Reno Trip Report Part One

We left for Reno right about 5:30 after work for Reno. We used to visit Reno with more frequency when we lived in Phoenix and it was only a four hour drive or so but we hadn’t been since moving out here to Cali 8 years ago. Neither of us were prepared for the crazy twisty turny race car freeway traffic that awaited us once we turned on the 80 to Reno. I had been trying to nap but the car was swerving so much I took a peek at what was out the front windshield. When I saw the mad rush of cars and semi trucks spiraling up the highway at breakneck speeds I immediately put my sleep mask back on and laid back down. There would be no sleeping after that but I knew better than to try and sit up and see what was happening. That would be panic attack city.
Anyhoo, we made really good time and got to the hotel by 11:00 PM. For such a large hotel we were both surprised that there was no parking structure, but we shrugged and were glad we had on our walking shoes.
For some reason 11:15 on a Friday night was a mad rush hour at the check in desk as we discovered there was quite a long line. It did move fairly swiftly although did have to listen to the lady in front of us bitching about how she was there to change her room because her bed was too small for her.
Once we checked in we headed up to the room and discovered two double beds even though I had booked a king. Not one to let that shit bother us we quickly made the other bed the suitcase holder/catch all,
We were both pretty worn out and neither of us wanted to venture downstairs but it was getting after midnight and we would need to eat before going to bed so I put on my big girl panties and headed down to the little cafe to get two overpriced sandwiches and an Oreo parfait for Rob.
The rest of the night we just ate and watched TV before falling asleep.

This morning I woke up as Rob was grabbing more water from the maid service(it’s free with the groupon we had). We got up and puttered a bit before heading down to get the buffet. The free vouchers we rcvd with our groupon stated we got free breakfast buffets and the actual comp ticket said breakfast/brunch. So the night before I had called to see when the brunch ended and the lady on the other end told me at two. So you can imagine my surprise when we got there and were told breakfast was over and brunch was only on Sundays. Meh.
We shrugged and went over to get our players cards instead. After that we walked around getting the layout of the casino. We checked out the spa floor where the fast food places were. I kinda wanted to do the Round Table lunch buffet but Rob opted out saying Pizza was too hard to resist.. We kept walking and found this cute little shop that had lots of toys and stuffed animals in it. We got a couple of things and then I declared I was starving so we dropped off the bag in the room and headed down to the buffet.
Not being free I didn’t feel it was really worth the 30 something we paid for the two of us but it was decent enough and the food was quite good. Gonna stick to the free comps from now on though.
After lunch we played a couple of different slot machines and ended up down 13 dollars or so before heading up to the room.
Rob had brought his laptop with him to work on his new CD’s but he forgot the bluetooth dongle to make his keyboard work(long story involving leaving his laptop out in the rain one day) so he was SOL. We had already decided today(saturday) was going to be a relax around the room day since it would be pretty busy at the casino tonight but now he didn’t have the project to work on.
When we drove in last night we saw a Walmart across the street from the hotel so I tossed up the idea of heading over there and then it was agreed that we should WALK over there to work off the lunch and dessert we had just pigged out on. And that is just what we did.
I figure it was a half a mile each way so we got in about a mile walk, got some fresh air and got some much needed things we forgot at home and other things…like this snazzy little bluetooth keyboard for my iPad. I’d been wanting one forever. I love my iPad and iPhone so much that it pretty much eliminates the need for me to bring my laptop on trips, except for writing trip reports like this. This keyboard will work with both the pad and the phone plus it’s small and rechargeable. I love it already!!!
Now we are settled into the hotel chilling out and no longer guilty about the lunch we had. I figure we’ll go down later and get a pizza from Round Table but right now I think I’m going to lay down and read my book.
I love vacations. 🙂