Firstly, thnks to everyone who as so kind as to offer their support to Elizabeth for her brave efforts to take over from me in Reno yesterday while I had to go back to Santa Barbara for a business meeting. Elizabeth received a number of congratulatory emails such as the one from Kate (someone or other) from London who said :-
Well I have been waiting with baited (think that is how you spell it) breath to read your blog and I have to say it was very good. Informative and also funny, I don’t know why he spends so much time doing this he should pass it over to you!!!!
Martin from Melbourne in Australia who commented :-
Well, for my money the San Fran - Reno blog has been, by some considerable distance, the most entertaining, witty, informative, and fully slick of your blogs to date. It's almost like it's been written by a completely different author.
...and from Sarah, also in London :-
I thought Liz's Blog was the best one so far (sorry Gary).
I have to say that I found your support touching (particularly since Elizabeth is so new to this - she had previously thought that "blogging" was something that went on at night, in carparks, between consenting adults), and obviously we're all looking forward to her next blog which will be published sometime next year.
Today, we were due to make the long trek from Reno to Twin Fall, Idaho which basically amounts to 450 miles through Nevada desert. It is kind of wierd, once you leave California behind, to think that you're going to drive almost 4,000 miles (mostly in a straight line) before you see the ocean again...and today, we drove and drove...
We stopped at Winnemucca (you must have heard of Winnemucca !!) for lunch and really were spoilt for choice.
Should we go for the "Flying Pig bar-b-que" or a "drive thru Taco" - it's always a difficult choice, isn't it ?? In the end, we were split between Cody & Brandon, who by that time were so hungry that they would have quite happily eaten a flying taco or a motorised pig or whatever; and me, who would have preferred to cut off one of my own limbs and bar-b-cue'd that rather that try either of those establishments. In the end, we compromised and went for Macdonalds. It seemed appropriate - after all, as I said to both Cody & Brandon - it was only fair that, if we were going to visit a bunch of universities which might be viable options for Harley after he left school........
After lunch, more driving - mile after mile after mile of desert as you can see in this video...
....although the boys, watching a "Pirates of the Carribean" DVD, didn't seem to notice...
Finally, at around 6:00pm, we crossed the border from Nevada into Idaho. We also changed timezones and are now in the "Mountain" Time Zone.Probably the hardest part of the drive so far has been keeping below the speed limit, especially when there are no shortage of highway cops hidden out by the road, just waiting for some unsuspecting tourist to step out of line...
We were due to stop for the night at the Ameritel Inn in Twin Falls, Idaho - approx 120 mile across the border. It seemed okay on the internet but we were naturally concerned when we arrived to see the following welcoming sign...
A sign that says you may want to reconsider going for the $5.95 three course dinner....
However, it's actually not too bad....tomorrow we cross over into Wyoming - yee haw !!
To see exactly where we are on a map - scroll all the way to the bottom...
