July 8, 2010

Today we slept in, did laundry, and then went to a late breakfast/lunch at I-Hop. Mom was happy to have her Blueberry waffle!!

Then it was off to Reno in search of the giant prospector statue. I should explain that – Jennifer gave Rich and me a book of crazy statues and interesting oddities that can be seen throughout America. The biggest, strangest, and one of a kind treasures were photographed in the 1940’s by a traveler who published his findings in this book. It has become a game for my sister Jeanette and I to find as many of these oddities as we can while we travel on our various road trips! We take a picture of ourselves in front of the find as proof that we were actually there. Then we paste it to the appropriate page in our book, Jeanette has one too! Finding some of these things has led us to explore places of our country that we would have otherwise never seen, and that would have been a real shame. Some of our best adventures have been off the main road and not necessarily planned!

There it is!!!! You can see it from pretty far away, the giant prospector! Yes, he is indeed very, very big! As luck would have it, he was standing guard right outside of a chocolate and candy factory and store. We had to get some snacks for in the car and these were the best kind!! We took our pictures and headed on to Reno.

Reno has grown by leaps and bounds since Rich and I used to compete there at the jazz festivals every year. Well, I guess it should have grown a little in 40 years!! The old performing arts theatre is still there and the river is still gorgeous. The University is at least 3 times as big as it was then and really pretty. After our trip down Virginia Ave. (and Memory Lane) we headed to the National Automobile Museum.

The best display I have ever seen of vintage cars from the first “Model A” up to the more modern cars of 1975. You walked through 4 large galleries with the help of a very nice audio tour that was geared towards the casual visitor as well as the real engine buffs. There were cars that belonged to movie stars and celebrities, race car pros and even early RVers! We had a great time, and could have spent all afternoon there.

On the way back to Carson City, we stopped at BJ’s for dinner.