Tahoe/Reno Part Three

Other than nights at Tahoe, I have spent about three nights in my life in Northern Nevada. The first time was outside of Carson City. I was about 8 years old. We were driving to Utah, and stopped to camp. Coyotes barked all night. My father talked about a guy he knew who was on the FBI's most wanted list. My father said that the guy was probably living out there in the desert. Between the coyotes, worrying about a murderer, and the general misery of camping, I don't think that I slept that night.

The next time was right after I graduated from college. We were driving a U-Haul across the desert as we returned to California from Utah. We hoped that we could make the drive in one day, but we were simply too slow. So we stayed overnight in a Motel Six in Reno. All I remember about that night after taking a shower, I lied down on the bed before getting dress. The next thing I knew I was waking up naked on the bed the next morning.

The next time I stayed overnight in Northern Nevada was last Saturday night. We picked a Fairfield Inn in Sparks. The motel is located in an industrial part of the town, but is otherwise a nice place for a Fairfield Inn. Plus, the staff was great--terrifically helpful with advise for dinner spots and directions. A very pleasant stay.


We went to an Italian restaurant in South Reno for dinner. You walk into the bar. The bar tv was tuned to the Niner-Cowboy preseason game. There were only 40 seconds left in the tied game. The Niners had the ball at the Cowboy 7. The waitress wanted to seat us. I told her to hold off for 30 seconds. The next play, the Niners scored. Ok, it's only preseason, and my third team can beat your third team sort of thing, but it was fun to watch the Niners win, even in preseason.

The game was better than the food. I had a ravioli dish which was only so-so. The ravioli were pasty and chewy. Oh, well...

The next morning, Dorey and I awoke to go on a walk. We walked through an industrial park, racking up about 5,000 steps. We would have walked more, but we wanted to get to church.

OK, here's a dilemma. Do you get blessings if you try to get to church, but miss it because the information on the Internet is wrong. Before our walk that morning, we checked the lobby Internet for a local ward starting time. We were told 9:00 a.m. Beauty. We could attend Sacrament meeting, and then go back to the motel to change and check out. We rolled into the church parking lot at about 8:55, just in time to slip into the back of the chapel for the start of Sacrament meeting so that we could just as easily slip out at the final amen.

As we walked into the building, however, we found that the chapel was full, and the speaker was half-way through his sermon. Obviously, we were late. Dorey wandered down the hall to see if this building had two chapels. She found some brother, who said that just the last week, they had moved another ward into the building. To accommodate the four wards in the building, they had to change the start times. The first ward began at 8:00, and the next ward at 10:00. The person looked very embarrassed, as if it were his job to make the changes of the start times on the website. I figured we tried, and listened to the end of the sermon, and left to change and check out.

Anyway, on Wednesday, I walked 12,498 steps. On Thursday, I walked 11,352 steps. Overall, as of this moment, 4:44 p.m. on Friday, September 4, 2009, I have walked 863,704 steps in 71 days.