Day XVIII - Rental Cars, Truckee, Impromptu Sacramento & Zwack Attack

We woke up today pretty invigorated from the last 24 hours.  We went down to the Amtrak station to catch our rescheduled train out to San Francisco, but unfortunately, again all westbound travel was cancelled entirely.  As much as it would be great to have another $500 each of spending money in Reno, the credit card protection doesn't work quite that way, and if we were to spend anymore money on our trip delay, it would all be coming out of our pocket now.

After checking around online for a little bit, oddly enough, it seemed there were some stellar deals on rental cars, going one-way, back to San Francisco.  We decided that although it wouldn't quite be the Amtrak train we had wanted, driving back to San Francisco wouldn't be too bad, and since it would be a rental car, we would do a quick stop in Truckee and Sacramento on the way back!  Two cities we both had really wanted to see on our trip, and a nice way to break up the trip.

We ended up renting a car from the airport for $20!  Sure, it wasn't anything too special, more like a large smart car, but it would most certainly serve our purpose for the day!  We got on the road and started up the Sierra Nevada mountains!

It didn't take long before we saw all the road closures, particularly for trucks and busses, with all of them on the side of the road, waiting and hoping that it would open soon.  We continued on up the hills in our jolly little 4-banger until we finally got up to Truckee.  We didn't have much planned for Truckee, but we thought it might be a good place to get a bite to eat.

We walked around Truckee a bit, and then found a pretty cool looking cafe called "Coffee &".  We decided to go there, mainly because there was a really cool dog laying outside of it.  The dog didn't let us down.  Both of our breakfasts were  delicious.  Conor decided that "Coffee &" would be to perfect place to buy her new coffee mug, which she had been looking to buy for the whole trip.

We left Truckee and started our journey towards Sacramento.  We decided, on the way, that since it was already starting to get late in the day, maybe we should stay in Sacramento for the night.  We decided to book the hotel then and there, and since we still had a tiny bit leftover from our $500 reimbursement for our trip delay, a fairly decent portion of the hotel would still be covered!

We booked the Sheraton Grand Sacramento, and when we checked in we told them about the crazy last few days we had had.  They were more than sympathetic and gave us an outrageously large corner suite with an amazing view of downtown Sacramento as well as champagne and chocolates.

We're just about 100% spoiled at this point.

We went down towards Old Town Sacramento and really enjoyed the whole city as we walked over there.  People looked happy, friendly, and it really just seemed like a really nice place to be.  Once we got into Old Town we hung out there for a bit, looked at a couple touristy spots, saw a couple having their wedding photos taken, watched the amazing Sacramento River flow, and then started our way back to our hotel.

We walked around the State Capital and then went back towards our hotel room.  We went through a small corridor with a ton of birds and naturally, we waved at them and said "Hi!".  Well.  Those birds were assholes.  They pooped on both of us!  We barely even realized what had happened, then we got the hell out of there once we did! But, it's supposed to be good luck, right?

Right?

We got back into our hotel, and got into an elevator where we heard a kid go "ew," likely talking about how we both had poop on us.

Our amazing friend Erik had been living in Sacramento for a while now, so we decided to hit him up and see if he was up to anything for the night.  He was more than down to hang out, so we decided to meet him at a local bar, Blue Cue.

We went down to Blue Cue, and before long we met up with Erik!  After catching up for a bit and having a quick drink, we decided a venue change was due for us.  Blue Cue was great, but it was a little loud to actually talk, so we decided to head down towards The Golden Bear for a drink.  Well somehow, the three of us ended up ordering 5 drinks.  None of us were quite sure how it happened, but we figured we would somehow make it work.  After we finished our 5 drinks there, we decided to go for a walk around Sacramento.

We didn't really know much about where we were, but we decided to just go for a stroll and see how it went.  Well, it went good.  About a block later we saw some people hanging outside a clothing store and we slowed down a little bit.  They said "Come on in!" and so naturally, we did.  They welcomed us to their clothing shop that was throwing some sort of party "Quality Boutique and Bru'".  Amazing place!  If you are in the area, I would highly recommend checking it out.

After hanging out with them for a bit, having a beer, and Erik buying a bowtie, we decided it was time to head out for more adventures.  We walked around a bit more and ended up at a sake & sushi bar of sorts.  We relaxed there for a while, got a pitcher of beer, and Facetimed with a few friends.  Amazing time!

We ended up heading back to our place after that, and put another night in the books for our fantastic honeymoon!  Big thanks to Erik for showing us around Sacramento, and the city of Sacramento as well, for being badass!