In search of good friends and good snow we boarded a plane from Los Angeles to Reno on a sunny January Friday afternoon. The day before we spent a beautiful day on the beach in Hermosa so were a bit skeptical of the snow quality in the Lake Tahoe area. Landing at Reno airport we waited a few minutes for the free shuttle to the Peppermill Resort Casino which was to be our home for the next three nights. We were excited for the jacuzzi suite we had booked and were not disappointed especially considering the low price per night of $100 USD on Friday and Saturday and just $70 USD for Sunday night. Dropping her bags, Pamela (aka The Sultana of Soak) immediately fired up the hot tub and was in her element for the next few hours.
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| Our jacuzzi suite |
Our good friends were driving in that night and I really tried hard to wait up for them. I found myself at a nickel video poker machine until about 11:45 just trying to stay awake. Near catatonic I gave up and fell fast asleep as soon as I hit the four poster bed in our room. Saturday morning we were up bright and early to catch the 8:15am ski bus to the Mt. Rose ski area. Boarding the bus we met up with our friends Patrick, Jen, Kevin and Alicia. The forty-five minute bus ride was full of laughs as we had some time to catch-up before our day of snowboarding.
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| Dave, Pamela, Alicia, Kevin, Jen and Patrick taking a break at Mt. Rose |
We had a great day snowboarding with our friends! The recent (and only) snowfall in the area had occurred just the week before so the slopes at the 9500 ft high Mt. Rose were still in good shape. The mountain was celebrating Chinese New Year which included fortune cookie deal, skiing dragon and food/drink specials. We hopped on a run with the dragon and scored some buy one get one free deals and crappy $5 dollar tee-shirts. After a full day we jumped on the 4:45pm bus back to our hotel in Reno for a big night out.
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| Pamela, Alicia and Jen |
That night we were celebrating birthdays for friends Patrick and Connie. With a group size of 21 we headed to the Peppermill Island Buffet for a colossal meal consisting of everything from crab legs and prime rib to mammoth ice cream sundaes. Rolling myself out of the buffet we headed up to Patrick and Jen’s suite for after dinner drinks. Hanging out with our friends from Northern California was such a good time, it was great seeing everyone. While we were in the room an anonymous person, whom we’ll call Jason, pulled out a bottle of moonshine. The next thing I know I saw my wife and some of the other girls taking pulls off the bottle and Jason is having a good laugh at the whole thing. I’m not saying it was Pamela who started it but I have my suspicions….the next thing I know the girls are wheelbarrow racing down the hall of the top floor of our hotel.
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| The girls wheelbarrow racing down the hall. |
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| Patrick, myself and Robert lounging after a big dinner |
Nonsensicalness behavior finished we were off to the casino for some roulette and craps. Fortunately Pamela has a talent for roulette and was able to sit down with only forty dollars and play for hours, all while accumulating a mass of free drinks. The cocktail waitress was a bit terrible, all Pamela wanted was a vodka soda and of the five times she ordered it not a single time did the waitress get it right. In any case the drinks were free and they kept coming so she wasn’t complaining that much although I did here at least one expletive after each drink delivery. Finally, much to my happiness, sleep in our four poster bed was calling our names.
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| Enjoying a last attempt to win some cash at the Reno airport |
The next day we said goodbye to our friends and were on our own. I tried my hand at roulette and promptly lost $40 dollars in about 5 minutes. I didn’t hit a single thing….with the dealer telling me I needed a break we took the rest of the day and relaxed. We had a 6:30am flight the next day to Salt Lake so we ended our trip to Reno with a quiet night of sleep. Looking back, it was so great catching-up with friends and definitely had us missing living in the US but hopefully we’ll see everyone again soon. Maybe in Thailand? :-)
More pics from our great weekend in Reno can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117257906652666550268/RenoAndMtRoseNevada?authuser=0&feat=directlink
Cheers for Now –
Pamela and Dave
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