Friday, June 21st – Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
After sleeping in, we ran a few errands before going with Amber back to “Sprouts”. She hadn’t been back there since she first moved to Lake Tahoe years ago. After indulging in their amazing food, we walked down to the beach then returned to the house to hang out before saying our goodbyes as they both headed off to work. We really enjoyed our stay.
I called my mom to see if she received the birthday treats I mailed for my dog, Haley who I missed dearly. I could hear her bark and her toenails tapping on the kitchen floor in the background, and my mom said she ran to the front door to look for us when she put me on speaker phone. My heart hurts.
We headed out of Tahoe through the Nevada side of town and made our way back to Truckee. We splurged on Bittersweet Chocolate and Banana Pudding cupcakes at “Cake Tahoe”, walked around the shops, and then hung out at “Coffeebar” for a while before heading back to the overnight parking lot by the train station.
Once again, the Spanish alarm clock woke me up. We headed to “Coffeebar” to meet up with Lee one more time before leaving town, then headed to the Chili Cook-off at regional park. We threw the Frisbee around as we waited for Amber to show up, then we got our wristbands so we could start grubbing on some chili! I wasn’t eating much red meat at the time, but I made the exception for the event, and I was glad I did! We ate a whole lot in a 10-minute span! I placed my vote for the Louisiana-style Chili and Trevor voted for the chili “Coffeebar” had made, which was pretty good too.
We were feeling bloated, so the three of us tossed the disc around a while afterwards, then parted ways with Amber. We had one more round of chili and enjoyed the live band before we waddled back to town to stick our feet in the Truckee River and wander around the shops one last time.
A sweet golden lab named Lilly was running loose through town and I was worried she might get hit by a car, so we stopped it and called the phone number on her tag. The owner didn’t answer the phone, so I left a message. Uncertain what else to do with her since we were on our way out of town, we dumped her at the pet store nearby hoping they could hold her until the owner called them back. The guy at the store seemed a bit burdened by it all, but we didn’t know what else to do in that situation. We informed a few other businesses nearby about Lilly in case the owner came looking before grabbing one more coffee at “Coffeebar” and heading to Reno.
We followed the Truckee River into Nevada where we passed through Toiyabe National Forest before entering Reno, NV city limits. We checked out the Patagonia outlet and bought a slackline at the REI on the outskirts of town, before heading into the big city.
I’ve never been to Las Vegas, but from what I’ve seen in movies, this was a miniature version, but a bit tackier. A lot of people wandering around seemed to have had their daily dose of crack for breakfast. As we were stuck at a traffic light, a homeless guy stared at our Rude Boys sticker and asked Trevor with a throat full of phlegm, “Are you really rude?” Trevor said, “yes,” and the homeless guy with all his two teeth smiled, laughed and yelled gleefully. His reaction had us laughing for a while as we found a place to park.
As we wandered around Reno, we realized more and more how sketchy of a place it was and were getting more and more worried about leaving our van unsupervised. A crackhead stood outside of a vacant business spinning around, dancing like he was on “America’s Got Talent” before holding his hand out to me and yelling, “Brah!” I think he wanted me to dance with him. I was beyond flattered of course, but declined his offer, so he turned around and started babbling some gibberish in the other direction. Half the city seemed like they were on drugs, the other half seemed like overly pumped up, drunken tourists. This was definitely not our scene, so we decided it was time to leave before someone busted out our van windows. We made it out unscathed and stopped at a Walmart in Carson City, NV.
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Stubbs Rambles On 