375 Miles to Winnemucca, Nevada

Ok, so it was our first day on the road; really, not so bad. No fighting, Guy didn't talk on the phone once, only checked his email a couple of times when the traffic was slow and we stopped for lunch at INnOut, so not bad at all. Except for Sonny in the back seat panting for the entire 375 miles, I thought I was going to lose my mind, it was like Chinese water torture. Except for realizing at some point on the drive that I had forgotten the "pot" cookies that Margie gave me, in the freezer in the house in San Francisco. Not a big deal, right? Do I need to get high on this trip? Of course not, except that I told my housekeeper to go to the house first thing in the morning and clean out the refrigerator and freezer and take anything she wanted and get rid of the rest. I had a panic attack thinking that she was going to take the bag of cookies, (which Margie said were extremely potent and warned me to only eat a tiny bit of one or I would be so stoned it would be scary) and eat them herself or worse, give them to her kids!! I freaked out in the car. I finally got Chloe, my sweet neighbor to go in and retrieve the evil cookies from the freezer immediately, so there was no chance of anyone else getting them. She did and I'm sure she's feeling fine right about now.

To continue; except that when we pulled up in front of the motel, I got a little nervous and when we walked into our room, I started to cry. It is the Bates Motel!!! So gross and smelly, I wouldn't even let the dogs sit on the beds before I took the covers off. Yes, I know, I am a spoiled brat, but seriously, this place is terrible. Thank God for my sleep sack! I wasn't exactly expecting the Four Seasons, but this is ridiculous. The woman who runs it is very nice however although I am sure she is a prostitute. Just a minor point in a town that is home to the Pussycat Ranch (truckers welcome).

But here are the best parts of the day: We just had an amazing dinner in a wonderful Basque restaurant called the Martin Hotel that I had read about in my roadtrip book. The food was wonderful and it is all family style, which means you sit with people you don't know, kind of like the Melrose Diner in South Philly except here we sat next to an honest to God cowboy. He was probably our age and he was well dressed with a huge cowboy hat on and was with his son. Of course, Guy immediately starts talking to him and finds out that he works for the Department of Agriculture and his job is to find cattle rustlers and arrest them. I kid you not, that is really his job. Who knew there were still "cattle rustlers" let alone people who's only job it is, is to find them. I think the deeper we go into the heartland, the stranger it will be.

Here is another nice part of the day. Before we left this morning, Susie came over to say good by and brought Guy his very own sleep sack and Paul also came over to say goodbye and hung out with us on the sidewalk as they packed up the moving truck.

We were very sad and shed some tears as we pulled away from 2030, but were having fun by the time we were on the highway.

Can't wait to see what's in store tomorrow.

The pictures are of us just before we got in the car, my sleep sack on the bed in the "Bates Motel", Paul and Guy and the dogs hanging on the sidewalk watching the movers and an empty room in the house.