How to win at gambling

Our trip home went well, we left Phoenix around noon on Tuesday and drove north through Nevada stopping at Hoover Dam and looked at the nearby Silverman triathlon course. We went drove into Las Vegas just as the sun set and came upon the city of lights from out of the mountains, Las Vegas is a beautiful place, from afar, and at night. We drove part of the strip for Bill but didn't stop since we had a van full of furniture and a big screen tv that Bill wasn't willing to risk with a valet. We spent the night north of LV in Beatty in a little road side hotel that gave us some coupons for a nearby casino. We used the free beer coupon and cashed in the other coupon for a $1 worth of nickels. Since neither of us know how to play slots we picked the easiest 5 cent machines and played for about 20 minutes. I won $5 at one point so we cashed out and got out of there before we blew our winnings! ;)

We woke up the next day to the reality that we hadn't made enough time on Tuesday and that we had a monster drive ahead of us to get home Wednesday night. Our next stop was Reno for lunch and we were surprised to find that we really liked Reno. It is surrounded by mountains, has many nearby lakes (including Lake Tahoe) and is on the border with northern California. We saw signs for a Sierra Trading Post Outlet so we pulled off the freeway and did some quick shopping and refueled on gas. We noticed a Whole Foods, a division of Microsoft and some other high tech companies and some other great shops. Reno is now on our radar as a potential place to live, it's the right size, has an airport, and is surrounding by outdoor rec possibilities. A total surprise to us!

Long story short: we slogged through the rest of the drive and got home around 11:30 p.m. and had to unload the van so we didn't get to bed until after 1am. I had to work the next day and had meetings straight until 2pm. I thought I was going to fall asleep but I made it and got home for some serious couch time with the dog. I'll post some photos this weekend of the new TV and some more shots from inside our house and the finished painting we did. I have no plans this weekend. Yes!