Thanks for the Memories

road trip - somewhere between here and there

Lovelock, Nevada. The ever present casino. Cattle. A major intersection or two. The home of trucks and 4-wheel drive. Not much in the middle of nowhere. The billboard coming into town exhorts us to stop and "feel the love in Lovelock."

Pilot to co-pilot. We have left California and entered the twilight zone. I'm sorry. I know that I'm being irreverent about one of our 50 states, but people, have you been to Nevada? I don't mean Las Vegas. That town doesn't even qualify for "reality" status.

What drew us to Lovelock were our grumbling stomachs. We had left Tahoe at 5:30am ("officially" 4:30am due to daylight savings but the change hadn't kicked into my nervous system yet). We were hungry and lasted as many highway miles as we could. So Lovelock was it.

Needless to say, on a Sunday morning not much is open except the casino's restaurant. Praise God for the nonsmoking laws in California, which we were reminded of the second our noses stepped inside.

Working our way past the slot machines, we entered the restaurant where we encountered table after table of men dressed in plaid shirts and baseball caps. These men were gnarly, having spent a lifetime on the farms and ranches nearby. A tilt of their head, a blink of their eye was about all the acknowledgment we were going to get. Come to think of it, WE felt like the aliens who had landed in town.

Once settled, I was reminded that my dad would have loved a place like this. These were his people. He grew up in farm country in upstate New York and a love of the land never left his blood. I could just see my dad in his plaid hunting shirt joining these men before a day in the woods. I miss him.

I ordered grits and eggs. My dad's favorite. Thanks for the memories, Lovelock.