Thursday today and we are back in civilization, Reno, after having spent the last few days tiki touring around a small part of the countryside. First stop was Virginia City which is basically still a cowboy town complete with the wooden boardwalks in front of all the buildings. After that we drove for a couple of hours and visited Bodi which is a genuine ghost town – complete with 80% of the buildings still intact and goods inside them just as they were left. The last person moved out in 1962 but most of them were long gone way before that. Next stop was Lake Tahoe which is up in the mountains at about 6000ft and we spent the night here in the tent – plenty of warnings about bears in the area. Very nice area with plenty of skifields for the winter sport and the lake for summer fun.
Heading off towards the salt from Saturday and again probably won’t have much in the way of internet access but will be back when I can.

Sunday was the final day of Hot August Nights and the event wound up with a grand parade down the main street of all the cars, led by those that had been judged best in their classes. We were invited by Chris and Diane Prince (Kiwi Restoration) to join them on a street corner where they were setup with a cooler of Bloody Marys and some deck chairs. The cars trundled by for over an hour and a half, during which time a TV camera was filming near us and he asked us for a comment which Noddy gave and was shown on the local news that evening. Jude had a shirt on with a NZ flag on it which caught the eye of a motorcycle cop cruising by, he stopped and the Americans with us started to panic as it is illegal to be drinking in a public place - they were thinking we would be fined, or worse. It turned out he was originally from Wellington and had been here since he was 13 but he was a good guy and we had a big conversation about policing in Nevada – much the same issues as at home but on a bigger scale.
After the parade it was all over except for the invite back to Chris and Dianes for a BBQ which was appreciated as it meant we could relax for the afternoon by drinking beer and eating steak that was about 2” thick.The plans for the next couple of days is to do some sightseeing before starting to head to Bonneville at the end of the week. It is likely that there will be limited internet access but will update this blog when I next get an opportunity.
Rob.

More car shows on Saturday, again there seemed to be a whole bunch of new stuff to see and again we only walked along the display that was on the main street. Also walked into the Big Boys Toys arena which is where most of the vendors had their displays of complete chassis, auto products, accessories and most anything else you could think of. Today is Sunday and the final days parade along the main street starts in about an hour or so, which I imagine will take awhile to file past as there are around 5000 cars registered and I think that most of them will be taking part. There was no street cruising last night instead it was held in the carpark of one of the casinos, the crowds of people watching was quite amazing along with the cars cruising around the circuit. Blood, Sweat and Tears were one of the bands playing as part of the entertainment and they were worth going to see – average age of the audience would have been about 103 and they had all bought their deckchairs, not many people dancing.Weather here is still hot and sunny every day, about 30 but does cool down a bit overnight. Got ourselves some camping gear and stuff for the trip to the salt and planning on starting to head out there on Tuesday.

Cheers, Rob.