Viva La Reno

View from our room at the casino

Hi! How is your Wednesday going? Mine is wonderful out here in Reno, Nevada. I flew out Friday evening and my sister was nice enough to watch Layla for the weekend. Now Layla’s at the doggie hotel and I hope she’s on her best behavior! I’m not sure when I’m flying home yet, but possibly tomorrow or Friday. It all depends on when the helicopter maintenance is completed.

I’m really fortunate to be able to visit Blake while he’s out on the road. He travels a lot for his job as a helicopter pilot and is sometimes gone for months at a time. It just so happened that he would be in Reno staying at a casino for a few nights while his helicopter was down for a routine maintenance check. We have taken full advantage of his break here in Reno and turned it into a mini-vacay. But it’s not all fun and games; I have had to help out around the hanger and endure many hours of “guy places” including Cabela’s and a sheep hunting convention. It’s worth it to spend time with Blake. We make a really good team-at home and on the road!

Getting the heli all cleaned up and ready to be worked on by the mechanics

Hanger where the heli is being worked on

There were over 120 booths at this "Sheep Show"

I was really, really excited about all the sheep. Can't you tell?

Whoever said that Reno is like a mini Vegas is right. And like Vegas, Reno has some really good restaurants. Blake and I have always enjoyed eating at nice restaurants. We started going to more “adult-like” restaurants back in high school and college and have enjoyed many memorable meals together. Our dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak House a few nights back has to be one of the top ten meals that we’ve experienced together. If you’ve ever been to Ruth Chris Steak House, it’s like that, but even a little nicer! We ordered a bottle of red wine and started with the seafood platter which included oysters on the half shell, shrimp cocktail, crab legs and calamari salad. It came with five different sauces.

Look how happy Blake is with all that seafood!

Blake ordered a steak for dinner. He let me try some and it was one of the best tasting steaks I’ve ever had. I ordered sautéed mushrooms and grilled vegetables. I shouldn’t have even ordered the veggies because I was already stuffed from the seafood platter, but you know how some waitresses guilt-trip you into ordering more food than you planned to? Yeah, this one made me feel like I was an obnoxious woman who can barely finish a side salad. So, we boxed up our leftovers and skipped dessert. We didn’t even need to order dessert because they brought us a mini platter with candied walnuts, coconut macaroons, chocolate truffles and biscotti. Whew, I was stuffed by the time we left the restaurant.

But, we quickly found a way to work off our dinner — line dancing! The casino had a live country band and a dance floor for line dancing. We were so impressed with the couples out on the dance floor that we vowed to take lessons and go line dancing once we’re back home. I am so excited! Blake already has the cowboy boots and plaid shirts, but we need to pick him up a cowboy hat and I need some cowgirl boots and a cute plaid shirt to wear. I’d really prefer one with ruffles on!

I even tried a few dances out on the dance floor. It was not pretty!

Since we’re staying at a casino and I have never gambled before, we took a few one’s that Blake had in his pocket and hit the casino floor. He gravitated towards slot machines with ‘Wolf” in the title, while I thought the “Sex & the City” machines were more fun. We weren’t too lucky on in terms of gambling.

But, we did end up down in the children’s arcade and I (after too many played token to count) ended up winning a *Bonus* on one of the games. I’m embarrassed to say that I may have gotten a little too excited about all the tickets I won!

Who needs to gamble in a casino when there's an arcade to play in?

I’m going to go do some more loads of laundry. I want to get Blake all caught up before he flies out to Elko, NV. Have a great day and I’ll talk to you later,

Kilee

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