Reno

"All the way to Reno,
You've written your own directions,
And whistled the rules of change."
- Michael Stipe (REM)
"All the way to Reno"

Reno is a shock to the system. It is the largest city we have seen since Chicago and is significantly "louder" (but not really in an audible way). The hotel we are staying in has a pretty big casino attached (knew that), security guards roaming the parking lot (didn't know that) and is probably the oldest property we have stayed in so far (guessed that from the price of the room).

The journey to this place was an adeventure in itself. Craters of the Moon (Idaho) is considered the "strangest 76 square miles on the North American continent". It is volcanic in nature and allows you to walk into several dormant spatter cones and to see very cool (thankfully) lava flows that stretch for miles and miles. As "cool" as it was, it was a sparse 45 minutes of our ultimate 13 hour day in the car.

We left West Yellowstone, Montana at 8:00 MDT and arrived in Reno at 8:15 PDT. Ick. Many, many miles on 2 lane highways in Idaho and Nevada. Only once we made it to I-80 did the curse of the "orange signs" finally lift. Roadwork on a western two lane highway involves one way traffic, street lights or poor people who have to stand and hold a stop/slow sign in the 95 degree heat all day. We hit about 6 of these during our trip (thankfully the longest wait was only about 15 minutes and had some great scenery to look at).

Another unique aspect of the day was watching thunderstorms develop from miles away over the dry Nevada landscape. At one point the van was buffeted with 40 - 50 mph winds as a storm veered close (not much rain but wind and lightning). Near Lovelock, Nevada there was a large storm that kicked up such a huge amount of dust that it resembled a sand storm that partially obliterated the sun.

All this excitement led us to our arrival in "the biggest little city in America". As we unpacked and Shelly gathered clothing from the five large duffel bags each of us have, we were approached by two homeless (?) people exclaiming their bad luck and requesting our assistance with their "predicament". Awesome fun after 13 hours in the car and a very cranky Jacob to deal with.

Arrive we did and leave we will soon...