Reno

Today we arrived in Reno, the biggest little city in the world, full of casinos and thousands of cars as the largest classic car event in the USA, Hot August Nights kicked off.  It was the Beach Hop on steroids with 6000 registered cars and thousands more just there for the fun.  Spread throughout the enormous car parks of the casino/hotel complexes and all the streets downtown, everywhere we went there was show after show full of expensive gleaming beauties.  From vintage through to the latest muscle cars, we ogled and drooled and saw cars we had never even heard of.  The rat rods (a car that's made out of scrap parts from multiple old cars; no paint, rusty parts; looks like a junky hot rod) were popular and we saw some very cool looking contraptions.  Connected to the Atlantis Casino where we stayed was the Reno Events Centre where the Barrett Jackson Collector Car Auction was on.  We have watched this on TV before and this was the first time they were at Hot August Nights so it was pretty awesome to be at the opening ceremony and Craig managed to keep his hands in his pockets when the bidding started.  To escape the 32C heat we headed to the National Automobile Museum where hundreds of shiny and beautifully restored cars sat each with their own story.  The highlight was seeing the 1907 Thomas Flyer, the winner of the New York to Paris race, the first and only around-the-world automobile race ever held.
Late in the afternoon we burned gas as we took the I80 freeway east across to the other side of Nevada, talking all the way about another couple of great days and taking in the barren, isolated landscape where whirlwinds kicked up the sand.