.  Except Super Husband will want me to note that they did not have Comedy Central.  So we watched the news and "Scooby Doo" a lot instead.

We dumped our stuff in the room, and were dismayed to realize there was no "business center" where we could print off Alcatraz and Giants tickets like we had planned!  We did a bit more research, and realized that there were no Alcatraz tickets to be had, anyway.  Sorrow!  We kicked ourselves a little bit for that, since a bit more planning on the front end would have ensured that we got to Alcatraz island and got to walk around.  Oh well!  Next time.

We headed over to the Emeryville IKEA, literally moments away from the hotel, to drown our sorrows in chicken fingers and lingonberry soda.  We called the Giants ticket line and ordered tickets for the Thursday day game, then had a merry time exploring IKEA!

It was a Tuesday evening, so there was NO ONE here.

Super Husband loved this chair.

We have this wine rack!

Fortified by gazing upon inexpensive, heavy, assemble-it-yourself furniture and sleek accessories, we headed back to the hotel to gear up for the next day and get some shut-eye.  We might have come home with a few silly things too, like a long-handled bath scrubber and some drawer pulls and handles.  Can you blame us?  So cheap!