Sorry I didn’t get anything posted while I was away. In Calgary I focused on getting my photos ready and just couldn’t bring myself to do any writing as I was also trying to relax – my B&B host spoiled me and made sure of that. In Reno it was hard to get internet and not a lot of time anyway and well, Saskatoon, every spare minute was occupied, only thing I got written was my speech for the UOAC AGM that I had to give as part of running for Director. More on that later, this post is about Reno!
My last post was written during a delay leaving Toronto – it was not my last delay unfortunately. I am still annoyed that when I got to San Francisco that they told me instead of 45 minutes to make my flight, I had 2.5 hours. This turned out to be wrong and after being set aside and moved last of all passengers requiring assistance, this meant by the time I switched terminals and went through my first TSA pat down (no big deal), I missed my connection by 5 minutes as it had left on time 
. I was stuck in San Fran for another 2.5 hours, so I made the best of it and got supper and then the 2 things everyone must get in San Fran – Ghiradelli Chocolate and Sourdough bread 
. 15 hours after I left my condo, I was at the front desk of the hotel checking in and had LeeAnn sneak up beside me and give me a hug! This was the first of many old friends I saw during an awesome week of reuniting with old friends and making lots of new friends.
We had a great week! It started with a fantastic tour of Lake Tahoe and Virginia City with Gayle Stowe, Peter & Donna Folk, Carol Bastille and others from the conference. Gayle found a fantastic tour at a really great value! Our tour was 10 hours and included lunch at a very nice restaurant in Virginia City where we could choose anything off the menu. If you’re in Reno and looking to do a tour, I highly recommend Bayside Tours. I paid twice as much for my tour of Lake Louise and Banff and it was terrible, I saw very little other than the two famous hotels and then 45 minutes in downtown Banff – it cost twice as much and I paid for my own lunch at a Banff restaurant I’d been to before. Back to Lake Tahoe and Virgina City.
Our guide was very entertaining. Our first stop was Squaw Valley, it’s amazing how tiny a place it is for having hosted the Olympics – it’s just the ski resort – where our bus was sitting had been the site of the arena, but it’s long gone.
The mountains around Reno/Lake Tahoe are not huge, but they are very different from where I’ve visited in the Rockies and Alaska. They are very barren, the small pine trees they have are, like I was told about the ones when I went above the treeline in the Yukon, over 100 years old and are the ones you get pine nuts from. While the mountains may look very barren, they were not always this way. Our guide said some thought that Nevada was divided from California by the trees, but Nevada had trees too, it’s just they were clear cut a very long time ago. It looks dry and very desert like now.
Lake Tahoe is beautiful! It’s one of the clearest lakes, you can see so deep you can watch the fish swimming which is exactly what we did at our first stop. Our guide had some bread from our brief break at McDonalds and used it to attract the fish. We walked around a bit and because people always complain I have no photos of me, I got Peter Folk to take one
Lake Tahoe is not a very warm lake, even in summer – it can be 39F under the surface. In spite of that, at our next stop at a beach, there were lots of swimmers and people using personal watercraft etc. The mountains around Lake Tahoe look very different than those just a short distance away towards Reno.
After the beach, we passed through a couple of the small towns surrounding the lake. These remind me very much of Banff. We didn’t stop in any of them, but we did get around a good portion of the lake and saw a hotel that was owned by Frank Sinatra at one time – they even painted around his name on his parking spot so people could still see it lol. We saw the house Sylvester Stallone built in the area. One thing we learned is that you can’t remove trees or change the landscape, so some houses are built around trees or with trees going through the middle of them and they just put up something clear around it and you can even see animals in the trees lol. We saw where Tim Conroy lived for over 30 years, leaving 3 weeks after Dennis Rodman moved in next door (coincidence? we think not lol). We also saw the residence Lucille Ball kept where she had multiple apartments in the building so her guests would have some privacy. This is also the land of BONANZA! and the Ponderosa Ranch. While you can no longer go up to it we did see where the ranch is located and our guide, who has every episode of the show, showed us various spots where scenes where filmed such as some of the opening sequences.
We drove through Carson City, the capital of Nevada, and onward to Virginia City, the old west! We had some time here to have lunch and explore. Lunch was included in our tour and we could choose anything on the menu at the restaurant! I had a lovely pulled pork sandwich. Afterwards I explored the area, the first stop was the candy store with Gayle & Carol, but we lost Gayle! I picked up some cashew brittle and some peanut butter fudge – good thing I did as in spite of getting a fridge for the hotel, I never left the hotel again to find a store and get drinks and snacks. Carol and I wandered around, the wooden sidewalks were very difficult as they were not flat, they went up and down and were slanted. Thankfully there was tonnes of seating. I picked up a purse at a leather store where everything was $20 and under and I bought myself, Sonia and Michael a t-shirt – my only purchases in my 7 days in Nevada!
We drove through the hills and into a valley where there were large ranches, including that of the owner of our hotel in Reno. We learned that the wind there blows fierce and hits the mountains and comes back to the houses, so they put big walls of soil around the houses to protect them, especially the windows that require sandblasting every couple of years. Even with that, you can have windows break.
We headed back through the mountains to Reno and that night we had our internet gathering! More on that another day!
Yes, it was a great tour of Lake Tahoe and Virginia City!