This morning as we waved good-bye to Gary, I felt a little nervous, not because I was going to spend the day driving 300 miles on my own with the boys in tow, but because tonight I would be ‘Blog Master” in his absence. And how right I was - I am sitting in front of the computer and my mind is an absolute blank — “Nothing new there,” I hear Gary mutter to himself when he reads this. So let’s start at the beginning. We left the Fairmont at 10:00 and at 10:01 Brandon realised he had left his rucksack in the room. Ten minutes later we were headed off again. We asked the doorman for directions to the freeway — he told us to turn left and then left again, follow the road and we would be there in 3 minutes. We managed the first left and then forgot what he said and went right - 40 minutes later, after having had a major falling out with the lady who runs the Sat-Nav, and gone up and down virtually every hill in San Francisco, we finally found ourselves on the I 80 East.
I have to say it is a very beautiful drive — lots of tall green trees interspersed with lovely lakes. It is quite a windy road and would have been fine had not a major part of the road been being dug up. We spent several miles threading through cones, but luckily the lorry in front was very wide and so we knew if he could make it so could we! The boys chose all the music - who knew Mott the Hoople and Journey were such fun to sing along to; it made a change from Gary’s Motown selection.
We arrived in Reno around 3 pm; it really is a poor man’s Las Vegas, though I must say the Peppermill Hotel is actually very nice. It was around 100 degrees when we checked in so we all went for a swim. Unfortunately Cody and Brandon discovered that they have a kids arcade here, so they disappeared for a couple of hours and came back bearing several high class ‘prizes’ (not). Harley and I hit the Gym, then we all headed out for dinner.
So here we are back in our room, the boys are arguing over who has ordered the better ice-cream from room service and what film we should order on the TV.
We pick Gary up from the airport at 9:45 tomorrow morning and head off for Twin Falls.
Finally, we would just like to point out that Gary now will not have actually driven all the way across the States, he will have flown 300 miles of it!
