Really Glad the Vehicle Repairs Were Yesterday

When I woke up this morning, Lisa said, "Don't bother hurrying to get going. They haven't cleared the sidewalks yet." Going to our window, which has a lovely view of the Sierra Nevada and the downtown Reno casinos, I could see that several inches of snow fell last night. The tops of the downtown casinos were lost in the low clouds hanging over the city. I turned on the computer and worked on getting sort of caught up on e-mail.

Lisa, reading what I wrote about her attitude toward coinless slot machines, pointed out that at least one place realizes that the sound of coins falling into the bucket was part of the proper casino atmosphere even if they can't tear themselves away from the flood of ticket-vending machines taking over the industry. That's why some of their machines have been programmed so that their "winner" sound effect is a (weak) simulation of the sound coins make falling into the coin tray.

Looking up from my computer, I saw that the clouds have cleared. The sun has come out, and it's very pretty out there now. I suppose I should get myself together so we can go get breakfast. But not in the restaurant in this hotel, which doesn't look that good. I reckon we'll walk downtown again, although if it looks too bad, we'll just go to the Denny's around the corner.

Brrrr

It was bright and sunny this morning, and we did go ahead and walk downtown again for breakfast. The wind was blowing, though, and it cuts right through you. After another large breakfast (urp), more walking was called for. First we explored some of the casinos along Virginia Street that we hadn't looked at yesterday. We went inside the Cal-Neva, which was where I used to always come to play blackjack upstairs when I would visit Reno relatively regularly when I was in college. We were sidetracked by finding a few pinball machines that did not seem to be as broken-down as most pinball machines are. After that, we looked around the Cal-Neva. Lisa found one of the few video poker machines that still accepted coins and asked me for any nickles I might have. I gave her the two in my pocket. She put one in the machine and and got 3 of a Kind, and handed me back four nickles, saying, "Okay, that's enough."

( A Cat Story )

We walked back to the hotel, picking up some soda and a bit of milk before retreating to the warmth of our hotel room. We watched ominous black clouds loom to the west. More snow tonight, I reckon, although most of last night's snow had melted or been plowed away by late afternoon. I reminded Lisa that while she'd bought the replacement for Kuma's seat belt, if she wanted to install it, it would be better to do it now while it was not actually raining or snowing. She agreed and we headed out to the truck. The wind had picked up and become colder, and there were bits of snow and rain spitting now and then. I buttoned up as much as I could, and stood on the lee side of her truck while she worked on things. After that was done, I held the pickup's hood open while she refilled the windshield washer reservoir. (The wind was such that she wanted me holding it so the wind wouldn't blow the hood up or down and damage it -- or her!) After that, we rushed back inside to warm up again.

Still, we managed to log a good deal of exercise today -- somewhere between 6 and 11 km depending on which of my two pedometers can be believed. (Amazing what a difference the two register -- and it's not consistent in any way. Sometimes one will read higher than the other, and sometimes they'll both be almost the same.)

The forecast for tomorrow is more snow. Fortunately, the pickup is 4WD and has snow tires, so we shouldn't have to chain up to get to Tahoe unless things get really bad. Normally, if conditions get that bad, they'll just close the road. And if that happens, the buses carrying most of our people in from Reno Airport won't be getting through anyway, so I won't worry about missing anything on Monday evening. Formal meetings don't start until Tuesday morning in any event.

Luck Was With Me

Our final night of this particular Reno stay had us being boring and predictable and returning to John's Oyster Bar at the John Ascuaga's Nugget in Sparks. I guess I could get tired of shrimp pan roast, but it could take a while. We braved gale-force winds to drive over to Sparks. Lisa's pickup was rocking in the wind before she even started it. Needless to say, we expedited our travel from the parking lot to the casino and the restaurant once we got to the Nugget.

( Natter about casinos, and how I won $130 )

Having called the evening to a close, we quickly made our way back to the pickup and headed back to the hotel, stopping only to gas up the pickup, as Lisa wanted to have full tanks when we leave tomorrow afternoon for Tahoe.

It's been a fairly nice weekend here in Reno. I hope the weather isn't too awful tomorrow, but the forecast is not reassuring, with 80% chance of snow.