Hey! It's Elko, Nevada!

I took a day off from blogging because I didn’t have all that much to say. Plus, I didn’t have a good network connection. We’re not at a hotel this time; we’re at Mary’s brother Chris and his wife Stacie’s house in Elko, Nevada. Drove over from Reno yesterday. What a drive. It wasn’t all that far, but I was really tired for some reason, and there isn’t a lot to keep you awake on these highways. In fact, I take everything I said about how desolate central Oregon is! If you like views of dry alkali lake beds, sagebrush, and the the occasional mountain peak with nothing else around for miles, then northern Nevada is beautiful, too… in its own way… I guess. One interesting note: in some places the westbound and eastbound lanes of the Interstate are at least a half a mile apart. The only reason I can think of is because… they can! There’s tons of empty space here!

Last night after dinner we played with the Wii. It was my first time handling or even seeing a Wii system. It was fun. It was especially fun to play and watch the girls, including 4 year old Kaylee, dance to the Just Dance game, where you get points for following along with a dancer on screen. Lots of fun. 

Today we took care of some chores: getting our auto insurance for Mexico, doing laundry, etc. But we also stopped by the Elko Mining Expo! Tons of equipment, trade show booths, and so on. And a lot more people and kids than I would have expected. I had thought you would really need to be into mining for something like this. But it turns out that bored local citizens turn out, too. Everyone seemed to be gathering bags full of trade show swag. Kind of like trick or treat, without the costumes. All in good fun, I guess. The weather turned windy and chilly, so we didn’t spend a lot of time outside. But we did go to the grocery store and bought ingredients for Mary to cook dinner. Spaghetti and homemade meatballs. Mmm-mmm. Good to have Mary’s cooking again. 

The hard part about our stay here was sleeping on the futon. I know they’re supposed to be comfortable, and we really appreciate our relatives’ hospitality, but the cotton mattress is a little hard for our aging bones. So I got out the mattress topper we’ve been carrying in our car, and put that on. It should help. I hope. Tomorrow we have a long drive. We had planned on staying in a hotel (not to put anyone out), but I couldn’t find a room available, what with the Mining Expo, and all. 

Mary is talking with Stacie right now. They’ve talked a lot lately about all the family dynamics here. And Mary is always wise and loving. But I do hope she comes to bed soon… after I get that last load out of the dryer.