I've been everywhere...been to Reno

Another chilly night but this time we were prepared for it. We slept with heavier clothes and at one point, Dana got hot and took her socks off. But by the time we were ready to get up it was right chilly. I talked myself into getting up and I quickly got up and got my coat on and headed outside to get the water heating for the coffee. I threw some wood in the fire pit and soon we were sitting beside the fire, drinking coffee. Our souls and bodies were warming. Life was looking good.

Shortly after 9:00 we were ready to roll, and we headed out. We had already scouted out a coffee shop in South Lake Tahoe and we were zoned in for the mid-morning caffeine hit.

We arrived at Bear Roots Coffee House, a small place, with several stacks of bags of green coffee to the left of the shop. The coffee roaster was busy roasting in the room just off the small dining area. I checked out the coffee bags and saw that they were from Covoya Coffee Importers. I buy coffee from them as well. Small world. South Lake Tahoe was definitely a tourist town, but it was pleasant and seemed pretty laid back.

We left the coffee shop and headed north along Lake Tahoe. It was beautiful but the lake was to our left and we couldn't stop and take pictures, so you will just have to take our word for it. The first 25 miles of the day were through mountains and at one point we passed the 7000 ft elevation mark, but then shortly after we started dropping and soon, we were out of the mountains and the terrain had completely changed. The mountains were barer and were ruggedly beautiful all the same. We passed near by the Davis Fire, a forest fire just west of our path of travel. We didn't see any evidence of the fire, but heard it is currently 76% contained. California is suffering from a number of serious forest fires. We did pass some forests that must have had some fires last year as most of the trees were scorched and many were burned to the ground. We don't understand how it must feel to be constantly worried about potential fires like this.

We arrived in Reno around noon, and it took us a while to find a hotel. The problem was most of the hotels were in casinos and only provided parking garages and our trailer was too tall to enter, plus how do you park a trailer in a parking garage? We did find a hotel/casino that did have open/self-parking which was awesome. We are on the 11th floor of a casino/hotel. It is nice and also feels good to get a shower after several days of camping.

We found a laundromat and got our clothes washed. We then walked to the downtown and found a Hispanic Festival in progress. It covered 5-6 blocks with several live music stages, food, drinks, jewelry and other types of vendors. We targeted a place to eat and devoured a Mexican pizza and a quesadilla. Later we went to Brew Brothers Brewery and had drinks to finish the day.

We will be here two nights before heading east towards Salt Lake City.Read more