Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

I realized this evening that I forgot to write something yesterday, partially because yesterday I did less than I meant to do.

( Eggspectations )

After walking off some of that breakfast, I went to the place where I should have gone on the first day of the trip, because it would have saved me money in the long run.

( Off to the Market )

I had more ambitious plans for yesterday, but in order to make the right time for breakfast, I actually had to get started on the bits of Day Jobbe earlier than I do (in absolute terms) most days when I was at home. Also, I ended up needing to do a few reports, which were not difficult but did use up time. I'm glad my manager says I can take (most of) Thursday and Friday off as well. As a consequence of those distractions, I tried to make an early night of it.

Today was a "culture day." In the morning I went to the McCord Museum, which was offering free admission in recognition of its 100th anniversary. There I saw their exhibit on the Indigenous people of Quebec, which was sobering and moving. On the walk back to the hotel, I tried once again to find a new jacket, as the one I have is wearing out. Most of what's on offer in the shops here is too heavy for what I am looking for. I found one that was the right style and color, but wasn't big enough. I'm a 3XL, which can be challenging.

Returning to the hotel, I finished off the rest of the food from the Atwater and rested for a while. I tried to check in for my flight tomorrow, but there was no way to enter my vaccination information in their forms, so I'll have to do it at the airport showing the printed documentation. I redid my plans so I'll leave a bit earlier to allow time to deal with the paperwork.

In the late afternoon, I set off to see an exhibition of Salvador Dali's illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy. This was intriguingly presented, and I'm glad I got to see it.

( The Restaurant Not Visited )

Near the Dali exhibition at the Old Port of Montreal was Restaurant Porto Mar, which was quiet enough that I felt safe eating here. The schedule with Loscon/Westercon and Worldcon means I will not be able to attend SMOFCon in Lisboa in December, but at least I can have a Portuguese meal. I had one of their set meals, and I was very good.

This afternoon, I did as much packing as I could. A goodly part of my luggage is now full of Winnipeg Worldcon bid material. It's good that I had left sufficient weight in my 23 kg checked-luggage allowance, and that I can carry my CPAP machine as an extra carry-on.

My flight leaves from Montreal at mid-day on Wednesday, but thanks to having to fly first to ORD, then to SEA, and only then back to RNO, I won't get back to Reno until very late. I will stay in a hotel near the airport rather than drive the 50 km home after being up from what amounts to 2 AM in my destination time zone in order to do Day Jobbe work before completing the packing and heading for the airport. I'm in business class on the first and last legs of the trip (a side-effect of using my Alaska frequent flyer miles), so maybe I'll be able to relax a bit and sleep a little on the two shorter legs if not on the long middle one.

I walked 16,000 steps yesterday and 13,000 today. My legs and feet can feel it, but with me eating so much, I'm glad I'm also doing something work it off.

Today we had intended to go down to Silver Springs for the Lyon County Fly-In aviation event at the Silver Springs airport, but heavy rains and flooding Saturday night canceled the vendors and many of the events, so instead (since we needed to do our heavy grocery shopping anyway) we drove into Reno to see the National Automobile Museum, also known as "The Harrah Collection" inasmuch as it is built from the core of the late Bill Harrah's (of Harrah's casino entertainment group) huge collection of vehicles. Harrah's collection (apparently as many as 1,400 cars) was at one time housed in a building in Sparks, and Lisa and I went and visited it there years ago. Harrah had made no provision for the care of his collection after his death, and when he died most of the vehicles were sold, although 147 were saved for the 501(c)(3) museum formed after his death. The museum is just south of the Truckee River in downtown Reno. (If you'd been at Renovation and wanted to see it, it would have been a short bus ride on the express buses that run along Virginia Street.)

( A Drive Through the Past )

There are more photos than what I show here; click through to see the rest of them.

We spent a fair bit of the day at the museum. I'd allow at least one hour per gallery if you like reading the displays. Also note that aside from a single vending machine, there is no food and drink available at the museum. By the time we were done, I was pretty tired and my legs hurt. It might have worked a bit better to be there at opening, look at a couple of galleries, walk across the river to downtown Reno for lunch, then come back for the rest of the afternoon.

In our case, after our day at the museum, we drove down to the Atlantis and had a late lunch/early dinner at Cafe Alfresco, where luck was really with me on the keno, and even after using some winnings to buy five more games of keno and tipping the keno runner, I still had $3.50 more than I started. Lisa also had good luck initially with the slots, but it did catch up with us later.

We did not forget to do the actual errand for which we came to Reno, and made our trip to Winco to stock up on groceries before heading home. Our timing was good; we avoided the thunderstorms that have been moving through the area, and they didn't hit us until after we got the groceries in.

When we renewed our membership in the Friends of the Nevada State Railroad Museum, we learned that it includes admission not just to the NSRM, but to six other state museums, only one of which (the East Ely museum) we visited recently. So on Saturday, we drove over to Carson City to visit the one we'd been to many years ago, the Nevada State Museum at Carson City. The museum is located in the former Carson City Mint, and not surprisingly there is a good portion of the museum dedicated to the former mint operations. We thought of pcornelius and Lisa said, "Take a picture!" when we got to the coin/mint operations section.

( Watch Your Fingers )

The nice thing about having a free admission to a museum near where you live is that you don't feel pressured to look at everything and read everything. We'll go back another day to look at the exhibits we missed yesterday. We also will make a point of going to the Reno museum, and probably someday the Las Vegas one, and of course we must find time to to the NSRM Boulder City as well, although unfortunately our next trip that direction is likely to be when they are not operating.

Today we drove from Tucson AZ to Tempe AZ, covering merely 128 miles. But that's because it was Museum Day.

( Planes, Trains, and Space Capsules )

Having had our fill of museums and knowing that we still had miles to cover, we hit the road for Tempe. This drive had more excitement than I wanted. First a minivan and then a big-rig almost sideswiped us. Then, as we were getting ready to leave a rest stop, my phone went off with the emergency alert signal warning of dust storms in the area. Fortunately, those weren't as bad as feared. There was intermittent and sometimes heavy rain coming in to Tempe, but not too awful.

After moving in to the hotel and getting some stuff done, we headed to downtown to eat at the restaurant we enjoyed so much during the last Phoenix-area Westercon, My Big Fat Greek Restaurant. Their menu appears to have changed a bit since we were last here, but we were able to get what we wanted and we liked it. This is the sort of long-term economic impact that is impossible to measure when a convention comes to town: long-term repeat business, even from people who aren't local to the convention.

I have more I'd like to write and more photos I'd like to post, but I'm very tired and need more sleep. We're off to Las Vegas tomorrow for two nights at the Venetian before we head home. Unfortunately, I have at least four hours of Day Jobbery to get done while I'm in Las Vegas so that it is on the desired desk by Monday morning, and that means the stay might not be as restful as I would like.