Virginia City — Day 1

I headed out from Tahoe on Sunday. My car’s stupid low tire pressure light came on for the second time in a week, so I popped over to Incline Village to grab a coconut mocha then went to my favorite service station to check the tires. As I was on my knees with my little air pressure gauge thingie, a young guy came over and asked how they were looking. Turns out he worked there. I told him that the tire pressure light kept coming on and he said I might have a slow leak, and to pull the car around to the dock and he’d check it for me. My knight in shining armor! He spent a long time looking for a leak. Didn’t find anything, thankfully. I told him I was travelling on my own and was really afraid of getting a flat out in the middle of nowhere. I said I was thinking of getting a can of Fix-A-Flat, and he said that wasn’t a bad idea, and told me where I could get one. (Right across the street!) I asked how much I owed him, and he said nothing. He was really sweet.

I toodled over to the Ace Hardware and got the last can of Fix-A-Flat for compact tires. Whew! Fix-A-Flat has gotten me out of scary flat-tire-out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere situations at least three times in my life, so I feel a bit safer now.

Because it had been snowing, I also decided to make one last stop at Sand Harbor before leaving, because I’d never seen it with snow. There wasn’t much snow there, but there was tons on the road there. In fact, it was still actively snowing. It was so beautiful. I wish I could have taken video while I was driving. I always did that a lot on trips with Kim, but that was when I was a passenger and could hold the camera. Hard to hold a camera and drive. I wish I could find something to hold the camera on the dashboard, but I have no idea where to even look for something like that. An auto parts store??? Radio Shack???

I hung out on the beach for a bit, shooting some video in the freezing cold and driving wind. By the time I got back in the car thirty minutes later, my face was chapped and my hands were so numb I couldn’t grib the steering wheel. I had to sit there and thaw out for a bit. But hopefully the video turned out nice.

I went over Mt. Rose. Serious snow up there. None on the highway, thankfully, but it was coming down pretty good, coating thick on the ground and trees. As soon as I got to the bottom and descended into Reno, sun and blue sky. Nice.

The drive up the mountain to Virginia City was uneventful, except that the whole way I kept thinking, Kim always drove this… On the drive up, I did stop at the turnout that Kim and I always stopped at. I wanted to walk around there, as we always did, but the second I got out of my car, nope!, way too cold and windy. There were a bunch of pretty yellow daisies dotting the fields there, though, and I picked one and set it in the dashboard nook under Kim’s photo. (I took a pic. I actually have several photos I wanted to include in this entry, but the wi-fi connection wasn’t working in my room — I’ve had to post the last couple of updates from the hotel’s Great Room — and I haven’t had time to compress them yet, so those will come at another time. .)

I got to the Tahoe House Hotel around 4pm. The owner, Daan, was waiting for me and immediately poured me a glass of wine (a fantastic Zinfandel) and we sat down for a long chat in the rocking chairs in front of the spectacular antique glass stove in the Great Room. Kim and I met Daan when we were here last year and we had planned to stay here this year. Daan’s into biking, too, so last year, over a glass of wine, he told Kim about a variety of nice mountain biking trails here. (Kim woke up early the next morning and went out on one. He got two flats along the way — big nails, because there are remnants of a lot of mine shafts here — and he was so frustrated! But he said it was a great trail to ride.) When I made my reservations on the phone and told Daan that Kim had died, he was really upset and promised he’d take good care of me while I was here. Daan lost his 12-year-old son in an accident some years back, so he’s no stranger to grief himself. So when I arrived, we just sat and talked for a long time. It was nice, comforting, talking to someone who understands.

He upgraded me from the Garden Room (at the back of the hotel) to Mark Twain’s Study at the front, with two sets of spectacular French doors that open onto the deck overlooking the main street. I had a beautiful lookout over the 100 Mile View and moon was rising. He told me I’d get morning sun. (Sure enough, as I opened my eyes mid-turn-over at 5:30 the next morning, the sunrise was SO stunning I jumped out of bed, half asleep, grabbed my camera, and ran out onto the deck in my pajamas (and it was freezing, too!) to take some pics before climbing back in bed to catch a couple more hours of sleep.)

I was so exhausted my first night, I climbed into bed to watch a movie around 9pm and by 9:30 I was out like a light.