Vacation, sweet Vacation

[jcfiala]

This is a blog post copied from John's Website - please feel free to join him there and post comments. He has set up openid, so you can post there with your livejournal account using your openid, which is the same as your journal url minus the http://. You can find this entry at http://www.jcfiala.net/blog/2009/07/16/vacation-sweet-vacation.

So, This week I've been on vacation.

It was originally going to be more of a week at the ocean, but since suddenly my friend JM was getting married, it turned into a trip to Reno followed by a trip to the ocean, but this was a little nicer in some ways because I got to spend more time with my wife Tammy.

Flying to Reno was nice in that the flights were pretty empty, but there were two wierd bits - first, we had to fly through Las Vegas to get to Reno, and second, our takeoff was delayed at least 100 minutes by rain, which is yet another sign of the seriously odd weather we're having in Denver this year. Usually we're in a desert, but this year we've got a lot of rainfall...

Reno was... a little odd. We were staying at the Circus Circus Reno, which is a bit drab and not the most exciting casino I've been in. But on the plus side it was cheap - $55/night, and it had the most activities for children that I've seen in a casino so far. It had a lot of arcade machines scattered around the upper floor, as well as a midway area with more arcade machines and all of those fun skill and chance games where you spend a buck to win a 30 cent toy. :) So, for JM, who's marrying a woman with a daughter, this was a better choice on the whole. His father-in-law-to-be was also getting married the same weekend at the same place, so all of the bride's family was already there, which was nice.

After having a rather poor breakfast at the Americana Cafe at the Circus, we finally met up with JM and Luna, hitting the road with them to try and track down a good park for a wedding, as they wanted to have it outdoors. We went down by the river, but that was too crowded and not really green enough. After that we stopped for some drinks at a gas station which had a pile of yellow pages outside, and we grabbed on for the map, showing a few parks. The first park we tried to get to was impossible to find, but the second was larger and had a huge pond/lake in it, which turned out to be nicer. After looking around it a bit, we found a lovely spot by a pavilion where many angles didn't include any commercial buildings at all, just greenery.

On the way back we split up, them heading to Senior's wedding, while Tammy and I went to have lunch at a lovely BBQ place there that was the best food we had. It was technically part of the circus, but I think it was actually run as part of the Silver Legacy Casino, which shared a building with the circus. We made sure to eat there a second time on Sunday for lunch.

Dinner was later on at the Circus' Buffet, which was about usual for an everyday buffet, and then we got dolled up and headed out to the lake. JM and I were dressed in kilts, made by our SO's, while Tammy was in some of her renn garb along with a matching skirt she'd made to my kilt, and Luna (the bride) was in a white dress. It was very pretty at the shoreline, and there was even a rainbow in the sky. There were various bits to read out, and there were some small problems due to a lack of rehersal, but on the whole it was a lovely ceremony, and I should be able to link to pictures later.

The wedding was followed by a slow procession past the various midway games, but even with an extra coffee I was tired out, and Tammy and I headed to bed soon.

The next day we slipped up early and went by the Silver Legacy's Champagne brunch buffet, which was a little more expensive but much, much better food. Pork buns, salmon, bacon, sausage, waffle with strawberries... I had a lot of really good food, along with some nice ambrosia I went back for a second serving of.

After breakfast we packed up and got a call from JM and all, who were leaving early for their drive back to California. We went down (by chance, we were on the 15th floor and they were on the 14th. Happily, the stairs allowed us to go down a floor quickly instead of having to wait for an elevator.) and wished them goodbye and goodluck, and waved them off. That done, we headed out and decided to go down to the riverwalk to wander and shop.

Reno has a free bus that goes north to the university and south to the riverwalk, and not only is it free, but it's also got free wifi in the bus. so, this let me get in touch with the real world for a bit. Hopping off of the bus, we found ourselves in front of the Java Jungle, which had a nice iced coffee and more free wifi, where we hung out for half an our on our iPods and enjoyed a bit of the net. From there we wandered on past a neat art space, where I saw some fantastic robot-related art... pointed the guy at the counter to Mile Hi Con.

We wandered and shopped for a bit longer, finding an outdoor market where I bought some wasabi peas and Tammy tried some fresh sample fruits. After a dip into one of those antique malls, we decided to go wait for the free bus back. Waiting paired us up with a gentleman who had just moved to Reno from Denver, so we chatted a bit, and he said that there was a *lot* more going on in Reno than had been in Denver. Once we returned to the hotel we had lunch at the BBQ place again, and then decided to grab our bags and head to the airport early.

Happily, in addition to the usual stores and slot machines, the Reno airport has free wireless and so we ended up waiting for our flight sitting by an outlet, charging ipods and occasionally taking breaks to walk among the shops and get drinks. Our flight home was uneventful other than an amusing incident with the TSA, where a bundle of wires and a poker set looked a little suspicious and required re-scanning. (It was nice - we found the poker set in a shop, where it had chips from $1 to $100, which are useful for many boardgames as currency. But since *one* of the five six sided dice in the set were missing, I got 15% off!)

We got back home late at night, and went on home, where I plugged in my phone and ipod to recharge before my next flight on Monday to OC, which I think I'll include in the next letter.

Tammy's a little dismissive of Reno - she didn't encounter anything there that she couldn't get in Las Vegas, so why not just go there? Personally, Reno struck me as a town that is probably a lot more fun if you don't go there for the Casinos. We saw people rafting down the river by the riverwalk, something I would have been tempted to do if it had been warmer. I also flipped through an 'artbook' - a list of all the culteral events happening, and it seemed to have two pages of things for every day of the week, and that's in addition to the all-month events! I think Tammy might have more fun at the Atlantis, if we end up heading out there for Worldcon in 2011.

More later!