A Bumpy Train Ride and Sneaking into another Country!

Washoe Valley, NV
Washoe State Park


Our last day together with John and Tina at the lake and we went for a Wine Tasting trip on The Virginia City & Truckee Railroad.  The weather turned quite cold but that didn't stop us.

We had some time before we boarded so we walked around the depot and read some of the history on the railroad.

The staff dressed up in period clothes.

All aboard!

The scenery wasn't anything too special.  Mostly desert but the river was pretty.

The seats were interesting as you could fold them either way depending on which way you wanted to face.

Tina and John, Cheers! The wine was just ok but lunch was pretty good.

(thanks Tina for letting me borrow your video!)

This is a one way ride.  When you get to the end the engine is unhitched and drives by on the next track to push the cars back instead of pulling it.  It was really neat to see it go by but when they tried to recouple the engine they were going too fast and it broke park of coupler after it rammed us all forward!  A little scary.  Wine spilled and those standing up, including Tina, were thrown forward.  Luckily she just hurt her should a bit.  It really could've been worse.  Needless to say, the wine flowed freely on the way back!

 

Not sure what it's supposed to look like but it was broke.

We couldn't help doing a little grandson shopping in the gift shop.  Cute and so soft!

The temperature dropped to 37 and it was windy and cold on the way home.

Looks like it snowed a bit on the peaks.

We woke up to the skies clearing and some blue AND a nice blanket of snow! (this was Oct 2019)

John and Tina were leaving and off to Reno where we will meet them in a couple of weeks for the Great Italian Festival where John will be competing again in the Sauce Cooking Competition.

We took a drive out of the US to a New Country!  On the way we saw this boulder pained like a dog.

At Molossia we stopped to visit this little library.  These are so cute and a great idea when you're out in the boonies and not near a public library.

A short drive and we were in  Molossia.  Never heard of it?  It is one of several Micronations that exist in the US.  Here is a LINK to a few more and to explain how they exist.

Here is the website for The Republic of Molossia.

 We weren't able to get through Customs.

We didn't know you had to make a reservation to visit inside Molossia so we snuck over the border (just with our feet), took pictures and read about it.

I've read about these before and wanted to visit Zakastan when we were in Utah but we ran out of time and it was quite hot in the desert when we were there.

Once back in the US, we took a drive up the back way to Virginia City and did a little geocaching and stopped at some old mining areas.

Even out in the desert there is quite a bit of green and some fall color along the creek.

Old Mine

The color of the lichens on the rocks were very pretty too.

They were all decked out for a festival.  Soon the famous Coffin Races will be held later this month.

St. Mary's in the Mountains Church.  We've been inside before and it is amazing.

We drove back home through the small mining communities along the way in time for dinner out.

We stopped in at Red's Old 395 Grill that our friends Jim and Jenny talked about.  Great food and the beer selection was huge.

We ended our stay here with a late walk around the campground to check out the new Electric Sites they just put in.  They are very large sites and next time we'll try for one of these if we're here when it's hot.

Really big sites.

Someone is showing off for the ladies!