Farewell Reno: Saturday, June 12th

The day began with a huge breakfast buffet at the Peppermill with Danielle’s family, Ron’s family, Pete’s extended family and Betsy and Harry, we were quite a formidable crowd but barely made a dent in the buffet – so much great food – Jake was uber-excited! It was terribly difficult to say goodbye to everyone, we feel so blessed to have had the chance to spend so much time with them and really to get to know them all so much better. We really hope to see them again, maybe on the east coast or somewhere in the middle (we’re holding you to it Parsons/Grimms!).

Dave and the kids watched the all-important football/soccer game between the US and England at Harry’s – their big screen certainly did it more justice than our little one in the camper. I went shopping, groceries were low. Despite our chants of ‘En-ger-land’ and teaching all the family the ‘Three Lions’ song, there was great disappointment at the 1-1 result, although I think the US were secretly rather pleased as there was a general consensus of worry about Rooney. We’re hoping things’ll pick up; the World Cup is such a national institution for Brits.

Back to the camper we went, finished packing everything, hooked up and we were on our way. Given our change in itinerary to accommodate our trip to the UK, we were heading towards Idaho but needed to break up the journey as the predicted 10+ hours in one day was less than appealing.

We drove to Hi-Desert Resort in Winnemucca which was really the first major town we’d come to since leaving Reno three hours earlier! It was a windy journey so a lot slower going than it would’ve been. Trailers tend not to appreciate the wind, neither do I!

As we often do, we passed many, many small housing areas, seemingly random settlements, miles and miles from anywhere or anything. I am always so fascinated by these – who lives here, what do they do for work, how do they get their money, groceries, gas etc?? Dave said that one of these times, he’s just going to pull in, stop and knock on a door to have them answer my barrage of questions! I imagine people enjoy the quieter life of living in the middle of nowhere but I would worry about where to get basics, like milk and flour, from, maybe someone does a run once a week for everyone – just speculating.

We were glad to have made a reservation in Winnemucca as the campgrounds we passed were all full and when we arrived, they were turning people away without a reservation. Evidently there was a Basque Festival in town and that is quite the draw by all accounts – who knew?! The younger kids were happy to discover a playground but disappointed that there was no time to go in the pool or play the ‘water wars’ game, dinner was late enough!