Tag Archives: Reno

Life in Reno, so far

I’m driving 700 miles a week, and that’s just for work, not including the driving around adventures on my days off. My home is 200 miles from my job, and my dad’s house is 50 miles from work. That’s a lot of driving.

But I think it’s worth it. My “Monday” morning commute (Reno to Pittsburg on Thursday morning) is 200 miles and takes about 3.5 hours, sometimes 4 hours depending on traffic in Sacramento. I wake up at 6am and hustle to get out of Reno as fast as I can, because my shift starts at 11am and I want to give myself plenty of time to not be late.

I’m lucky to have a 4×10 shift. I work Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then I have three days in a row off: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. So the long commutes work for me.

So I spend three nights a week in Hayward at my dad’s house, which is pretty great. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night when I get off work at 9:30pm I drive from Pittsburg to Hayward, about 50 miles. I usually stop at The Bistro on B St for a pint of Pliny. Then I sleep in my old bed in my old bedroom and get a good night’s sleep. I wake up extra early in the morning so I’ll have over an hour to sit with my dad and drink coffee and talk about whatever he wants to talk about. Then I jump in the shower, get ready, and leave for work. On Sunday nights, when my work week has ended, at 9:30pm I leave Pittsburg and drive 200 miles back to my home in Reno–which takes less than 3 hours and there is never any traffic. I get home around 12:30am and sometimes I’ll stop for a burger and a beer at one of the many 24hr sports bars in my neighborhood.

When I wake up on Monday morning my weekend has begun and I’m already in the mountains.

Eventually I’ll have to get a job up here. But honestly I’m not looking TOO hard. I have it pretty good. My job in the Bay Area pays a decent wage and I have really great benefits. I have nice, long, 3 day weekends every week. I get to spend at least an hour with my dad three mornings a week. I get to stop at my favorite pub and enjoy a pint of my favorite IPA three nights a week. A three hour drive back to Reno on Sunday is a piece of cake to a seasoned road traveler like myself. And when I wake up on Monday morning I have three full days in my playground–I’m already here!

Today I woke up to see that it snowed overnight, and all the local mountains have a beautiful dusting of snow. And I’m reminded of why we did such a crazy thing (like leave the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia).

Life is good.

Almost there, better late than never

Six years ago on this blog I announced my intention to move to Nevada. To Minden, actually. Well, six years later we finally made it. Almost.

Yesterday we signed the lease for our new apartment in Reno Nevada.

My wife, Miriam, accepted a job offer at the Peppermill Resort in Reno. She starts on the 16th.

For now I’m going to keep my job in Pittsburg CA. Luckily I work a 4×10 schedule. So I’ll be crashing at my dad’s house three nights a week.

It’s not quite Minden, but at least we’re out of the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia.

It snowed in Truckee again

Four days in Truckee was good for the soul. We sat near the fireplace and watched the snow fall quietly. Yum fed all our food to the neighborhood doggies. I took Yum for a nice long walk in a snowstorm.

Tuesday night was our last night and I wanted a nice dinner. Well, and I wanted to do some gambling.

We drove to Reno and had a fantabulous meal at Louis’ Basque Corner, a stone’s throw from the Silver Legacy. This is the second time we’ve eaten there and both times have been awesome. You see, Yum’s grandfather was full-on Basque. And Yum loves her some good ol’ Basque food, particularly lamb. And this joint in Reno has the best lamb of all the Basque restaurants we’ve been to over the last two years.

After dinner we went to my favorite casino, the Silver Legacy. We played some slots and called it a night.

On the way home it started to snow really bad. They stopped us in Verdi, just after Boomtown and Cabela’s.

“Road’s closed,” the CalTrans worker told us. “It’s a whiteout. Multiple accidents. A semi jack-knifed and cars are piled up. No idea when it will be open.”

Shit. This is bad. We have to leave tomorrow. We have to get out of the Sierras. I have to work on Thursday! I can’t be stuck in Reno, waiting for this storm to pass. We turned around and started driving back to Reno, weighing our options.

We spent the next 2 hours at Boomtown playing craps and more slots. We decided to try one more time before heading back to Reno (to use Yum’s employee discount at the Marriott).

This time we were able to convince the guy at the chain control checkpoint to let us through. We promised that we weren’t trying to get over Donner Summit, we’re just going to Truckee.

There were times when we had to drive under 10 miles an hour, the blizzard was so bad, but we finally made it back to the cabin. And the next morning it was a blue-bird day, sunny and warm(er). The roads were plowed, highway 80 was open, and we drove home to Vacaville easily.

No pics this time, but I do have a short movie of some howlin’ wind.