Getting Away: Fernley Nevada

On the road from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Yellowstone area.  The adventure begins. 

Fernley Nevada; established 1905.  We’re on the road trip, headed for the mountain states.  Fernley wasn’t exactly where I’d expected to land on the first day out.  I’d hoped to reach Winnemucca on the first night but “civilization” (and I use that term loosely) wouldn’t let go of its nasty, relentless grip. 

Teasing Tatanka and Other Travel Plans

Tatanka – Lakota Sioux word for American Bison (buffalo)

If a bear charges you after a surprise encounter, stay still and stand your ground.  National Park Service Advisory

The plans are pretty much in place.  The accommodations are all booked, the basic itinerary is set and in less than two weeks it’ll be time for us to over pack, throw fishing and camera gear and mountains of other stuff and junk into the car that we won’t need and will never touch and head out on vacation.  I’ll leave the boilerplate “out of office” email message that says I’ll have no cell phone or internet service while I’m gone.  You see this is all part of the new American work protocol in which your employer expects you drop everything, leisure, kids's birthdays, sex and death (a family member's or yours), if and when duty calls.  By saying that you don't have any service you're trying to sound like you're saying, "Gosh I'd really like to but I'm in the wilderness."  But what you're really saying is "Fuck off:" Everyone leaves the same basic message, “Hi, I’m sorry I missed your email but I’m at Silicon Valley and there’s no internet or phone service here.”  I mean really how many places are left where you have no phone or internet service?  Actually I know of one.  That will be the cabin in Montana we’re renting for 5 nights out of the two weeks we'll be gone.  It’s about 20 miles from the nearest town and there really is no phone or internet. 

On The Civil War Trail

“The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads.”

~ Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative

Unharmed he reached the nearest sufferer. He knelt beside him, tenderly raised the drooping head, rested it gently upon his own noble breast, and poured the precious life-giving fluid down the fever scorched throat.

This done, he laid him tenderly down, placed his knapsack under his head, straightened out his broken limb, spread his overcoat over him, replaced his empty canteen with a full one, and turned to another sufferer. 

~ Excerpt of Confederate Gen. Joseph B. Kershaw’s account of the Angel of Marye’s Heights.

“And let the perpetual light shine upon them.”

~ My wife Cora.

We left Washington DC for a driving tour of Virginia.  Our drive crisscrossed Virginia's Civil War trails.  You can't hardly drive for a few hours in Virginia without coming across a site related to the Civil War.  If it isn't a building or a battlefield it might simply be a sign describing a particular spot as being some general's headquarters or a place where a skirmish took place.  The white signs are along highways, on country roads, near schools and on the fringes of shopping malls. 

Confederate cannons on the hills above Fredericksburg

Song of Appalachia

On Google Maps Hiltons, Virginia looks to be only a short jog from Abingdon where our hotel was.  In fact the directions will tell you that it’s only 27 miles away.  The directions will also tell you though that it’s about a 50 minute drive.  Well that didn't look at all right when we started out until a few minutes into the drive when we left the the town limits of Abingdon for a narrow, winding road through the woods and farms of that little corner of Appalachia. This section of Virginia is about a tobacco spit away from the border with Tennessee.

A familiar Baptist Church in Appalachia

Roughing It (With apologies to Mark Twain)

The Family Camping Chronicles: Part III

"On the seventeenth day we passed the highest mountain peak that we had yet seen, and although the day was very warm the night that followed upon its heels was wintry cold and blankets were next to useless."  From Roughing It  by Mark Twain

“It would be distressing to a feeling person to See our Situation at this time all wet and cold and with our bedding &c also wet, in a cove scarcely large enough to contain us…canoes at the mercy of the waves and driftwood…robes and leather clothes are rotten.”   William Clark describing being stranded at Point Ellice, Washington (1808).  (For those who slept through the day they taught about the Lewis and Clark expedition in history class, Clark was Meriwether Lewis’ expedition partner)

“We’re really roughing it,” Dad would say as he loaded our camping gear into the station wagon.  The words were served with sides of arched eyebrow, a wry smile and a large helping of sarcasm.  Dad was alluding to Roughing It, Mark Twain’s chronicle of his adventures in the Wild West of the 1860’s.  Looking back it seems like a magic trick that dad was able to get a big canvas tent, two bulky cots, lantern, fishing gear, stove, clothes, some pre-cooked meals that mom packed for us and an assorted pile of “possibles” into that wagon.

To B & B or not to B & B?

It seemed the appropriate question as we surveyed our room at Anne Hathaway’s Bed and Breakfast in Ashland, Oregon.  Maybe survey isn't the right word.  Surveying conjures visions of a large expanse.  This room was tiny.  I suppose I should mention that this B & B, located in the home of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is named after The Bard's better half and not the American actress.  Did I mention that it was small?The room was small enough that sitting on any edge of the bed I could reach out and touch a wall.  It wasn't big enough to swing the proverbial cat in.  I’m certain that at some point as I put our suitcase in the only place it would fit, under the bathroom sink and pondered the nightly rate that Lady Macbeth’s words came to mind; “What’s done cannot be undone.”

The American Adventure - The Open Road

It's July, 2013 and my wife Cora and I are taking a driving trip through Northern California and into Oregon. 

The wife and I have embarked on that great American summer adventure; that annual migration of the dog days; that paean to the interstate, the motorcar and fuel consumption; the modern day version of the pioneers’ tale – the road trip.  We've headed north from the San Francisco Bay to a distant, uncharted and exotic land – Oregon.  Okay, it’s not distant; it’s only 300 miles or so.  And it’s hardly uncharted.  After all I went out recently and bought a GPS so Oregon, the rest of this land and all of hell’s half acre are all pretty well charted.

The Oak Desk

I recently made the decision that it’s past time to get rid of the roll top desk that sits under the window in our bedroom.  A roll top was something I’d always wanted.  I suppose I pictured myself sitting at that desk like some latter day Mark Twain; sipping expensive bourbon from a heavy crystal rocks glass, dipping pen in inkwell and writing the next great American novel.

Skimpy Suits, Hairy Backs and Taffy

The house is being painted. Everything’s covered with plastic.  I could brew coffee or have some cereal or heat up a can of soup if I could get to any of that.  The pantry, you see, is sealed.  A lot of the light fixtures are removed but that doesn’t really matter because all of the switches and outlets are swathed in tape.  And even if we could cook a meal and had light to eat under, to quote Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, “You smell that?”  Yeah that would be the smell of paint which renders food as inedible as the home is unlivable.  But that’s all okay. We hired the guys and they’re doing what they were commissioned to do.  So we left for the weekend.  For the second weekend in a row we’ve taken a road trip; this time to Santa Cruz. 

For my out of state and international readers, and yes surprisingly I do have some, Santa Cruz is the Central California beach resort.  It has nice beaches, surfers, bronzed blondes wearing cocktail napkins held together by pieces of string that are otherwise known as swim suits and middle aged fellows with immense bay windows and hairy backs wearing Speedos.  By far its biggest attraction, bigger even than a hairy middle aged paunch, is the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk, dubbed the Coney Island of the West and complete with carnival games, rides, fried and unhealthy carnival food and a wooden roller coaster. 

The wife and I aren’t doing the boardwalk or the beach this time around.  We have the dog with us and she’s canis non grata (that’s highbrow speak for dogs not welcome) at the beach and boardwalk.  Beyond that we’re not big aficionados of the rides anymore.  When we were dating, I did take her on the roller coaster, known as The Giant Dipper; scared the hell out of her.  The Giant Dipper was a tough old girl back then.  Not only did it have the usual drops, turns and a tunnel but it banged you around so that when you got off you might likely be nursing some bruises on your hips.  I hear that the cars are modernized now and the ride's a bit smoother.

Santa Cruz was one of my childhood dream destinations.  Once or twice every summer the family would pack up a picnic lunch and take the 60 mile or so trek down the coast.  It was a relatively short trip but when you’re a kid an hour in the car might as well be a trans-Atlantic journey.

Mom would fry some chicken and wrap it in foil; make some macaroni salad and it would all go into a Scotch Cooler with some Cragmont sodas like ginger ale, cream soda and cherry cola and off we went.  The Scotch Cooler was a barrel shaped cooler with a tartan plaid pattern and Cragmont was the Safeway house brand and both are antiques and memories now. 

The beach at Santa Cruz near the boardwalk is packed on a sunny weekend afternoon.  We would find a small, unoccupied patch of beach, spread out a tablecloth and some towels and dine on the chicken and macaroni salad served up with a generous side order of sand.  After lunch we would lie out in the sun and half doze in the warmth to the beach sounds of waves, gulls, squealing kids, the shouts of angry parents and a Giants game on a nearby transistor.  After some toasting in the sun we would take a dip in the frigid waters.  The beach is nice but the water can be very cold.  Its water that euphemistically you “get used to” which really means you simply go numb.  After thawing out in the sun it was time to stroll down the boardwalk, go on the rides and play the games.  There was the roller coaster, the wild mouse and the other thrill rides along with a fun house, the bumper cars and the cheesy haunted house with the strange smell, the jolting cars and the pneumatic mechanical monsters.  And of course there was the food; corn dogs and deep fried whateveritisyouwant.  The best food, if you could call it food, was Marini’s salt water taffy.  We never failed to go home with a pound of taffy in a green box.

For a young boy, walking down the boardwalk was something of an educational, eye opening experience.  There were all of those young women wearing relatively nothing and showing parts that a youngster just had never seen before except in pictures that he wasn’t supposed to lay his eyes on.  Remember, we’re talking about the sixties; a time that by today’s standards was relatively Victorian.  There was no internet, no cable and movies left many things to the imagination.  The big question for a young lad was, if they can show all of what they’re showing why are they all hiding something?  And just what is it that they’re hiding?  As a guy got into his teens it was more of an eye opener because he was getting a pretty fair idea of what those parts, hidden and unhidden, were all about.  When we got into our teens we jettisoned the parents.  I would take the drive down with my college girlfriend Denise who would wear relatively nothing and I guess provided an eye opening experience for boys of all ages.  We blew off the Scotch Cooler and the home cooked food and went for the boardwalk food.  I spent too much money missing kewpie dolls with baseballs and banging basketballs off a too tight rim and failing to win a stuffed animal as the carny grinned at each miss and each subsequent dollar plopped on the counter all the while leering at Denise.  We rode the thrill rides and we also rode the haunted house ride but we never noticed the strange smell or the cheesy pneumatic mechanical monsters because the ride was cool and dark and a good place to make out for a few minutes.

On this weekend we drove down Highway 1, catching the scenic coastal route in Half Moon Bay.  The little beach town, home of the annual Pumpkin Festival is getting ready for the fall season.  Pumpkins are appearing in the fields and some of the seasonal signage is out already.  We drove past the little town of Pescadero and then past Gazos Creek.  Gazos is a little coastal stream which has had a reputation of being a great fishing spot.  My dad and I tried it on a few occasions and you couldn’t prove its greatness by our results.  We drove past the town of Davenport which, on the childhood drives, meant we were finally getting to the end of the “long” drive.  Davenport is more or less one of those “oops I blinked and missed it” little towns that was built in the early 20^th century and existed mostly because of the cement plant located there. 

Pulling into Santa Cruz it seems as though not much has changed since I used to visit so regularly.  Of course it’s sprawled some and it is more modern but, and this is to its credit, it hasn’t grown up; that is there are no new high rises.  By all rights some large hotel chains could have decided to try to plant skyscraping resorts at the beach but that never happened.  Accommodations near the beach are mostly quaint privately run little bungalow motels.  The only amenities offered are a parking spot, a bed, a bathroom, a TV and the most important one of all, a location that’s walking distance to the beach.  A former co-worker used to vacation at one of these little places every year and had to make his reservation for August a year in advance. 

Since the beach wasn't in our plans we stayed at a nice Hilton in nearby Scotts Valley, nestled in the evergreen hills just above Santa Cruz.  Its dog friendly, cushy and full of amenities that are perfect for just relaxing and forgetting work and painters. There was a nice breakfast at a place called Aldo’s overlooking the Santa Cruz Harbor.  Aldo’s was recommended by Food Network’s obnoxious Guy Fieri but I won’t hold that against Aldo.  The lesson here is never take a birddog to a restaurant that’s frequented by gulls.

Before leaving Santa Cruz the temptation was just too great.  It was a primal migratory pull that made me drive to the old Boardwalk where it was still early enough to find street parking nearby.  I pulled up behind a Toyota that had just been parked by a woman who approached my window.  Would I mind leaving that space open and taking the one behind?  She was saving it for some friends.  Not a problem for me as I was only going to be there long enough to satisfy an urge.  As I walked past the woman I wanted to comment, “let me know how this works out for you.”  When I got back to the car my wife told me of the drama that ensued when a fellow pulled up to the spot and started to park as the woman tried to save the spot.  He was a large man sporting a Mohawk and so trying to save a parking spot on a busy public street didn’t work out.  Before we drove off I reached into the green Marini’s box and unwrapped a delicious piece of salt water taffy.  

Reno: Cash me out

Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.  ~From the movie The Color of Money

It's time to cash in the chips on our little vacation, luckily there were chips to cash, and head home, but in the spirit of those last few pulls on the slot machine a few last minute reflections.

On our way in to Reno, it was evident that the Biggest Little City has gotten bigger.  It’s developed its own sprawl.  Many of those doing the sprawling are expatriates of the San Francisco Bay Area who found that they could buy a huge home in Reno suitable for inflating the ego and impressing the friends and family.  They also found, once it was too late, that it gets hotter on the edge of a desert than it does near the bay and the lifestyle is different (not necessarily better or worse, just different) out here.  And so when they decided that they wanted to return to the Bay Area they found that they couldn’t afford to.  Too bad, so sad.

As we explored the casino at our temporary home, The Atlantis, I noticed some definite changes, the biggest one being the sound.  Oh yeah there are the usual gaming machine sound effects but something was missing.  I didn’t know what it was until I went to put a coin in a slot machine.  I examined the machine high and low and couldn't find a coin slot and then discovered, uhhh, they don’t take coins.  They take bills and then you play in increments of anywhere from pennies to dollars.  And if they don’t take coins they don’t dispense coins so that clanking of quarters in the payout box is gone.  Now you don’t get a flood of quarters you get a voucher that you exchange at a machine. Very disappointing.

So now you don’t see the blue haired woman or the fellow sporting a boiler and Bermuda shorts and dress socks drifting around the casino with a gin and tonic in one hand and a bucket of quarters in the other.  Just the blue hair, the boiler, the shorts, the dress socks and the gin and tonic; no bucket of quarters.

You also don’t see cashiers roaming the aisles of slots.  Even in Sin City mechanization has eliminated jobs.  Will the same phenomenon happen in the borellos?  Hmmm, maybe best not to go there.

At some point I did notice one sound effect that seems common in every casino we visited.  Sixties and seventies pop played non stop, 24/7.  The speakers played every bad song from that era, from Petulia Clark, to The Monkees to the Bee Gees.  There was a veritable orgy of Neil Diamond, it seemed his whole, horrid catalog.  Well I couldn't very well expect them to play The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane now could I.  Pink Floyd's, "Money" might have lent an ironic twist.

Every visit to Reno reminds me of my Aunt Bonnie from Salt Lake City.  She and my Uncle Al would occasionally meet us in Reno.  Aunt Bonnie had the greatest slot machine luck of anyone I’ve ever known.  She would put in a quarter or three and within a couple of pulls the slot machine gods would bestow a bucket full of silver.

Most of the machines don’t have mechanical reels anymore.  All video.  Makes me a little suspect.  Aunt Bonnie would probably take a look at these video machines and exclaim as she was often wont, “Oh bullshit.”  Then she would sit down and play; and win. 

It took about a half day of feeding the machines before I got as comfortable as I could with all the different permutations of how those things work.  I did win about an eighty dollar jackpot on a slot machine with some sort of big game fishing theme, “That’s a Keeper.”

One thing that hasn’t changed; inside of the first thirty minutes I’d already smoked a pack or two of cigarettes of the second hand brand.

One member of our little party asked the question, besides gaming what’s the industry in Reno?  A drive down Virginia Street revealed at least three costume shops; what’s that about?  There were a couple of lingerie shops.  A fair amount of tattoo and piercing parlors.  A couple of wedding chapels.  We’ve passed a pair of strip clubs.  All possible offshoots of alcohol consumption? 

And then there are the pawn shops and a few lenders offering loans against car titles.  Off shoots of alcohol and gaming.  One enterprising fellow has a combination pawn shop, t-shirt shop. 

From the “that’s just wrong department;” my wife and I were having dinner at a little Italian styled café in our hotel and noticed a couple who drifted over from our restaurant to the all you can eat buffet restaurant to grab some desserts to bring back to their tables.

I’m on vacation and probably shouldn’t be getting into politics, but….I’ve noticed more than a few housekeepers here in this hotel and the Silver Legacy where my son is staying and most if not all of them seem to be either Hispanic or Filipina immigrants.  Legal or not I couldn’t say.  With the unemployment rate soaring where are all the unemployed Americans?  I guess the point here is it seems to give some validity to the old argument that there are some jobs that white America won’t deign to take. 

And while we’re on employment.  Let’s see, we didn’t raise taxes on the rich a while back because they’re, as the GOP likes to say, the “job creators.”  They railed to the heavens that taxing the rich would stifle job creation.  Latest figures; no new jobs.  I’m just wondering when those job creators are going to stop sitting on their cash, reaping their tax benefits and start creating jobs.  Wait, I know.  Somewhere around the tenth of NEVER.

Looking around on a busy Saturday  last night one wouldn’t think we’re in a recession.  Could any of these folks be among the unemployed just hoping to win the next couple of mortgage payments?

A touch of nostalgia over the weekend.  With my son and daughter in law as they took their daughter around the midway at Circus Circus.  All totaled we spent a fair amount of money at the games trying to win her some stuffed animals with an equally fair amount of success; 4 plush toys.  Brought back memories of doing the same for my children.

Just what is it with dealers that they seem to have this werewolf quality about them. Playing 21 during the day I seemed to be doing quite well thank you. I wasn't getting rich but I was slowly getting ahead one five dollar chip at a time with some decent hands.  Sun went down and suddenly I got fed a steady diet of 12s through 15s. On those rare occasions when I drew 19s and 20s the dealer was drawing 20s and 21s.

And what is it with players who continually hit 14s and 15s?  I do thank them for drawing that inevitable 10 that would otherwise go to the dealer.

And then there was the fellow who railed at his wife for splitting tens.  There was plenty of that going around as well; taking a likely winning hand and turning it into two potentially losing hands. No wonder the casinos do so well.

Last night I found myself down to the last 4 or 5 chips in my pocket and the little devil on my shoulder whispered to me to pull out a couple of twenties and buy more chips.  I told him to go back to hell, went to the room gathered all of my chips that I'd kept out of harm's way and cashed them in. Gambling was done for the weekend.  Eighty dollars spent and a hundred eighty returned.  Not bad.  It wasn't an early retirement check but neither did I give my business to the loans for car titles entrepreneur.

In the days of my childhood Reno used to play off of its pioneer, mining and cowboy heritage.  This area was a product of the Comstock silver lode.  It seems the quest for quick and easy riches that were neither quick or easy has always been present here.  The wild west theme has more or less gone by the boards now.  In America, with the exception of guns, the wild west has lost its allure.

The last supper.  Our last dinner came down to a coin toss between the steak house and a nice dry aged 20 ounce Porterhouse or all you can eat sushi.  The rib orgy of two nights previous had about worn out what ever fortitude my intestines have had for awhile and so sushi won out.

And now it's time for the weekend's biggest gamble; getting on the highway.  Wish me luck.

Reno: A Piggy Tale of The Biggest Little City

PETA: People for the eating of tasty animals.

          Logo on a t-shirt at the BBQ cook off. 

Reno, the self-proclaimed Biggest Little City in the World.  I’m here with my wife and my son and his family to attend the wide world of pork.  No I don’t mean a Congressional spending session; we’re here for the Nugget’s Best in the West Rib Cook Off, a little relaxation and some gambling. 

It’s been about 20 years since I’ve been to Reno.  My children were still in grade school and a short stay at Reno was a nod to my wife for putting up with a few days of camping at Lassen National Park.  My wife is not at all fond of camping.  We swung down Highway 395, south along the Eastern California border watching lightning storms in the distance.  It was the first time that I had travelled that route and I found the rugged, isolated high country to be spectacular.  The only thing missing was a herd of wild horses.

When I was a child Reno was the family way station on the many driving trips that we took to visit my dad’s family in Salt Lake City.  We usually left the house well before the crack of dawn at the ungodly hour of 4 AMish.  The early start was to beat the heat of Caliifornia’s Central Valley as well as the desert heat east of Reno.  In those days air conditioning in the car, at least our car, was open windows.  In the midday heat the car essentially became an oven on wheels.  

1960s Reno

As we hit the Sierra Nevada, my dad would glance longingly at the Truckee River, pointing out the calm pools that looked to be prime fishing spots.  He never did fish the Truckee but I’m sure he would have loved to wet a line and try his luck for a few hours.  As we drove past historic towns such as Auburn and Placerville, dad would talk about the great California Gold Rush of 1849.  It was of course the first great wave to the Golden State of what would be many migrations westward to find riches in California.  These days they seem to be leaving California in droves.   As we approached Donner Summit dad would tell the tragic story of the Donner Party, punctuating the narrative with remarks like, “Gad, could you imagine coming through these mountains in covered wagons when there were no roads.”  He talked about the terrible winter of 1846 when that little band of pioneers found themselves trapped in the Sierra snows.  His stories about their trials and, well let’s be honest, the cannibalism, captured my imagination and inspired me to read at a very young age, George Stewart’s, Ordeal by Hunger, the classic history of the Donner Party.  I would like to think that today’s parents point out historical sites and explain their significance to their kids along road trips.  The cynic in me says, “Nah, they probably don’t have enough of a sense of history to be able to explain what happened anyway.  Plug in the portable DVD player, keep ‘em busy, and leave ‘em ignorant.”

Reno was the breakfast stop on the way to our overnight stop, Winnemucca, in the middle of the Nevada desert.  By the time we got to the famous Biggest Little City arch we were tired, hungry and chafing.  We would stop at a coffee shop where I could get a stack of pancakes roughly the diameter of manhole covers and my parents could get a more modest breakfast and slip away in shifts to feed the one armed bandits.  Before heading out my parents usually indulged my entreaties for a trinket of some sort.  On one of those trips I got a Reno pennant to add to the collection on my bedroom wall.  Another trip yielded a slot machine piggy bank.  I would put my coin in the slot, pull the handle and my coin would disappear into the machine, kind of the way the real ones work.  The only difference is mine had a little hatch at the bottom that allowed me to retrieve my coins.  The real ones just take your coins, and that’s it.

Early auto survival gear

We would pull out of Reno, point the Big Chevy Impala East and head into the desert.  For a kid driving into the dessert created a certain amount of excitement and foreboding.  I still had my dad’s stories of the Donner Party whirling around in my impressionable mind (The Donner’s didn’t exactly have good luck during their desert crossing either).  The desert was also the place where cowboys went to die of heat and thirst in the horse operas (also known as Western TV shows).  As we left Sparks we would begin to see the signs advertising Little America, a hotel in Salt Lake City.  It was also where we would see cars sporting the Desert Water Bags; a canvas bag that was hung from the hood ornament of a car.  It held extra water for the radiator in case of overheating.  Our trip this year won't include a desert trek.

My wife and I got an early start on Friday morning and landed in Truckee near the summit of the Sierra Nevada.  Truckee is a picturesque little town around the summit of the Sierra Nevada.  The original settlement of the town was known as Pollard Station in 1866.  In the late 1860s Truckee’s main industry was logging.  In 2011 logging has died down and if our experience is any indicator, the new industry is fleecing tourists.  We stopped for breakfast at a historic looking little place called The Wagon Train Coffee Shop located in an old brick building.  My wife’s modest sausage and cheese omelet, my two biscuits and gravy, 3 strips of bacon and 2 eggs and a cup of coffee each came out to thirty dollars.  Yikes!  I’ve paid less for a more sumptuous breakfast in San Francisco.  Gas was fifty cents more per gallon than in the high priced San Francisco Bay Area.

As we descended from the Sierras into Reno we passed the Truckee River and as my dad had done so many years ago I pointed out prime fishing spots.  We arrived at the Atlantis, mid-afternoon, and waited for my son and family to arrive and then off to Sparks for the rib cook off.

At the Cook Off it's carnivores only

Let me be very clear; The Nugget’s Best in the West Rib Cook Off is not for the health conscious, the vegan faint of heart or anyone with a religious edict against eating pig.  It is a carnivorous celebration; a pageant of pork.  The only nod to vegetables comes from the deep fryer; zucchini, mushrooms and mammoth, and very tasty, onion rings.  The contest is held in Sparks, just east Reno.  For the remainder of the year Sparks’ claim to fame is as home to The Mustang Ranch.  No, this ranch has nothing to do with horses but it does sell, uh, rides; in a manner of speaking.

But it’s in September that barbecue masters from around the country converge on little Sparks Nevada to vie for a first place prize of 7500 dollars.  Huh?  Is that all? Given the amount of work that the pit masters put in, not to mention the travel, the relative pittance of a purse speaks to the passion that these folks have for their barbecue.  For six days these folks tend their barbecues, from the simple smoker you can get at the local hardware store to huge custom built rigs on wheels. As you enter the closed off street you notice, columns of smoke, the smell of wood, from hickory to apple to mesquite, and of course the smell of meat, meat and more meat.  From my 6’1” vantage point I saw barbecue stands as far as the eye could see and beyond.  The contestants come from around the country but the workers manning the stands are locals, many apparently college students from The University of Nevada at Reno (Do they ever get any studying in?).

Pig is king at the Nugget Cook Off

Why is this pig smiling?

All varieties of meats are available but clearly the king of the contest is the swine variety.  The various signs display cartoon caricatures of smiling (and why are they smiling?) pigs and most visitors are carrying pork ribs.  For about seven dollars you get a four bone sampler of ribs that you can bathe in the various sauces, from tangy to sweet to fiery to sauces which start out with sweet and finish with heat. We got and shared samplers from Mike Mills and Willingham’s Memphis Barbecue (neither purveyor is actually from Memphis) to Texas Outlaws Barbecue which is not actually from Texas.  By the time that we had walked from one end of the street to the other and back, I’d consumed over a rack of ribs and looked forward with some trepidation to a night of labored digestion and meat sweats.  Was it worth it?  Sure, why not, I not only had some of the best “Q” ever but I marveled at the dedication and passion that folks can have.  Anyone who fancies owning a business, whatever that business, even if it’s a vegan restaurant needs to pay a visit.  And I’m not talking about pigging out on sauce slathered pig, I’m talking about getting a feel for the dedication that it takes to start an enterprise.  These are people with a manic dedication and pride in something they love and believe in.  This is what it takes to start a business.  It’s an obsession that makes you strive for perfection and compels you to bore your friends for hours on end while you regale them with tales of your hobby.  It’s an enterprise that you would do for free, and often do at the start, if you weren’t trying to make a living from it.