Reno/Tahoe - Spring 2001
After having such a great trip to Tucson the previous month, Karlin & I could hardly wait for our next excursion. Luckily, Karlin had a conference in Reno and I decided to tag along for a few days. We decided to visit Lake Tahoe the weekend prior and enjoy its scenic beauty.
Our flight did not leave Denver until 1:00 pm, which proved to give me too much free time in the morning, as I tried to SuperGlue my fingers together on a little repair job. But we made it to the airport without problems only to find absolutely ZERO parking spots in the economy lot. Along with a few other cars, we aimlessly drove around the lot, hoping to get lucky and find someone leaving. After about 10 minutes I spotted a car heading down the main aisle and dashed to the row I thought they came out of, and viola, a spot. In our glee at finding one, neither of us paid attention to which row we parked in. "Row M or N", Karlin thought, which was more than I could come up with. It should be real fun trying to find the car at 10:00 at night, after I get back on Tuesday.
To save money we flew to L.A. then caught another flight to Reno. All went smooth as we picked up our
Dodge Intrepid rental car, exactly the same car that we had in Tucson. I promised not to stand on the roof
of this one and leave my mark, like last time. An hour south of Reno we hit Lake Tahoe and checked into the Embassy Suites, our favorite hotel chain (can't beat the free happy hour and breakfasts). On the way down I kidded Karlin about the great entertainment we were missing in Reno that night, Glen Campbell!
She also thought I was joking when I saw a billboard announcing Kenny Wayne Shepherd
at Harrahs in Tahoe
the next two nights, having never heard of him and thinking, with that name, that he must be some country
singer. Au contraire, mon frere, he is a Texas Blues Rocker, in the style of Stevie Ray Vaughan, my nickname namesake. The first thing we did after checking into the Embassy was hit Harrahs, right next door,
and get tickets for Saturday night's show.
After dinner we decided to rid our pockets of coins in the slot machines at Ceasar's Palace. I emptied mine in no time flat and was about to tell Karlin what a worthless waste of time & money this is when, "ding, ding, ding", the quarters are flowing out of her machine. $50 worth of quarters later, I tell her "thats it, we just paid for dinner", and she cashed out. We then hit Harveys looking for a $2 black-jack table (I'm such a big bettor), but didn't find any, so we rid our pockets of dimes. At least I did. At her machine its "ding, ding, ding", and the dimes are flowing out. $20 worth of dimes and one attendant later, she's cashing in again. Not a bad night's return of cash for only putting in $2 worth of coins.
After stuffing ourselves at the free breakfast Saturday morning, we dipped into the indoor pool at the hotel where I got to wear an Embassy bathrobe and show off my new Speedos (never mind the developing fat gut).
Our plan for Saturday was to rent bikes and ride near the lake. Karlin got some advice from the concierge about a trip to Fallen Leaf Lake, about 10 miles away, so we made that our goal. We got a couple of real classy bikes from a little shop next to Safeway and headed out. My ride had a spiffy basket in front, with a license plate reading "Fu Manchu", so I got to carry the purse. We got to briefly ride near Lake Tahoe, but the bike route seemed to take us away from the lake more than anything. Not sure if we were actually on the route we intended, we kept following the bike route signs until eventually we got outside of town a little and got to ride through the trees. We found the road to Fallen Leaf Lake and started heading up a hill, not sure how to interpret the sign that said "Trucks not recommended past this point". By this time, the wind had picked up considerably and the temperature was dropping the higher we got. After about 5 miles, we made it to the lake and Karlin rejoiced at having made it with me on our first bike ride together. The lake was quite scenic but would have been much nicer in the summer. Karlin refused to get out on one of the piers for a photo as the wind was whipping up whitecaps over the edges. The ride downhill was much more fun and we returned our bikes three hours after picking them up, tired but exhilarated.
Saturday night we attended the sold-out Kenny Wayne show. The 22 year-old can flat out play the guitar. His second encore and final song was Voodoo Chile which was enough to bring a tear to any Stevie Ray fan. The show might have been a little more enjoyable if it wasn't for the drunk/stoned/crazy woman a few rows in front of us who kept screaming at the stage, asking them to play their hit song, Blue on Black, the one they played two songs ago.
Sunday was clear and wind-free and we decided to take the Gondola ride to the top of the Heavenly Ski Area, which was still open. The view on the way up was scenic, but spectacular from the top. A nice, new, observation platform provided the beautiful views.
Before leaving Tahoe, Karlin picked up a couple houses/property for sale magazines, just to see what kind of prices some of the nicer homes around the lake were going for. While the $4.4 million house on the golf course at Incline Village was nice, we especially liked the secluded, private cove, three-building estate listed on the back cover for $40 million.
We finished our trip to Tahoe by driving around the California side of the lake, seeing the beautiful Emerald Bay and the only island on the whole lake. We made it back to Reno where we checked into the Silver Legacy, the nicest hotel/casino in town. Heaven forbid if Nevada ever has the
energy problems California has. These resorts have flashing, blinking lights on every sign/machine in the place. Each gets lost
in the visual din of all the rest, so whats the point.
Monday was the first day of Karlin's conference, so she had to register in the morning while I got to watch morning TV. How exciting. We had a 12:00 tee-time at the Lake Ridge Golf course and it was a gorgeous sunny day. There weren't many people on the
course, so we got to play by ourselves. There may not have been many people, but the sure were a lot of varmints. Yellow-bellied Marmots to be
exact. They lived in the rocks on the golf course and were its mascot. Life obviously must be good, as all of them seemed to be
more fat-bellied than yellow-bellied. The golf course was nice but not that impressive until we got
to the 15th hole, a par-3 with an elevated tee to an island green, 130 feet below our feet. The score card read 239 yards from the blue tees and 220 from the whites. I used a three-wood off the blues and hit a good shot that landed short of the green
and rolled just off the back. Feeling good about that one, we both tried teeing off of the white tees. I pureed a 4-iron that struck
the green and stopped 20 feet away. Karlin did not have as much luck, landing short of the lake and one-hopping into the drink.
She stated up-front that she wouldn't waste more than two balls trying to hit the green, and used up her allotment at the normal
women's red-tees.
Karlin's conference had their social get-together that night, with a 60's-theme band. She was quite annoyed at their performance habits, 30-minutes of playing, followed by 20-minutes of break, repeated. I felt someone should tell them that the 60's were more than Creedence Clearwater Revival, which is what half their songs were.
Still searching for a $2 black-jack table, we tried Circus Circus, which was connected to the Silver Legacy. We came close, with a $3 table, and plunked a few bucks down to play. Karlin, having not played black-jack at a casino before, took a while to get adjusted to the rules: only one hand on the cards, physically indicate that you want another card, put the chips side by side when you double down. We're throwing down our $3 per hand, while the oriental guy playing at the table with us is betting $50-100 per hand. I quickly move up to $5 per hand (much easier putting one chip down than 3 silvers) and win a few double downs. The other guy gets disgusted and leaves when he loses $225 on one hand and takes his stuffed animal with him. Unfortunately a smoker takes his place and it looks like hes' planning to stay awhile, so we cash out, $46 richer, and go splurge at Dairy Queen.
Tuesday was my play/travel day while Karlin had to work (ha! ha!), and I chose to play the newer Red Hawk
Golf Course, a very nice 36-hole hole layout North of Sparks. I needn't have worried about getting on, there
was no one there and I got to play by myself. The carts were equipped with GPS (global positioning satellite)
systems and a video screen from ParView that diagrammed the hole and showed you exactly the distance to the
green and various spots (bunkers, lakes) from wherever the cart was. Very cool!
This was the end for me. I had to go home while Karlin stayed to finish her conference. I bid her adieu and headed for the airport. I kind of knew something was up when I got there as there were three American Airlines counter employees and exactly zero customers. Oh yeah, the flight to L.A. has been delayed and I'm about to experience some of the "air hell" going around. But no! Since I would miss my connecting flight they booked me on a United flight that left 15 minutes earlier and was non-stop to Denver! Oh yeah! You can go right ahead and put me on that flight. Instead of arriving in Denver at 9:00 pm, I touched down at 5:30 with plenty of daylight to find my truck in the lot (which was actually in row S).