Reno

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Today it's a bit of a drive through the last of Nevada on the "Loneliest Road in America" to arrive in Reno where we stay overnight.

This is Reg's first visit to a state where gambling is legal, even encouraged. In Nevada, even on the loneliest of roads, and even in the smallest of towns, there's slot machines/one armed bandits in all the bars and restaurants.  In Reno, "The Biggest Little City in the World", there's a ton of them. Casinos of all sorts, Fitzgeralds, Hurrahs, and more, with flashing neon lights, the clinking and blinking of the slots and lots of interesting characters. Some bowling league/conference is in town. We meet a character on the street who has a nice friendly dog wearing sunglasses. The casinos are filled with lots of aged tourists, and bowlers, happy to lose their money.

For our dinner, we have a table side Caesar Salad made by the server at a very nice white table cloth restaurant overlooking the Truckee River. Reg observes carefully and this becomes the important lesson on how to make the salad which becomes a regular feature in our diet for the years to come.

Kate and I do play some blackjack and feed some of the slots in the casinos but mostly we marvel at the bright lights on "The Strip". We take a $20 "grub stake" each, leave our wallets behind, and promise that when that's gone we'll not spend any more. At most casinos, they'll serve you free drinks hoping that you'll play until your grub stake is gone and you're deep in debt. Many people come to town with a wad they expect to leave behind hoping that they might strike it rich but at least have a few free drinks.

Kate tells me that she's been here years ago with her former partner Steve, when they lived in Vancouver. He like gambling, cards, and such. It's a fair drive from Vancouver (a full long day) but one of the closer places where gambling is legal. It's also just a short distance from California to the west where gambling, and casinos like these, are not legal. Likewise on the other side of the state, gambling in Nevada appeals to tourists from Utah (the Mormon state) where gambling and drinking are either illegal or frowned upon.

I find the gambling culture very strange, but interesting nonetheless, and I'm not keen to lose money so honor Kate's $20 grub stake rule. We would hate to have to hock the car to pay off a big losing streak. In years to come we return to Nevada many times, often to Las Vegas where the gambling is at a whole other level, for access to the desert country we've come to admire on this trip. 

Casinos are interesting, especially those that have big shows, but gambling has never appealed to either of us. Certainly not as much as the beauty of the desert country we've spent the last few days exploring.

Photos scanned and blog created April 2022 during the BadAss.II Covid wave and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.