Anniversary Getaway

This weekend (Saturday, to be precise) is Lisa and my 22nd wedding anniversary. Last year at this time, Lisa was sick and we scrapped a planned trip. For our 20th anniversary, I took a week off from work, but we spent the whole week mixing concrete for the driveway-widening project that was the first step toward also covering the carport with the metal frame building. So I have taken a four-day weekend and we are traveling, and not to a convention. We decided that we were going to go visit a place that we've only been passing through and spending a single night on our way somewhere else in the past.

( Visiting Central Nevada )

After checking in to our suite, we went next door to Raley's (the former Scolari's). There aren't a lot of hotels that have a full-service grocery store sharing their parking lot. It's very convenient. Unfortunately, we left the plastic spoons/forks/knives sitting on the counter at home, but we picked up a couple from a convenience store later than evening.

By then it was time for dinner. We went back downtown and stopped at the historic Mizpah Hotel. We originally had considered staying here, but Lisa looked at the photos of the rooms and said it was a bit too ornate to her taste. However, we decided to try the hotel restaurant. The Jack Dempsey Room is only open for special events, but the Pittman Cafe looked appetizing.

( Yum, Fish )

We returned to the hotel, unloaded the car, and settled in to our room. Although we have multiple things planned for the next couple of days, we're not rushing around, and I'm on a short vacation and don't have to worry about getting up at 4:45 AM.

I Got a Rock

To facilitate the 200-mile drive to Tonopah, I knocked off work at about 12:30 today (but I'd put in a full week including tomorrow's vacation day), and I took my work computer and confirmed this evening that no work had chased me) and around 1 PM we left Fernley and went south first on US-95A to Yerrington, then onto US-95. On the relatively narrow section that skirts the eastern shore of Walker Lake, we had a bit of a mishap. As one of the many big rigs plying this primary Las Vegas-Reno route passed, I saw something flying up at me. I flinched slightly, but that stretch has no shoulder, and I couldn't react fast enough anyway. There was a very loud sound. Lisa, who had been looking away, thought maybe the engine had blown up. It wasn't that bad, but it wasn't all that good, either.

( What a Rock )

At Hawthorne, we stopped, Lisa put on a pair of gloves, and I got out so that she could dust me off. Safety glass or not, I was showered with a lot of fine bits of glass.

( Target of Opportunity )

After cleaning up the glass bits from me and from the inside of the minivan, we continued on toward Tonopah. After a while, I realized that there were still more bits of glass that had landed inside my shirt, so we had to stop again.

( Coaldale )

I shook the last of the glass bits out of my shirt and we left the doubtful sanctuary of Coaldale for Tonopah with no further disruptions.

The smack in the windshield is pretty bad, but it's not in my field of vision, and the options for repair here in Tonopah are limited anyway. We're hoping that things will hold together until we can get home and then we'll get it repaired in Fernley or Reno/Sparks next week. This is (as I recall) the third windshield I've had on the Astro, and this one has always had a problem with a bit of leakage, so we'll find some place other than where I went to get this one installed.