Finally, the weekend report...

UPDATE: I found a very informative link about Burt Munro which I added in the appropriate paragraph. Check it out.

Yes, the BSU and I did go to Wendover, Nevada for a little time away on Thursday and Friday, and we had a great time. The drive over Thursday afternoon was beautiful with a dramatic storm blowing huge clouds over the mountains and horizons. That really made for a pleasant drive and its just over 2 hours away from the house.

I had a coupon for a free night's stay at the Peppermill and the room turned out to be much nicer than either of us expected. It was large, clean, nicely appointed, just nicer than you might expect. In fact, everything about the Peppermill was nicer than we expected. Nothing, anywhere that I looked was worn or dirty or scuffed. Not the carpets or the chair arms or the upholstery in any of the dining room booths, it all looked brand new.

We did gamble a little bit, as promised previously, but mostly on the casino's money. I put $20 into a penny slot machine just for fun while the spouse napped and ended up a couple drinks later with $120! Well that money was what we gambled away throughout the rest of the evening, before and after watching Saving Private Ryan in our room.

The only disappointment of the entire weekend was the buffet. More expensive than Golden Corral and the food wasn't even close to being as good. In fact, it was lousy. Most items were cold, the prime rib and the brisket were tough and the ribs were dried out stubs. A couple Bloody Mary's made it tolerable.

Breakfast was in the regular dining room and it was excellent. I had an omelette with spicy Italian sausage, she dug into eggs benedict with a pronouncement that they were wonderful. Additional Bloody Mary's made breakfast a real treat. We both enjoyed our breakfasts after a good long sleep-in and some prolonged and energetic snuzzle time before going downstairs.

After checking out, we headed back home through Wendover, Utah, which is the poor, plain cousin to Wendover, Nevada with all their neon lights, discount liquor stores and gambling. Wendover, Utah has a few filling stations, a Super 8 motel and a couple (apparently) thriving pawn shops. There is actually, serious discussion going on between the two states considering moving the state border to incorporate the Utah town into the Nevada town, something that's apparently not been done in the US nearly since the country was established. But its really only a painted line on the one street in town that separates a town with lots of money from a town with none. Wendover does have a beautiful airstrip, built a couple years ago in expectation of getting a real airport that could handle commuter sized jets but the money ran out before the tower and ticketing and parking terminals could be built, so it sits there unused. I expect that in another year or two the painted line will get moved east a half mile and those uptight folks that don't want to live in Nevada will have to come east across the desert to the big city.

Anyway, before I got caught up in that geography and civics lesson I started to say that while driving through Wendover, Utah I passed a string of parked cars. There was a 62 Impala SS with 80s styled wheels on it, a 58 Corvette, a couple late 50's Buicks, a MGB rally car with Paddy Hopkirk's name painted on it on a trailer, a tiny streamliner on a trailer, a 32 Ford roadster in black and a couple other vintage looking salt flat racers on trailers, all parked together. Hmm, I think I gotta stop to see... Funny, all these cars have vintage, yellow California license plates. And the plates are wired on over modern plates. What the heck?

Now I know that these folks are not coming from the Bonneville Salt Flats raceway because I had just been there the day before and knew that the raceway was under water. I did find one guy, reading his paper sitting in one of the cars and so I knocked on his window and asked what it was all about.

The cars were all about The Fastest Indian which is a movie about New Zealand motorcycle legend Burt Munro, who in 1962, raced his modified 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle across the Bonneville Salt Flats and set a new world land speed record. The guy in the car told me that back in September they had a couple hundred vintage land speed racers out on the salt for the majority of the filming! That would have been very cool to see!

Anyway, we returned home Friday afternoon refreshed and as happy with each other as we have been in a good long while. And we only spent about $75, not counting our gasoline for the truck.