Nevada

October 16-18, 2016

Nevada

We awoke to WIND and RAIN in the middle of the night – a strong storm blew in, changing from the warm Indian summer to feeling like winter?  Our day’s route had us back on the I-80 west towards Nevada – we drove through the Great Salt Flats. The Safari was zipping along the Bonneville Salt Flats at 80 mph (the legal speed limit!) Who knew our bucket of bolts could fly like that?  Most of the drive was rainy, but the wind from last night had calmed down.

Making our way into Nevada the unbelievable happened. YES another flat tire. The left dolly tire got shredded again! What the Hell? So sitting along the I-80 with traffic zooming around us we seriously were questioning our sanity for these cross-country trips??  After about 2 hours of waiting the tow truck arrived, loaded the busted dolly onto his flat bed and we were off to Elko, NV about 55 miles west.  Alan the tow driver took off with the Safari and Prius following. You know the expression “Bats out of Hell”? Rain is pouring down. Driving with our windshield wipers on HIGH, and hurtling down the I-80 at 75+ MPH – Karen suddenly became RELIGIOUS: OMG, OMG! She can’t see anything, water spraying off the road and the other vehicles. Could this get worse? A construction zone comes up, and Karen falls behind loosing sight of MoHo, and sure that this was not going to end well. Finally when the construction zone ended, with white knuckles on the steering wheel she took off passing big rigs, trailers, cars and other stuff she couldn’t see. Damn where is the MoHo?  Why won’t the rain stop?  And the gas gauge is on empty! This is not good! After what seems to be forever, Karen pulls up behind a big rig and sees the toucans on the back, - the Safari has been found. Karen will not let the it get away again! Finally we get off the freeway and found the Les Schwab. We boon docked (unofficially camped out in their parking lot) overnight. Being early in line for repair 1^st thing in the morning.

Monday morning we were able to get 3 new tires (new dolly tire, new dolly spare, new Prius spare) and get back on the road to Reno. The rest of the day was quite boring, no wind, rain, or tire problems. Spent the afternoon in camp relaxing and catching up on a few chores.

Rested and in better frame of minds the traveling duo struck out to win their fortune?? Any little bit would be appreciated. Our luck surely was about ready to change??  We took a drive into Reno to try to make some $$. Our first stop in town was at the Nevada Museum of Art – unfortunately it wasn’t open today, but we enjoyed the unique sculpture garden. The Grand Sierra Resort was next on our schedule – maybe a little investment in the poker machines would yield us a RETURN?  We enjoyed an hour of entertainment, but with no real gains. We then ventured out for lunch at the Atlantis Resort. We won there with a great meal of oysters on the half shell, Knob Creek Manhattans, and nice view of the city from the Sky Terrace. 

With a few more dollars to blow we tried our luck at the Nugget Casino in Sparks in the evening.  A nice poker bar, a couple of drinks were enjoyed, but no profit to be made. Oh well got the gambling bug out of our systems. We had an improved Nevada adventure the last 2 days; tomorrow we are heading to California.