we left up $65

we spent this weekend in reno, nevada, on a weekend getaway sponsored by my company as a reward for our excellent results during our recent life promotion. brian did not originally really want to go. he said reno was boring and there was nothing to do there but gamble and we were too short on funds to be spending money frivolously like that. fortunately, i talked him into it. our room at the peppermill resort, dinner saturday night, and breakfast sunday morning were taken care of for us, so it was a really inexpensive getaway. we paid for gas and anything incidental up there and since we were feeling frugal, there were no incidentals.

it was really nice to get away and get a change of scenery. it's also nice that the reno/tahoe area is only about 1½-2 hours away from us now up on interstate 80. we drove up early saturday afternoon and it was a gorgeous day in the sierras, cool and clear and sunny. the leaves were turning on the trees and it was so pretty though i'm sure nothing like what happens back east. well, we take what we can get here.

truckee is about a half hour outside of reno. we stopped at this vista point over donner lake, just outside of truckee. you can see the snow up on the tops of the mountains in the distance. there were tiny patches of snow in the shady spots along the highway too.


i was playing with the exposure (or something?) on my camera because it was really sunny and i was afraid the picture would get all washed out. i guess the opposite happened. i'll have to learn more about that.

i really like stopping at vista points because you often get to see pretty views that you would otherwise miss. plus, it's a nice chance to stretch your legs and get some fresh air.


brian does not like stopping as much as i do. i think he usually just wants to get there, but he is a good sport about letting me take my pictures.

the hotel was really nice. apparently it's been recently remodeled and brian said it looked a lot better than it did before. i had never been to reno or the peppermill before so i didn't know the difference. brian really liked that there was a 45" flat-screen tv in our room. all the better to watch espn, i guess.

saturday night we had a really nice dinner with work. there was so much food and man was it ever delicious. what were they thinking offering up an 18 oz. steak? who can eat that much? i made a pretty good dent in it though and ate all my vegetables. brian could not decide what he wanted for dessert so the waiter brought him two, one on the house. i had a cherry blintz and it was so delicious. how do i get that served at my house?

the breakfast buffet was an island theme with all kinds of plants and trees and even a waterfall. it really felt like we were eating outdoors in an island paradise.




brian could not believe all the food that they had. if you can handle the smoke (though it was not smoky in this one), i think they are a really good deal for the money.

we didn't spend too much time in the casino. brian wanted to keep me out of the smoke, and either way it was really bothering both our eyes. he did stop to play some quarter slots and ended up winning a little over $100. with the money we had paid to play that meant we were up about $65. we left before we could spend it on something else, but we didn't get too terribly far. we stopped in at the kids' arcade.


i love skee-ball, so we tried to play a couple rounds but the machine was broken. so we played some other arcade games. i think that's way more fun than gambling. brian beat me at the football throwing game. what can i say, i'm kind of a girly girl. that was our last stop before heading home and was a nice way to wrap up our mini-vacation.