We’re all moved in. Almost everything’s put away. It’s starting to feel cozy.
First impression: Manteca is Hayward. I see the same people, the same downtown, the same good side of town and bad side of town.
Except Manteca is 40 degrees hotter than Hayward in the summer. And Manteca is stupid cheap–rent, food, gas–everything is cheaper here.
Surprisingly, I feel quite comfortable here. It kinda feels like home (Hayward). Moms and Pops still live and do business here. The town has character. I can hang. I like it here.
I’m really liking our new apartment. It was looking awfully small with all our boxes in here on moving day. But now that almost everything is put away it’s looking much better.
I keep saying to myself, “I’m only 90 miles away from Yosemite.”
I think it means beef fat in Spanish. And that’s where we’re moving to. Manteca. The city of beef fat!
It’s been a year in Vacaville. It’s been nice. I didn’t really get a good feel for it. It was too much like suburbia to me. Caught in the middle between Sacramento and the Bayarrhea. So much for Leisure Town and the Road To Fun. It’s time to move on.
So we’re moving to Manteca, and I’m excited. 90 miles from Yosemite works pretty well for me. We’ll be much closer to fly fishing and granite rocks and pine trees.
So far I like what I see. It seems to be more of an outdoorsman’s community than Vacaville. The Bass Pro Shop in Manteca is comparable to Cabela’s in Reno. I love both places.
Our new apartment is close to downtown Manteca. I’ll scout it out, I always do. I’ll find the ‘spots’.
Two more weeks. Good bye Vacaville. I hardly knew ye.
Four days in Truckee was good for the soul. We sat near the fireplace and watched the snow fall quietly. Yum fed all our food to the neighborhood doggies. I took Yum for a nice long walk in a snowstorm.
Tuesday night was our last night and I wanted a nice dinner. Well, and I wanted to do some gambling.
We drove to Reno and had a fantabulous meal at Louis’ Basque Corner, a stone’s throw from the Silver Legacy. This is the second time we’ve eaten there and both times have been awesome. You see, Yum’s grandfather was full-on Basque. And Yum loves her some good ol’ Basque food, particularly lamb. And this joint in Reno has the best lamb of all the Basque restaurants we’ve been to over the last two years.
After dinner we went to my favorite casino, the Silver Legacy. We played some slots and called it a night.
On the way home it started to snow really bad. They stopped us in Verdi, just after Boomtown and Cabela’s.
“Road’s closed,” the CalTrans worker told us. “It’s a whiteout. Multiple accidents. A semi jack-knifed and cars are piled up. No idea when it will be open.”
Shit. This is bad. We have to leave tomorrow. We have to get out of the Sierras. I have to work on Thursday! I can’t be stuck in Reno, waiting for this storm to pass. We turned around and started driving back to Reno, weighing our options.
We spent the next 2 hours at Boomtown playing craps and more slots. We decided to try one more time before heading back to Reno (to use Yum’s employee discount at the Marriott).
This time we were able to convince the guy at the chain control checkpoint to let us through. We promised that we weren’t trying to get over Donner Summit, we’re just going to Truckee.
There were times when we had to drive under 10 miles an hour, the blizzard was so bad, but we finally made it back to the cabin. And the next morning it was a blue-bird day, sunny and warm(er). The roads were plowed, highway 80 was open, and we drove home to Vacaville easily.
No pics this time, but I do have a short movie of some howlin’ wind.
