About Me

Tired of the mundane and craving an adventure, on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010, I embarked on the ultimate American road trip through all fifty states. After nearly a year and a half on the road, on a budget of less than 50 bucks a day, this is my story...

Nevada Chapter 1 - Virginia City & Reno

Saturday, June 4th
I crossed the line today...that is, I took a little side excursion from Tahoe into Nevada for a visit to Virginia City, a once booming mining town that was called the "The richest place on Earth," due to the deposits of silver and gold discovered during the great California gold rush (supposedly 75% of it has yet to be discovered!); it was also the home of Mark Twain for a while.  Now it's a touristy "ghost town."  I strolled the old wooden walks through the saloons and gift shops, grabbed some "lunch" from Barrels 'O Candy, and took an exciting, very informative 40-minute underground tour of the Chollar Mine; a 1/4-mile walking tour into the mine shaft and see square-set timbering, silver ore, rock drills as well as other old mining apparatusOutside I checked out machinery and equipment on display including a five stamp mill, hoisting cage, head frame, ore cars, trammer, steam engine, and compressors.


To complete my visit to Virginia City, I did a walking tour of the historic sites, mansions, churches and businesses from the 1800s.  I balanced a bottle of water on a lady's big bum, was thrown in "jail," and inspected "Suicide Table" (3 of its previous owners apparently committed suicide).

Then I drove around Reno, "The Biggest Little City in the World," for a little while (about 23 miles away from Virginia City).  I went to Boomtown Casino & Hotel where I had a few drinks before Peter and Sara met me for the casino's All-You-Can-Eat Whole Maine Lobster Buffet!  Several plates of food and 3 lobsters later (all to myself), the 3 of us went and saw the Bridesmaids movie (and Peter actually got buttered popcorn , lol). It was a hilarious movie that started off with a bang, as I attempted to open a can of guiness that ended up hissing out foam for what seemed like 5 minutes! My friends and the rest of the theater goers' laughter got harder and harder as they witnessed the embarrassing hissing of my beer and my endless slurping of foam, haha!  Then towards the end of the movie we all got to hear someone use a whoopi cushion, lol.  Yeah, pretty much the most fun at a movie in a long time:) 


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