Day 2

So our first day on the road begins in the town of Mcdermott( population around 4200) with sun and a bright blue sky. We stroll over to the "Say When" casino/restaurant. Upon entering , the first thing I notice is a smell reminiscent of an elderly persons home who has always smoked inside. The rug was new.....25 years ago....and the restaurant is dead but the waitress is very friendly and the breakfast is great. There are wondeerful pictures on the wall from the 1800's, the 20's,30's. In one,I'd say from the late 1800's, among all the somber faces that normally glare back from old tintypes, is a couple who both wear wide playful grins.She is dressed very stylishly and he is leaning into her with his elbow on her shoulder. I was mesmerised by it. I've never seen people like this in an old picture. I want to know more about them..who were they? Where were they really from? Were they married?Friends? I'll never forget that photo....but I digress.......
After breakfast we hit the road. On to the elusive Winnemucca! The landscape could have been a movie reel being rerun on a giant screen from yesterday....more sagebrush, more naked hills,more.....nothing. Today there are not even jackrabbits or bugs but there is a large, black and white dead cow in the ditch between the two lanes of freeway. I found it hysterically funny the way it looked as if someone had simply tipped it over. It was a bit bloated but otherwise unscathed (at least from what i could see as i sailed by at 65 mph). John found it to be extremely gross and not at all funny.....
I have never seen such enormous expanses of nothing. When you look at a map of Nevada, there isn't really anything there. That's because there isn't anything there...so,arriving in Winnemucca was great. I thought it would be big and glitzy for some reason but...population 8000...really old, tired casinos, sagebrush, dust and old dusty looking people. They were really nice though.John and I spent two hours in the casino playing penny machines. We lost a whopping $8.00. So, we decided to get some snacks...to the tune of $11.00...( note to self-it doesn't save money to buy lunch "snacks"at a gas station/grocery) instead of going out to lunch. We munched and headed on to Elko...more of the same scenery...but it's been sunny and beautiful! so I don't care..anyway, we arrived in Elko and got gas. There was a guy at the gas station from Salem.( Later, while John was in Starbucks, he pulled up next to me and after telling me about how his dad died two months ago and he has had to take care of everything, he felt compelled to tell me how his siblings need to pay him for all his gambling expenses and "trips to the whorehouse" as he laughed and walked away. ) I bought some postcards in the gas station and the woman who worked in there suggested I buy one that showed a picture of the town.To me, it looked like a photo of some 1950's industrial park. She was very proud of it.
I think it took us around 4 hrs to get here-Wendover. Now, technically, we are in Utah in a Motel 6. Three blocks down the street-where we got our $14.00 Subway dinner-is Nevada. That's where the giant montego Bay casino is. Down here by the motel 6...not so glamorous. I took the liberty of taking some snap shots of the view from our room. that would be the dumpster w/ a cat in it, the dead cars and the freeway with the giant rock outcropping covered in graffitti.The good news is we are only 3 or 4 miles from the Bonneville salt flats! We are starting out our day there tomorrow. So, all in all, Nevada has been uber boring scenery wise but it's all part of a bigger package- jill and john's big adventure. I will now attempt to attach photos of the Diamond A Hotel, more of the same scenery from yesterday and our Motel 6 shots. Oh! and a shot of the SUPER COOL bedspreads here at 'the 6" and remember- we're leavin' a light on...