Reno Rendezvous 2010 - Day 3

When planning a mountain vacation in late winter/early spring it is always wise to pull out a good selection of warm clothing – bluejeans, slacks, sweatpants, that sort of thing. Even more wise after pulling them out is actually putting them into your suitcase and not leaving them in a nicely folded pile on your bed when you set off on your adventure. My patented brand of wisdom scored a 1 out of 2 on that particular test. I managed, against all odds and with stunning totality, to pack all my shorts and none of my jeans or slacks. Fortunately I packed jackets and sweatshirts, so it wasn't an immediate crisis, even in the blustery flurries of the roadtrip north, but while Reno wasn't too chilly, I knew I didn't want to venture on to Tahoe any more au naturel than I needed to. And so, our first real morning of vacation was spent scouring Reno for a pair of blue jeans. After breakfasting back at the Coffee Shop, Mom and Dad and Kirk (a.k.a. Mimi and Grampy and Poppa) hung back at the casino engaged in some sort of purportedly lucrative financial transactions while Lynne (Grandma) joined Stacy and the kids and I on our adventure. I could take the time to describe our experiences doing so, but I could not possibly be as complete and faithful in my recounting as is the following website I offer for your perusal:

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com

Stacy, suitably appalled by this site, made me remove the hotlink, but I've left the URL if you want to travel at your own risk!

Our lunch took a similarly highbrow turn – a delightful repast at the gourmand-Mecca Wendy’s, conveniently incorporated directly inside the above referenced shopping behemoth. (I‘m so glad we drove 800 miles for these experiences!) On our way back to the casino Stacy noted a scrapbooking store and wanted to stop; I agreed whole-heartedly, thinking the diabetes-inducing sugar and syrup of the place, along with the choking assault of potpourri to be the only viable hope of balancing out the cultural aromas to which we’d recently been subjected and yet clung to our psyches.

Back at the ranch, Stacy needed some down time, so she and N took naps while I took L to the pool. It was brisk out, but sunny and the heated pool failed to meet none of L’s demanding entrance criteria. I sprawled on a deck chair with my good friend John Adams and drifted off to Philadelphia for a bit while L gently chlorinated. As the afternoon warmed up more folks drifted to the pool, including, eventually, Stacy and N. Our kids, being small, tend to hang out at the stairs into and out of the pool, leaping out into deeper water and then panickedly paddling back to the safety of the stair rail. As the crowds gathered L and N were joined at the stairs by another little boy about N’s age. Charming child. His idea of pooltime play was filling his mouth with pool water and spraying it out on N. His dad who was circling nearby seemed to think it a jolly game as well. N, fortunately, was too naïve to perceive the affront and kept to his swimming in typical good cheer. After about the fourth or fifth time, however, I decided that it would be best to relocate N to the waterfall pool nearby rather than let my rising thirst for blood land me on the next episode of Reno 911.

Our evening was mellow. We all regrouped, our typical love for adventure and variety driving us back to the Coffee Shop for dinner. It was there at dessert that N rose to Grampy’s ice cream challenge and proved himself triumphantly and unequivocally the true and rightful heir of both the Perkins and Harris thrones.

L also established herself as being of the royal bloodline.

Suitably sticky, N was assigned an evening berth with Daddy in Mimi and Grampy’s room, while L got to bed down with Mommy over with Grandma and Poppa.