just to watch them fly

Young Phil dreamed of being a pilot, but neither the requisite monetary nor military sponsorship came through, so he became simply a plane devotee. He basks in their history, crafting, community, music, and above all aims to know their magnificent action by freezing it in photographs. Among the key items on his checklist of revelry are the National Air Races in Reno. He made it there for the first time in 2012 and was sold; the annual pilgrimage became a priority. Cancer interfered the very next year, but his new friends in Section 3 sent the spirit of the races right to our living room with love and artifacts. Once it was clear he'd be able to go back in 2014, I wanted to go, too.

Far more than the flying, which I only care about by proxy, I care about getting away with my husband -- as the patchy blog shows, our opportunities to do so are precious few. And escaping to places where gambling and going to the pool are the main activities? Sign me up every time. I had been to Reno once long ago, winter 1998, and only slivers of memory remained... limo ride, hot tub in the hotel room, Kenny Rogers marquee under the mock oil rig, stuffed animals on the midway, ice skating in the park...a miniature Vegas in my cloudy mind's eye, with a river running through and real mountains ringing the horizon. Kind of, and not-so much.

The first difference between Reno and Vegas is the former's vastly superior airport sitch. The flight is a whisper shorter for us, and the airport much smaller. As at Burbank and Lihue, the luggage is easy to find and the street is just a few dozen light and airy steps from the gate. At noon on Wednesday we have the place to ourselves. Instead of waiting in a raucous line for a taxi, we wait two minutes for a free hotel shuttle shared with one other couple. The drawback to the shuttle (vs. the Vegas taxi) is that we can't stop at In-n-Out on the way to the hotel, but I've somehow waited two years now since my last In-n-Out burger; I can wait a little longer.

We check into The Silver Legacy, the very place I stayed so long ago, which at the moment seems deserted. That is, deserted like an underground cave seems to be -- no one around, but a sense of imminent shuffle and buzz in the unseen vastness between the faraway walls. Early check-in is no problem; our 14th-floor room not far from the elevator overlooks the pool. Our keys come with drink, dining, gaming, show, spa, and merchandise coupons. Off to a good start, we unpack and go back down to start exploring the crannies of the cave.

In the lobby I recognize a photo-op oversized chair that 24-year-old me once posed in. On the escalator down to the main casino floor I behold the iconic oil rig centerpiece, though the marquee now glitters for Larry the Cable Guy instead of Kenny Rogers. It doesn't feel familiar, and I like that; I like the promise of Phil, who chose The Silver Legacy as his race hotel two years ago, leading me through a new adventure. We exit a pair of casino doors into the daylight and cross the street to The El Dorado, where the daily bus to the airfield is stationed. While he looks for someone with shuttle ticket information, I spy my oasis: just inside the valet doors sit not one, but two, I Dream of Jeannie machines.

I fell for Jeannie back in that past life, when she was ubiquitous in Vegas and even in home-town casinos like The Seven Cedars. A penny machine with an array of bet combo options, three different make-a-wish bonus rounds and the persistent "boing" of Jeannie's telekinetic blink, she lets you ride $10 for hours of cooing enticements like "Is it not fun, Master?" I dreamed of Jeannie so much I made her theme song the ring tone on my first cell phone. But I guess she didn't age well; it's been a long time since I could find her anywhere, even as I have asked many employees on many casino floors for guidance. Lesson #2 about Reno: it owns its own school sheen. My dance card can again be full of Jeannie for this long weekend -- I will find five more of her within a mile of my room.

I only have a few minutes with her now before it's back to the Legacy for a late lunch. Their Cafe Central menu combines standard deli fare with "the best Chinese food in town." After a couple of unremarkable burgers we go upstairs for social media updates and a nap. But in a place that's even a little like Vegas, you have to make a night of it, so around 7 we return to the casino floor to lighten our wallets. There are plenty of seats at even the $5 tables, but there is also video Poker and video Roulette, and next door at Circus Circus, video blackjack. I am dubious. Much of my blackjack joy is at the table -- the flick of the cards, the tick of stacking and strumming the chips, the banter. But these realities of the table level a pressure that Phil doesn't care for, so a virtual version is perfect for him. And the minimum bet is $2.

Then there's the Silver Baron Lounge, where I'm itching to spend my first coupon, even though we've already racked up a few "free" drinks at the video games. Ta, the bartender here, says we should play the bar-top poker for a minute so the booze will stay complimentary. He has flight-themed drink specials and I nurse a B-52. The hotel still seems kind of empty, but we make a few friends at the bar: two guys from Ohio who have been coming to the air races for decades, a Korean War pilot from Florida with a Polo sweater tied around his neck who's here to maybe buy a plane, and an Afghanistan vet from New York who's finishing a work trip. He lasts the longest, and in spite of intentions to set a 6am alarm for tomorrow, Phil buys him a beer and chats him up until well after midnight, finally using the drink coupon.

Not surprisingly, the alarm gets snoozed until closer to 9am, when Phil rallies to the shower and I order room service French Toast with bananas and bacon. While planning the trip, I said I only had one of the four days at the airfield in me, and Phil said the best would be the final day, Sunday. So he packs up 30 pounds of camera gear and heads out alone, excited, while I stay in pajamas tending to work email until noon. Then I head to the pool. I wouldn't last long out there in the direct high desert sun, but my research has indicated that I can rent one of the four cabanas for a few hours. None of them are occupied, and the pool kid doesn't expect it to get any busier today, so he says I can have it as long as I want. Friends, it is the best $50 I will spend the whole trip. A Cal-King-size cushion, an array of huge pillows, a canvas canopy and curtains closable on all four sides if I so desire, it keeps me shaded and out-of-the-way all afternoon. I could nap cozily, but instead I study a thick September Vogue and watch the spectacle of Thursday Reno pool-goers parade by. There are old people who eat chili fries and sneeze loudly. Extra-large people who arrive in motorized chairs and wade slowly through the 3.5 feet of water. People in bathing caps who pretend to do laps amidst them. Teenagers who flop through the water in tank tops. I am totally unmotivated to remove my sarong and join the fray. They are not at all Vegas-sexy. While they spend their $50 on mega-beakers of crown and coke, burning redder by the minute, I refill my tea with ice from the steps-away bar and adjust my VIP curtains accordingly as the sun carves its way toward dusk.

At 5:00 Phil texts that he's heading back on the bus, so I exit stage right and get a bit primped for the evening. He clamors into the room all smiles, unloads his gear, exhibits his four new plane-logo t-shirts, and showers again -- it's been blazing hot and dusty at the airfield, with no kind of cabanas available. But he's energized, and after plugging in the external drive to start downloading a thousand day one race pictures, he's craving a Mexican dinner. I have a coupon for the Hussong's in the lobby, but Phil wants to try a place we passed at Circus Circus yesterday that's half cantina / half sushi joint. Reno: home of the peculiar hybrid restaurants.

Downstairs there's noticeably more traffic than the night before, but it's still not weekend-crowded. Nevertheless, we have to wait in line awhile for a dinner table, as the hosts are bewildered by setting up a spontaneous party of 11. Phil begins to think he recognizes the blonde clan of females and toddlers here to start that party -- they're all wearing race pit pass wristbands, and then, they're all wearing shirts with the insignia of Team Voodoo, last year's championship plane flown by Steve Hinton Jr. The youngest pilot ever to win in Reno, adorable Steve, who has signed Phil's gear and posed for photos with him in the past, is flying Voodoo again this weekend, following in the footsteps of his dad, who won six unlimited races and held a world speed record throughout the 1980s. Phil is convinced this is the Hinton family, right here at Dos Geckos / Kokpelli's Sushi, and though the pilots themselves never materialize, he spends our meal spying on their table from across the room. It's just as well, because our table service continues to be exasperating, and the tacos and chimis are not good. I slurp the dregs of my margarita while wistfully eyeing the tuna rolls coming over the bar.

It now occurs to Phil that he's pretty tired. We put another $40 bucks in the video blackjack machines, win half as much back, and call it a night. Phil decides he will take a break from the races tomorrow, to pace himself and to give us a day of exploring together. He calls his old friend Patrick, a Burning Man staffer who's living in Reno at the moment, and makes a breakfast date. When we rise leisurely on Friday morning, Patty texts us to a diner down Sierra Street.

Peg's Ham N Eggs is packed and serving up a dynamic menu of giant plates; it won't surprised you by now to hear that the sampling at our table includes a lox and capers omelet, a spicy breakfast burrito, and loco moco complete with a scoop of mac salad. A brief redemption for the Reno cuisine. After catching up with Patty and BreeAnn, who have no commitments for the afternoon, they offer to drive us to Tahoe. They've been looking for an excuse to hunt down a good swimming spot. Phil has never been to Lake Tahoe, and incredibly (since I grew up just a day's drive away and seemingly everyone I know has at least been to a wedding there) neither have I. This is an awesome invitation.

We dash back to the hotel for the good camera, and our tour guides pick us up out front at high noon. Ten minutes later we're surveying suburban Reno. Ten minutes after that my ears are popping as we weave up the sunny pine-scented road into the Sierra Nevada. By 1pm, we're tucked against the cliff across from Chimney Beach's full parking lot, in the northeast quadrant of the lake. We seem to be a few hundred feet above the water, but several trails slink down from the parking lot; we follow our collective instincts through a half mile of pebbly packed sand, aspens, white firs, and hidden woodpeckers. At a couple of points I fear my flip flops will fail me and I opt to straddle a log or boulder to aid the descent, but the perils of the trek are forgotten once we reach our private cove. I knew from a million pictures what it would look like, but I'm still taken aback by how distinct it is in person. The splendor of those fine white rock bodies in all that translucent jeweled water...of the many many lakes I've known so far in this life, none compare.

We are all happy to get our feet into the cool water, and the boys quickly discard everything but their shorts and wade all the way in. It takes just a second to acclimate from sting to refreshment. BreeAnn is inclined to go all in as well, despite not having a bathing suit. The spirit of the lake absorbs us. Our little cove is fully exposed to the sun at this hour, though, and a nearly naked me won't brown up nicely like my companions, so I fashion a veil from my shirt and remain happily on my half immersed rock seat. An intrepid chipmunk joins the party, scampering around in circles, darting into Patty's abandoned backpack in search of snacks. There are rainbow striped boats and kayaks to wave at, huge seagulls swooping about, and plenty of stones to skip along the glass. A meditation that's hard to pull away from.

Eventually we tear ourselves away, and follow another branch of the trail to glimpse another secret cove and striking overlook on the way back up to the car. BreeAnn takes the scenic route along the lake until suddenly we are driving by that true blue Welcome to California sign. "Holy crap!" I say, taken stupidly by surprise again, "Honey, I finally got you into California with me!" He registers my elation and plays along. "Our first time in Cali together, guys, this is big." The laid-back tour guides chortle at us. "Let's have a kiss in California, awww."

"Wanna stop and get a snack or a beer or something in California?" asks Patty. Absolutely. We roll into the village at King's Beach, and the road's clogging up with construction vehicles, so I jump at the first dive with a patio I spy. "How about this, The Grid?" Turns out it's terrific. Dim and laced with locals watching sports on TV, but with a perfect picture of water and breeze out the window, it has a big menu from which we order the whole left column of appetizers. After a good coating of grease, cheese and wing sauce, we retire to the patio to soak in the sense of holiday and the sun, the California sun!, for awhile longer. And the tour guides just keep being awesome, showing us a different way back down the mountain -- Route 80 through Truckee and the Donner Pass, which evokes some deep travel conversation. It's a little wistful finally pulling up to the curb outside The Silver Legacy and saying goodbye.

That's probably why, even though I am so ready for a shower, I let Phil coax me over to the Comedy Bar on the way to the lobby escalator. Our old friend Ta the bartender is stationed here this afternoon, and passes us a shot, a beer and a Malibu pineapple as soon as we slip our dollars into the poker boxes. Phil points out that there is a blackjack option on this nickel machine, too. So that's an hour. When we do get back to the room I note that the Jacuzzi is still open so we change into suits and go down for a dip. Back up for the showers and evening-wear, back down and down further to the Circus Circus casino floor, back up to the Comedy Bar where Ta has both champagne and hot chocolate for me. On the way back to the room for the last time, Phil discovers a 50 cent Tiki -themed slot machine called Zuma. It has a towering screen, makes a ton of noise, and offers a lot of bonus rounds, one of which is getting relatively close to a $500 tipping point payout. This is Phil's Jeannie. I tear him away from it with the reminder that he was going to clean his camera lenses. He's just in time to hit the sack by midnight, and honor the 6am alarm for the penultimate race day tomorrow.

On Saturday morning I can't re-fall asleep once Phil pulls the blackout curtains, so I accompany him to Starbucks for a pre-shuttle coffee, get my own breakfast there, and take it to the nearest Jeannie machine. 8am is a curious time on the casino floor -- the daylight seems to break in, the usual background music claims the foreground (Endless Love and Adele ballads, 90's pop). No winners are regaled over the speaker; no cocktail waitresses thread through the aisles. Nevertheless, playing slots before most people have brushed their teeth feels wrong after a while. I'm at even money with Jeannie and have uncorked all the mystery bottles I need to for now. I take the remains of my bagel back to the room and revise a syllabus. Then I take a book to a plastic chaise at the pool, but it's dumb without a cabana among all the Saturday rowdies. I visit the hair salon to spend my product coupon on sea salt volumizer. Restless, I consider a massage, but decide that even with that coupon the money's better donated to gambling. I try Phil's Zuma game but it's uncooperative. I revise a second syllabus and give in to a nap.

To kill the rest of the time until Phil returns, I take a long shaving shower. When I emerge, he's back and downloading another 1000 photos. It's time to use the buffet coupon, I say, meet me at the Starbucks Jeannie machine. I get excited about a buffet -- so much more of an activity than a regular meal, and I feel happy that the trip has stretched long enough to have a kind of throw away day and still has two more nights of potential and the most exceptional day ahead. Phil seems luminous, too, as he sidles up to me and Jeannie in his party shirt. I cash out with an extra $2. We've missed the dinner rush and get our buffet table right away. But unless you are enthralled by a roast beast at the carving station or piles of crab legs and lobster tails, roaming the salad bars and hot trays is disappointing. Bland potatoes with hospital gravy, boring raviolis and thin pizzas with toppings like "taco," naked white fish fillets, mall-looking chow mein. We only fill one plate each and don't clear them. Dessert is even sadder; there is not a lemon-flavored anything, the bread pudding is soupy, the éclairs stale. Phil seems fine with his mini-cheesecake, but in summary: a bigger waste of money (again, even with the coupon!) than gambling. I'm going to have to give Vegas the win in the food column.

This kind of knocks the spark out of me, and I begin to fret about shoring myself up for the marathon of the air field tomorrow, the predicted hottest day of the week. Phil no longer has eyes for any game but Zuma; I sit jaded at the Wheel of Fortune next to him while his bonus rounds accumulate, and see myself back to the room before 11. I'm briefly rustled awake at some point by the snap of his $150 cash-out ticket. He's having a ball.

Championship day is here. I pack sunscreen, a pill box, three water bottles I've collected from cocktail waitresses, and tie my safari hat to my bag. I put on my Section Three earrings and my orange bandana and am as ready as I'll ever be by 7:30. The temperature on the El Dorado curb seems manageable, a bit of breeze even. Phil hands me my shuttle ticket, so excited. We are definitely the youngest people on the bus. The guy in front of us swings a Bloody Mary in a casino glass and chatters to himself authoritatively. Phil points out the features of the air field as soon as they are visible out the window. We get deposited at the main gate, and I think, sweet, this isn't going to be too exhausting to navigate, I can see all the bleachers -- a surplus of available seats -- straight ahead, and concessions lined up right behind them, and just knowing that it's only steps back to the waiting bus later is soothing.

We head for the third section of the bleachers, where Phil was welcomed two years ago into the most famous family of air race fans. I would have found it even without him, because it's the only section with its own huge banner hung across the back -- orange, as to be easily seen even from the sky. Patriarch Bob chose the color three decades ago, when he brought a dozen t-shirts to initiate fans willing to be the loudest and proudest on the field. Today there will be hundreds of people wearing his t-shirts (as well as pins and buttons, "press" passes, thongs!, and earrings). You can tell how long someone's been a member by how cluttered with autographs their shirt is -- getting everyone from fellow fans to pilots and pit crews to drink-servers to sign your shirt is a thing. Women accessorize with orange flowers in their hair and orange flip flops; some wear orange bikinis with their Daisy Dukes. A trio of guys have orange mohawks and "3" logos painted on the shaved sides of their head. There's a pretty yellow lab with an orange scarf. Some people have scorecards they will flash to rate various spectacles 0 or 10; there are whistles and air horns, and when we arrive Bob is erecting an elaborate device that will blare aoogahs over the crowd.

But we merely wave at Bob on our way to the top row of aluminum benches, where Phil's race BFF, Dianne, always reserves her row. She is a firecracker in her late fifties, decked out in fan gear and a weathered mini-skirt, armed with a Sharpie. She is accompanied, as every year, by her comedic brother, since her husband is not up for such antics as all this. I can tell she is going to make the day fun and comfortable, and I have to appreciate her reserved seats -- the disadvantage of top row claustrophobia is trumped by the fact that it's the only row with any kind of shade, thanks to that big Section 3 banner.

"You're here!" her raspy chirp, hugs hugs hugs, "Let's get me my Bloody Mary." Phil agrees; if we're going to manage any significant wandering around the show below us, it needs to be now while the relative cool of the morning is still in affect. It's a huge testament to his sense of community here that he slings one simple camera around his neck and leaves his pack full of extra lenses and other valuable gear in the stands, next to Dianne's cooler. It's as trusting as I've ever seen him in a public space.

The first stop on the midway is indeed for the drinks: a Mary for Dianne and a Jack and Coke for Phil. It's not because its only 9 in the morning that I pass on a drink, but rather because I am wary of adding any bodily strain to the exposure of the next eight hours. I have already guzzled one water bottle. I pass when Dianne offers a cig. We stroll a half mile through all kinds of fair food and aviation artifacts to the ticket booth for pit passes, where Phil insists on buying me one so we can all stroll another half mile through the area where the race planes and crews are hanging out and showing off. He's already been through here this week, but not with Dianne, who is star-struck by both the planes and the pilots, and her delight is contagious. I gladly hold her drink and purse while Phil photographs her in front of the glimmering birds and wheedles more signatures from her favorite flyboys, including Steve Junior.

When the first cocktails, as well as my last water bottle, are drained, we need to brave the honey buckets. Dianne leads us to a "secret" row outside the pits that's partially shaded by a tent. Unfortunately it's too far from Section 3 to make repeated use of, but it sets me up with a good attitude, good because the heat-hydration cycle will oblige me to visit the high-traffic buckets four more times before we leave the field today. On the way back to the bleachers I pay my first, but not last, $3 for concession water. Even sitting with the banner at my back, the sun up there is relentless. I last about an hour thanks to great distractions. Fire trucks and grand marshal convertibles cruise by on the tarmac waving orange flags, the crowd goes wild. There's a breath-taking aerobatics show in which husband Rex Pemberton jumps out of a plane wearing a flying squirrel rocket suit, and corkscrews through the blue while wife Melissa flies "love twists" around him in an Edge 540 stunt plane; when Rex parachutes to earth, red smoke trailing from his boot canisters, Melissa rears back and returns with a series of forced stalls, waves, and inversions, in the last of which she cuts a ribbon strung 20some feet off the ground. At the end of their show Rex and Melissa salute Section 3 with orange flags. In fact no one on the tarmac all day will fail to do so.    

The stands are rattling, the sun is searing, and I need another refreshment. Our trio goes a half mile down the midway in the opposite direction to peruse the "static display" -- here are all the prize winners for just being pretty, and here is the Air Force presence as well. Kids are climbing all over the big war planes, and GIs are trying to recruit them. I jump from one isolated strip of shade under a giant wing to the next while Phil and Dianne adulate the aircraft. When they are finished a makeshift trolley is picking up wiped-out folks to ferry to the other end of the field. I wrangle us on, and have a mind to just ride it back and forth all day, but am persuaded to disembark at our section and climb the crowded stairs again.

Patchy drifting cloud cover arrives in the afternoon, as well as increasing murmurs of breeze, which are as near literally from heaven as they can be. One of the orange mohawks brings a stack of boxes into our neighborhood. The Voodoo pit crew clamors up the aisle, talking trash and reaching for Sharpies. A few new dudes approach Bob to buy initiation shirts and I learn that there's a ritual attached -- attention is called to the middle of the stands, where pledges must remove the shirt they arrived in and be rated by the crowd before donning the new orange one. The chant of "put it on!" rises tauntingly. It's a bit different when later two intrepid older ladies oblige for their new shirts, and later still when a series of lovely young women gamely linger in their lacey black bras, twirling for the juvenile hoots and score 10 placards that rise in a wave. Hard-pressed engines roar by overhead. The fan-dog barks and the crowd barks back; I don't know how the poor dog can stand this mayhem but he eventually, astonishingly, splays on the top step at my feet and takes a nap.

               

I'm not quite as relaxed. I need more water, so when there's a clearing in the aisle festivities, I stagger back down to the midway, with Phil and Dianne behind me angling for a smoke break. Phil agrees that it's too crowded in Section 3 now to get the photos he wants, so we loiter in the sparse second row of section 1 while an F22 Raptor offers a dazzling aerobatic display, priming the crowd appropriately for the week's big finale, the unlimited title fight. We have to be back with the orange family for that. It's a near-miracle that I have one more trudge up the steps in me, but the pay-off is swell. The very line-up of the eight championship racers has our stands in a frenzy; the props start to whirl one by one and the air horns croon. Poor Argonaut can't get his engine to catch, but after six tries, if there was any way a crowd's love could will such a thing to happen, Section 3 would have done it. In the end, the race itself takes less than 10 minutes, with my stand-mates commentating, whooping and swearing all the way through, and Steve Jr. is victorious in Voodoo once again, by a wide margin.

The party breaks up quickly, as if the cops had pulled up at the curb. Or as if everyone was holding onto their stamina in this heat by as thin a thread as I was, and time's up. Warm beers are spilled and keep-in-touch promises are made as bags are stuffed together quickly and everyone stumbles away. But we linger with Dianne in our crow's nest until it's all clear below, and then we linger longer by the now-vacant line of honey buckets, where the kettle corn guy is giving away his last dregs and where I finally have that smoke. I made it. And I had a great day with Dianne, who almost cries in reflection now at my husband's presence, his return to health, the wonder of a distant friend brought so close just one day a year. I hope she will keep him that close for many years to come; it's a gift to see him so carefree and joyful in his element here. But their parting is almost too long. There's no bus at the gate, and we walk one more half mile down the road to find ourselves at the end of the line for the last bus out. We wait a long time for it, while the wind picks up and fills the sky with thick haze from a forest fire burning on the other side of the mountain. The sun is red. I almost fall asleep on the ride home.

But then there is the clink and clang of the casino, live music in the lounge, a strong cool shower to sooth my stinging eyes and shoulders, and my stomach grumbling. Once the last thousand photos are downloaded we go to Hussong's Cantina for dinner. Free margarita coupon, you know. The chips show up fast and the salsa is nostalgic California-style. And then there are the quesadillas. The best quesadillas I have ever eaten. Maybe among the 10 most pleasant things I've ever eaten, period. Okay, not counting desserts. But the point is, it's so damn good that all the other sad-ass Reno food fades away. I order a second strong margarita (this place invented them!) and feel giddy. Phil pays the bill and walks straight across the mezzanine to his seat at the one and only Zuma machine. I pour my drink into a go-cup and trot off to the nearest Jeannie; I'm crestfallen to find her occupied. I return to Phil and give a different $2 to several machines in the Zuma dugout, until the buzz wears off. Then I retire to watch the crowning of a new Miss America. I'm again rustled out of sleep in some wee hour to celebrate three-digit slot machine winnings. What a trip for this guy.

Monday is an excellent departure day. We sleep in and slowly pack our way to a late check-out. Phil delivers extra-sweet tea, and a leftover quesadilla -- just as wonderful at room temperature -- accompanies a smug remote check of work email. We leave our bags with the bellhop, get Phil a chicken-fried steak at the Central Cafe where we started the trip, and then, you got it, enjoy one more hour with Jeannie and Zuma. When we reconvene at the valet outside, to await the airport shuttle, the atmosphere is still thick with an eerie haze and the smell of campfires. Walking through it across the tarmac to board our evening flight seems ominous, but our pilot gets us smoothly over it and into fresher skies, and we land at sunset, to find Seattle only a hint cooler than the high desert we left behind.   

In the wake of this trip there's a novel sense of something like fulfillment. I believe I may not return to Reno ever again, at least not in the context of the air races, and most likely not at all. One never knows what's down the road, of course, but this place has been lovely enough. I hope Phil will go as often as makes him happy; having shared it once, it's effortless to set him free on this pilgrimage. I think I went in believing it would be this way, and stepped through it such that I'm for once more satisfied than sad about the reality that there are so very many places but only so much time.

Tahoe, though -- I'm coming back for you, Beautiful.