One Day or Day One. You Decide.

80 East

Day One...of 60-day road trip.  I lit out of Reno at 3:45pm on a Thursday after teaching my last yoga class for two months.  Winnemucca or Bust!  It was a short, 2.5 hour drive.  Left the high desert and drove through more high desert.  Headed northeast.

Landscape was golden, with brown, grey and beige tinged mountains.  Little to no smoke, with mostly clear, blue skies. High 80s.

Little pink house in Winnemucca

Headed to a KOA campground in Winnemucca.  Never need to visit this campground again, unless I want a great bathroom and hot shower.  Other than that, it's just too much concrete and road noise. But, I found the trees, and that's where they have the tent sites.  Yay.  My yoga students were ribbing me saying, "Yeah right, you're gonna set up "camp" in the nearest Candlewood Suites." 

Winnemucca KOA.  Looks better in the picture than in person! Bathrooms are great though.

On this first night I am solo.  One challenge of being solo is figuring out when to set up the tent.  I pulled in before sunset and thought, Oh, I'll set up the tent and then go into town for dinner and a walk.  But I felt like my little tent would be too exposed sitting there all alone, and would someone steal it, or my sleeping bag?

So instead I headed for Riddley's (local supermarket) and had a hot, cheap chicken tortilla soup while standing at a high table in Dawson Taylor Coffee Roasters coffee shop.  $5.00 for dinner, not bad, especially considering tomorrow's chai latte and scone will be at least $8. 

After dinner, I found a green park with grass and stretched my legs a bit.  This park had a golf course, a skate park, little league fields, a swimming pool and playground.  Lots of families and kids enjoying sunset while watching their little ones play football.

Little tykes football practice at sunset in Winnemucca

I parked near the skate park and watched some shredding for a bit.  I find comfort in skate parks.  I used to take my boys to them when they were growing up.  I appreciate the skate culture because of my oldest son and I admire the complexity of the tricks.  In some ways it makes me feel at home.  We had a half pipe in our home in Danville when the boys were growing up.  Other than the next door neighbor complaining about the noise, it remans a great memory.

Skatepark in Winnemucca

Who would have known that at age 52 I'd be on a solo road trip, enjoying a skate park vibe in Winnemuca, Nevada, on the first of a 60-day road trip? !

My youngest son Sam (age 22) stopped by my home before I left.  He said,  "Jeez Mom, you turned 50 and are doing all kinds of adventurous stuff!"  I smiled inside.

Because truly, if I had still been married, I would have never entertained this as an exciting option.  I probably would have scoffed at any divorcee planning this kind of trip.  Oh, how life changes...

Day One!