just in time for more holiday travel (ooh! body scans!), the photoset from last week’s jaunt to reno. (or, i attempt and fail to get that Magnetic Fields song out of my head all weekend.)

it has long been a goal of ben’s to traverse the entire country, coast-to-coast, by train. luckily for me he’s already covered most of it, save the leg from san francisco to reno and another short jump from cleveland to elyria (ohio, alas). so last weekend, for no reason at all except to celebrate me taking an actual two-day weekend , we grabbed the California Zephyr from our hood in berkeley and rode to reno.

it perhaps revealed to us what californians we’d become when, as the train passed through heavy snowfall over donner summit, we realized that neither of us had brought a coat. in november. to the sierras.

that pretty much relegated us to spending the remainder of our 24 hours in reno indoors, which would have been fine were it not for the casino’s stars and moon wall-to-wall carpeting and similarly garish interior decorating choices. i mean, i know that casinos are strategically designed so that you can’t find your way out or figure out what time of day it is*, but this place was like an acid trip having an acid trip. plus, let’s be honest, reno is no las vegas. the sad old people plugging quarters into slots just about breaks my heart. they don’t even look like they’re having fun. we mostly opted to stay safely tucked in our hotel room, which lacked the frolicking unicorn carpet, but was working the mirrored 80’s coke palace look quite effectively.

stay classy, reno!

*i suspect similarly nefarious tactics are employed in the makeup sales floors of major department stores. five steps in and i am utterly disoriented by the perfumy, shininess of it all and go bouncing from counter and counter unable to remember how i came in or why.