Reno (or at least Sparks) Baby!
It's April First, 10:34 a.m. and I find myself sitting at a lounge
table in the "John Ascuaga Scholarship Hall of Fame" at "John
Ascuaga's Nugget Hotel and Casino" in Sparks, Nevada (Adjacent to
Reno). Pictures of past scholarship winners hang in glass frames
across from a nameless bar. Morning patrons, a handful of them, sit
at the bar and a few take advantage of the "Bloody Mary Buffet" cart
situated between the bar and the copper-topped bay window display of
rotisserie chickens.
Two Asian gentlemen in suits sit one table away, smoking Marlboros and
talking. At another table, an East Indian mother and daughter -- both
in Saris -- and son watch their husband/father play a nearby "Wheel of
Fortune" slot machine. A Beatles tune from the early sixties is
nearly lost in the beeps, chirps, and rings from the countless gaming
machines in the casino. An occasional refugee from the sports
marketing convention strolls by, trailing a yellow m&m's wheelie
cooler. Those sports marketing people get all the good stuff!
As if this isn't enough of a cosmic April Fool's joke, the mouse
button on my computer's touch pad has gone on the fritz, deciding at
random that it is being held down even though it has been released.
Luckily my mouse is close at hand.
So, you may ask me, "Well, how did you get here?"
Kim's American Acadamy of Advertising (AAA) meeting is in Reno, and
unable to resist anything as shiny as a casino, I came along as a
trailing spouse.
We drove down on Wed. A straight shot down I-5 and then west on a
variety of state highways in CA and NV. I-5 was smooth and the route
west was a gorgeous drive on clear roads through snowy pine forests.
The Nugget. What can you say about it. Two 25 foot story towers, six
or seven restaurants, and a casino. Its a rockin' place. In fact
it's the only place I've ever been where hits from the 60's, 70's, and
80's are piped into the parking garage. It rocks hard. They have a
"golden" rooster in a display case. See the picture to prove
it. (click for a good write-up of the Nugget).
Wed. Night, we had dinner at a bar/restaurant in the casino.
Random observations:
- A large percentage of weekday gamblers are old.
- People bring their children here. Why?
- Quite a few of the senior gamblers have cards (I assume cash cards)
that plug into the machines. These are tethered to their belt by a
curly cord. When they sit in front of the machine with that cord
running from the slot machine to their body, they look like the
machine is providing life support. Hmmm...
- If you are a woman in your 50's, a bit overweight, and puffy (as if
on steroids), you will probably not looked good with spiked
bleach-blonde hair, tight jeans rolled up to capri length, and zebra
striped high-tops.
Our friend Steve gave us $2.00 in quartes for the express purpose of
building his son's college fund. We chose a lucky looking machine and
ran the quarters through. If you've never played a slot machine,
here's a way to experience it without leaving home:
Take a handful of quarters into the bathroom. Drop one into the
toilet and pull the handle. Look to see if any quarters came out of
the front of the toilet. Repeat until you are out of quarters. If
you're running short on time, you can always drop in multiple quarters
per flush.
Needless to say, Steve's son won't be going to Harvard law on what
we are (or are not) bringing back for him.
Thursday Kim spent the day at the conference. I bought a zoom lense
for my camera at a local camera store (Gordon's, very pleasant and
very helpful) and headed 35 miles north to Pyramid Lake. This lake is
a remnant of the prehistoric, 84,000 square mile Lake Lahontan. It is
fed in part by hot springs, which form calcium carbonate structures
know as tufas. These dot the landscape around the shores, and some
stick out of the lake. The pyramid rock formation for which the lake
is named is a tufa. Large trout inhabit the lake as do white
pelicans. I came primarily for the tufas and the pelicans and was not
disappointed. With the zoom lense I was able to get some good shots
of a group of pelicans. Photographing the tufas was much less of
a challenge.
(Lest you forget where I am right now, two tables away a young man is
lighting a cigarette for his female companion. This is remarkable
only because her hair is just on the green side of azure.)
Friday, Kim and I checked out nearby Victorian Square. A collection
of shops (including one pawn shop), restaurants, and a museum. We
were hoping to get crepes for breakfast, but the crepe restaurant
didn't open until 10:00.
In the afternoon we went to the Harrah's Car Museum, which has about
200 cars from the late 1800's on. This place is amazing. Probably
two thirds of the cars are from before 1930. They have cars you never
heard of (for example a two-seat, five-wheeled buckboard, made by
Briggs and Stratton. The power was provided by a 5th wheel.).
Apparently Mr. Harrah was quite the collector of cars. When he died
the collection was auctioned off. The museum is trying to buy them
all back.
Friday night we enjoyed a dinner at Ozorko's, the nice restaurant in
the hotel. After that we burned through about $2.00 worth of nickels
in the slots. We were the only two people I have seen in the whole
place for whom playing on slot machine is a couple's activity.
Imagine one person dropping the coin in the toilet while the other
flushes. We finished the evening by watching "Six Feet Under" on DVD
on the Mac. Wild Times in Reno, baby!
So that's my Reno story so far. Kim is in meetings until 3:00, when
we hit the road. I'm at loose ends until then. It's now noon, so I'm
going to see about going to the Parks Museum and grabbing lunch. I'm
sure I'll have a little more later.
2:00 - I'm baaaack
I'm sitting in the lobby across from the reception desk. To my right a man is making calls on his cell phone talking about who and how is betting on the college hoops final four, what the spreads are, etc. A woman to his right, who apparently knows him, occasionally chimes in with why who is betting how on these games. The money they are talking is a whopping $50 per game (and no, not $50,000). The way they are talking about the strategies and the plan, you'd think they were preparing to bring down the house.
On my way over to the Parks Museum, I stopped to look in the pawn shop window. Rows of cards with jewelry attached: earrings, rings, mostly sterling and zirconia, a few small diamonds in gold, a wedding set, a gold pendant depicting a woman bowling, her ball a black pearl. As I was about to move on, the door to the pawn shop swung open, out walked a man and woman with two toddlers in tow, headed back in the general direction of the casino.
The museum was your typical, small western town, volunteer museum.
Pictures of petroglyphs, a stuffed bear, railroad paraphanalia, old
telephone and post office equipment and furntiure...I love places like
that. It's not the Smithsonian, but it is as real as it gets. From
museum I went over to the authentic Irish Pub, had an authentic Irish
burger with blue cheese, while authentic Irish music (Elvis Presley,
AC/DC, some country western tune) played on the jukebox. I guess
St. Pat's decorations and Guinness on tap are what make a pub
officially Irish. I opted not to play the video poker on the screens
mounted in the bar.
After the pub, a quick stop to check out the old steam train next to
the "historic" little wooden train station.
And so, my time in Reno...er...Sparks draws to an end. Our ETD is in
35 minutes. Just enough time to watch a few more people go by -- with
or without yellow m&m coolers -- and be glad I live in a greener,
quieter place.
A quick postscript. They were predicting snow in the mountains in CA,
so I tried to beat the snow by driving a little fast. The patrolman
was very nice, but still gave me a ticket :(
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1 comment:
The single longest blog posting in the history of the internet! And also probably the only one to include the words "tufah" and "zebra striped high-tops" in the same post! Thank god for the pictures! Hahaha. Seriously, though -- great post. It was fun reading.
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