Day Zero: E-ville to Reno

Day Zero: E-ville to Reno

After a month or so in St. Louis, we were looking around desperately for a way to draw a few people into the ball park, it being perfectly clear by that time that the ball club wasn't going to do it unaided.
Bill Veeck

Pics: The finest pocket park in Emeryville, courtesy of Joel in #114, Butterfield horses, and a Dan Flavin installation in the restroom at Nevada Museum of Art.

First, a discussion of why we are driving the Lexus: we need every damn one of the cigarette lighter outlets! We have a (borrowed) GPS, a (borrowed) cooler, audio books on an i-pod (not an i-pad, we have that old-fashioned thing that just plays music), and an i-phone. All plug into lighter outlets, and the Lexus is loaded with them. Half the mileage of the Prius, way more comfort and no juggling the outlets.

We test drove the GPS: let us just say that we are still learning our limitations. This means we don’t trust the thing, turn off the sound, want a new voice, still want to look a map of where we are going, and in general want to compare it to google maps. None of this is the GPS device’s fault, the problem is in ourselves (at least so far).

And, we test drove the cooler. It is a dandy thing, good size, and chills stuff really well while the car is running, with just a bit of background fan noise. Really nice….except…the time I put the connector in upside down and learned that the cooler is also a heater. Well warmed pinot blanc anyone? Cooked cider?

An easy drive, we stop for lunch in Auburn, DB has found two options via various internet searches (GPS and I-phone are dueling for supremacy here, the phone is gonna win). Katrina's, a mostly breakfast place, wins out and DB has a good scramble (made with the two largest eggs ever produced based on the amount on her plate) with fruit and I have a tuna sandwich on toasted rye bread, also very large, also very good, with a bowl of fruit. With iced tea, $20.

In Reno, our first stop is the Nevada Art Museum to see the Chester Arnold show (we own two of his oils, LB: we should post them, one is if the trash painting at the beach, the other the boot at E-ville). Outside, there is a Deborah Butterfield bronze horse (we visited her studio/ranch/compound in Missoula in July), see pics.

Along with a number of good Chester pieces, they have several other fine exhibits, this turns out to be a great stop. Then we go hunting for a Don Lipski installation at the bus station (we visited his studio on the Philadelphia trip, he’s very engaging and we liked his work a lot…check out the fish under the freeway overpass in San Antonio when you’re there). We can’t find the bus station piece, it’s a giant bus on a pole…how can we miss it? We think it isn’t up yet, based on our research when we get to the internet. Hmmmm….or we are really both legally blind!

Then we check in at the Peppermill, by Vegas standards a smallish hotel/casino combo, complete with tons of smoke in the registration area. Gambling and smoking must be symbiotic. The good news: we are upgraded to a room with two kings and a giant bathroom; the bad news: it seems like it is another half hour walk from the lobby to the room! They do have a nice fitness center, there’s nothing like working out to Dylan music while watching highlights of the Raiders and 49ers triumphs, along with the tennis finals at the US Open (rain), and catching the A's and Giants...okay, at least the latter was good news.

DB does another search and we end up at Vivolo’s Café for dinner, 5 minutes down the street from the hotel. Okay salad, decent margherita pizza, and a nice (and fortunately small) shimp/linguini pasta with two glasses of sauvignon blanc and Stella on tap: $75. The crowd was clearly local, most of a certain age (like us!).