Reno Runaround

Saturday was crazy busy with errands in Reno/Sparks, some of which were less than successful. We started, however, with brunch at the Eldorado to get things off on the right foot. A stop by the luggage store to look into something Lisa can use to carry her camera (as carry-on in such a way that neither the TSA nor the airline nor fellow passengers cramming things into the overhead will destroy it) led her to think about buying a Pelican case instead because it's probably cheaper. A trip to the electronics store for something Lisa wants to make to take with her on the UK trip fizzled when we found that Sandy's Electronics is out of business, leaving Reno with no specialty electronics stores that we know of (save Radio Shack, which hardly counts). Everything else (new jeans for Lisa, groceries) went okay, but it was a very long day, and we had a longer evening getting the RV parked for the trip to the Bay Area.

The Shelves Take Shape

Lisa could not sleep, and working at night is much more pleasant than in the heat of the day, so she spent part of Saturday night sawing particleboard shelves into the right size and assembling some of the metal shelving that we bought at Lowe's earlier in the week.

( Sturdy stuff, these shelves )

I'm very pleased with the progress on these shelves. Organization is happening.

Back to the Bay

It took me a little longer to finish packing this morning than I expected, but about 10:30 I set out for the Bay Area for a two-week stint — the first full two weeks I'll be staying in the RV, as the last stint had BayCon in the middle of it. Before I left, Lisa pointed out one of the things she did to the Rolling Stone last night when I was sleeping.

( Gathering No Moss )

I stopped in Sparks to trade my casino affinity card at the Nugget in for the new program, and this got me a $5 promotional credit. I was pleased to be able to convert $5 in play money into $6 of real money, at which point I cashed in and left.

Traffic into Sacramento, through Stockton, and back to the Bay Area was annoyingly heavy. The RV handled much better with the steering stabilizer in place. Had the traffic permitted it, I could have gone faster, but I maintained my patience. Not everyone could do that, however, and on one stretch of congested stop-and-go traffic people were passing on the shoulder and median, which maybe helped them, but slowed the rest of us down. I found myself wishing a Highway Patrol car would appear.

I made it to the Bay Area about 7 PM, got a pizza, watched the last bit of the last World Cup game of the night, and settled in for this stay.