Ginny had a conference in Reno scheduled for the last week of March. Neither of us had been there before and I guess neither had Denny for that matter. Anyway, the flight to Dallas was smooth and short. We board the flight for Reno and off we go...The flight is somewhere around 3 hours and it was smooth and fun, Denny watched movies and I read a magazine while Ginny read her book. This was Denny's first plane trip in his own seat and after a seatbelt debacle he seemed to be just fine. Cut to the juicy part. About 80 miles south of Reno we were amazed at the geography and landscape, beautiful mountains powdered with snow. I had not realized Reno was set in such a beautiful area. Well the mountains do more than just look pretty, they create wildly chaotic wind gusts apparently. The captain comes on the mic., "We are about 18 minutes from Reno but there seems to be some choppy winds. So..." I cant remember the rest, I think I said well at least it will be over in 18 minutes. So we start our descent and here come the bumps, shakes and rumbles. We have our landing gear out and it looks like we are pretty close to the ground, having made it through the cloud cover, and things start to pick up. Ive never felt a plane move like that before, the wings were doing there best to keep us straight but it felt like the nose of the plane was being pushed side to side. Of course it might have "felt" a lot more dramatic than it was in reality, but I go based on feeling most of the time. And my feeling was tense and scared. I happened to be looking straight at a stewardess and to me she looked to be smilingly grimacing. Well the pilot pulled up and through a little more turbulence we gain altitude and get into some smooth sky. A few minutes later the captain grabs the mic, "Folks we are being diverted to Sacramento, an attempt at landing is just to dangerous, and we need to stop and refuel and get in touch with the Reno officials for a better shot."
A few things: It is just too dangerous to attempt a landing? Didnt we just attempt a landing? Also, we have a 2 3/4 yr odl boy and sitting on a plane for an unspecified amount of time didnt sound too awesome. We also heard some folks talking about renting a car and driving, since Sacramento is only 2 hours from Reno.
We land smoothly in Sac and I am wonderfully relieved. We decide to exit our aircraft and find a car rental spot for a little adventure. It was only 2:30pm so we had lots of time to make the drive. I also knew we would be going through the Sierra Nevadas, which we had not seen before. So we get our Chrylser Sebring and take off toward Reno. Denny sleeps for the first hour and we drive from lush farmland into beautiful pine trees and mountains. We make it to Auburn, CA, the endurance capital of the nation. Home to several ultramarathons and ultra mountain bike races. Here we have our first taste of In n' Out Burger. We would end the trip with five more visits. The town is beautiful but we had to keep driving. We head East out of Auburn and soon find larger mountains, higher passes and snow! By the time we drive through the highest pass we are hemmed in by 12 foot snow drifts on either side of the highway. The Sierras had apparently been pounded with snow. Luckily the roads were perfect and we got to enjoy some wonderful scenery, and lots of crow sightings. Well we finally make it to Reno, drop off the car, pick up our luggage and arrive SAFELY at The Nugget.
To continue our adventure I spark the thought of buying a car and driving it home. Kind of a joke, kind of serious. We do have family in Durango, CO and Lubbock, TX that we could intrude upon and devour their resources, all the while gracing them with our presence. We also werent going to make it to Durango this year and see our beautiful niece. Also, we could use an extra car. So Ginny goes through stages of "find a car" and "no more talking about it!" Then just as a I resigned myself to flying home, Ginny texts me that her boss could care less if she takes the rest of the week off and I should go find a car. Well I had been searching Reno for AWD vehicles (to have so we can visit CO in the winter). I call USAA for loan info and they tell me I can get a car but to buy from an individual would take too long, so I need to go to a dealership. Well, I have a dealership in mind and Denny and I take off to shop for cars!!! I am driving down dealership blvd. and see the Honda dealership, so I stop in and look at an Element when a man approaches me ready to steal my wallet and asks me about my wants/needs. I tell him and he says, "I know this sounds strange but I have got the car for you!" Hilarious and completely expected. Well we go to the back to find THE car and it is a 2001 Subaru Legacy AWD. An 89 yr old woman had traded this in YESTERDAY, to get a new Accord, the car she has always wanted. The Subaru is ridiculously clean, the seatbelts in the back still have plastic on them. With 55,000 miles she drove it an average of 5,000 miles a year!!! Anyway, Ginny and I are prone to making impulsive decisions and not looking around, so I told him I would have to look around to make sure and not fall into The Woods trap. I end up back at the Subaru 3 hours later and buy the car. It was perfect, price, mileage, carfax was impeccable. So after the inspection and cleaning we set off EAST towards Salt Lake City.
We got as far as Elko, UT, about half way betweeen Reno and Salt Lake. Found a motel texted my sister where we stopped and she informed me that Elko is one of the cities that allows brothels. Awesome, we crash and wake up to drive 12 hours to Durango. The Nevada mountains were austere and stark, rugged and beautiful. Some were capped by snow and others just barren to the windscape. No trees, only brushy plants, and NO water that I could see. Beautiful but unforgiving landscape to those of us made up mostly of water. THe mountain ranges were one after the other and on both sides. Not like Colorado mountains where you are hemmed in by altitude but enough space between to make it feel really wide open and yet still the presence of massive earth.
Driving into Utah was as surreal a landscape as I have seen. Coming west to east heading towards the sun, both sides of the road are covered with water, mountain ranges in the distance on both sides and in front. But the water isnt necessarily a lake, because every so often you see land and it is white. Glowing, blinding, and mirage creating white. It is Salt. That is crazy! Salt flats create some strange visuals. I would love to have seen the same road at dusk. We drive by the Great Salt Lake and the coolest part is the island on the southeast side that has mountains and is home to antelope.
Well we blow right through Salt Lake, unfortunate but time is of the essence and it looks entirely too big for us to try to explore in an hour. Giant mountains sit just on the East side of Salt Lake, I think they are called the Wasatch Mountains, beautiful and huge. Getting out of Salt Lake's suburbs takes about and hour going 80. Pretty sick development.
We turn due East and set off for Moab. I knew that we would not have time to explore the Arches or Canyonlands parks so I did not get my hopes up. It is hard to pass by something so unique and assuredly mind-opening but we press on to CO. The park pictures are from a playscape we saw on the side of the road in Wellington, UT. It was huge, maybe 20 foot tall bridges. We finally arrive late in the evening in Durango and I instantly feel a little closer to Austin.
Once in Durango we get to see little Sandra and all her cuteness. When we woke up the next morning we took the kiddos to open gym and had a blast. Trampolines, uneven bars, balance beams, scooters, you name it. So with tried children we took them back for a nap and my sister and I went for a trail run on Horse Gulch. It was my first time on the trail and it was great! The altitude got me a little and I was wearing road racing flats, but it was an energizing run. When we got home it was a backyard kind of day. Beer, hot tub, toys, and a wonderful cookout to top it off. Got to hang out with little Noah and his crew.
Super glad we got to spend come time with our mountain family and wish it happened more often.
On to Lubbock with an early start. It was nice to see Nana and Dude and Grandma Molly. We had a good short visit and took off home to Austin. Quite possibly the most boring driving section of the trip. A fresh new road with no foreknowledge is delightful to the sense of adventure. I am so glad we made this trip, though it was a little rushed, it felt somehow it was meant to be. When we got home we noticed our car was not in the driveway, "Oh yeah, we left it at the airport." When we went to pick it up the next day, we remembered that we parked in F8, any body thinking what Im thinking?
