Cross Country Road Trip : San Francisco, California – Reno, Nevada

The Golden Gate

This was our first stop. About 1 hour drive from my home in Santa Clara. I felt a sense of achievement as we reached our first stop. I drove all the way without using navigation. You know, the good confident feeling that I know the routes and don’t have to depend on maps.IMG_2428

Anyway, I’ve been here many times. The bright red bridge always looks  majestic. What was more exciting for me was the fact that I was touching the Pacific Ocean and in just about a few more days, I’d be touching the Atlantic Ocean all the way across the country. When seen on global scale, I’d have driven across a considerable amount of earth’s curvature. The width of an entire continent, twice. Imagine that!

Sports basement was right across the street, so we went in and bought a pair of winter gloves as well. It was about 3 pm by the time we left SF.

Change of plans

We already realized our initial plans had to be forfeited, so we decided to make up plans as we go on the way. Our goal was to have Christmas in Chicago and New Year’s eve in New York. As long as we adhere to that, rest of the things is okay. So the next best spot for us was Reno. Otherwise we’d have to cross Nevada through the night to reach Salt Lake City and I wasn’t keen on doing that as we hadn’t slept much the previous night. Besides that, we only had couple more hours of day light left. Sun sets here by 5 pm during winter. The Sierra Nevada range will be full of snow. Tahoe would be overcrowded and would have to go through heavy snow. We wanted to stick to the interstate highway I-80 and not venture out anywhere else during the night in snow. So the only option was Reno.

Our problem with snow was that we only had a 2 wheel drive car rented on my office policies, the snow regions mandates to have snow chains but the rental car insurance doesn’t cover having snow chains on the car. So if anything happens with chains on, then we are responsible. And on top of that, I’ve never driven in snow beforeIMG_2435!

On the way, we stopped at a Walmart near Sacramento and bought our snow chains. The sky was turning red as dusk approached. Now that we had everything, our next stop was Reno. We hadn’t eaten anything since morning, so we finished the two boxes of lemon rice as it would spoil sooner than the other items we had. With our tummies full, we set back on the highway.

The first snow fall

On the way, Vijay had setup his AirBnB profile and had requested for a room in Reno. The host had accepted as well. We had replied we’d be arriving by 8pm but with all the delays, we were sure to not reach until 9pm at least. And then came the Sierra Nevada. The temperature started falling and before I realized, we were already driving through snow. Few minutes shortly, there was snow fall. My first snow fall. The temperature indicator in the car was showing -1c. As exciting as it was to drive through the snow fall for the first time, I was also constantly wondering if we were supposed to put on the chains. We didn’t see any specific boards that mandated chains. Few of the trucks and cars were stopped on the side and the chains were being fixed on them. We didn’t know how to put the chains on as well, apart from watching youtube videos of it. We had saved a pdf of the instructions in our phones, just in case we weren’t able to fix them in the night. We were hesitant to put on the chains and at the same time were a bit worried if the car would slide without it. “Let’s just keep going slowly…if we can’t drive through, let’s stop somewhere ahead and put on chains”, Vijay said. As a driver, I felt the car was under control as well and I was able to steer properly. I saw a few other cars, even a Prius, going without chains. With that confidence, we went along, slow and steadily.

It continued to snow as we drove through the range. After a while, the snow started sticking to the wind shield and the wipers weren’t of much use. Spraying water once in a while helped, but after a few miles, the water wasn’t spraying anymore. I suddenly realized and looked at the temperature indicator. -4c it was. We were in that temp for a while and now the water in windshield fluid container was frozen. I knew I should’ve bought the antifreeze in the Walmart before, but had forgotten. I had even remembered later but thought it would be okay and can buy it tomorrow morning at Reno. Bad choice. With nothing else to do, I used the wipers itself without the fluid. It gave a bad feeling every time the wipers squeaked on the windshield. And then the first slide. I could feel it through the steering wheel, the car smoothly gliding across the snow. The abs applying on the brakes. I had seen many youtube videos on how to drive in the snow. All of them indicated to neither accelerate nor step on the brakes. Let the car flow smoothly and it’ll either stop or find friction and you’d get the control back. Its only when you are going too fast that it’ll slide and turn around without control and cause major accidents. Besides, this wasn’t like the car was on a complete sheet of ice. It would slide for a moment and get back the control. I was keeping it at 30-40 mph. But the nastier part was the snow settling on the wind shield and covering the view. Our last resort, we thought, was to stop over on the side and use the water in our bottles to clean the accumulated snow on the windshield. But thankfully, as other vehicles over took us from the left, their tires treading through snow would spray a sheet of water on our car. That helped clean off the snow on the windshield.

AirBnB room

We drove the same way for an hour or so before we started to descend. All the while, both of our attention was only on the road. We didn’t take any pics. Soon the roads cleared up and it stopped snowing as well. The temperature read 1c but the windshield fluid was still frozen. Anyway we were out of the snow and had crossed into Nevada. That wasn’t so bad, I said to myself. I enjoyed driving through the snow, nothing bad happened to us and we didn’t even use the chains. I no longer feared to drive in the snow. But we were late. It was 10pm by the time we reached the AirBnB home. We were greeted by two ladies and a dog, barking loudly. Of all things, it had to be a dog. Think of it as being scared or whatever, I don’t like them. Although it was locked outside in the compound. Anyway, she showed us to our room. It was clean and neat. With an air mattress and an attached bathroom for $40 a night. We didn’t have much conversation with the ho st. I guess her friend had come over for the night. She gave us a pluggable heater for the room as it would turn cold in the night sometimes and then went off to have beer and watch some movie with her friend in the hall. I heard Vijay talking something to her, but I was least bothered. I just wanted to sleep. So I finished the left over lemon rice from the evening and soon went off to sleep.IMG_2448

Lessons Learnt

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