Of course, I’ve been back for days. But I still can’t quite shake the Reno Feeling.

Which sounds absurd. It’s not that I loved the town, but I loved the trip - and, as noted, found the town an interesting place. They’re all interesting places unless you’re dead in the head; there's always a detail, a piece of history, a bygone sight, a remnant. And it was different. I was in the office today listening to the fellow who sits in the adjacent cubicle talk to Charlie Sheen. I had a pastrami sandwich at my desk. I drove home listening to the radio and I cooked dinner. And so on and so on - the calm regular pace of the work week.

Even if I’m in Armpit KS it’s something different, and when you add the peculiar pleasures of hotel life (oh, it’s new! Hours later: okay here is where I live now. First night: I have forged habits already. Second day: oh, look at the newbies checking in. Second night: off tomorrow, best pack. Departure: this room is dead to me now and belongs to no one) it’s a welcome break from the routine. And it makes the routine feel new when you get back to it.

For a while. For a day. A night in your own bed erases everything that just happened.

I'm done with the trip, but not done with Reno. Here's the classic view - it greeted hotel guests on the third floor.

It got bigger, which somehow made it even smaller.

Details:

The white streak on the left was a waterfall.

Now some close-ups of the banner image: it's the 70s.

From Del Webb's obit:

In 1946 he built the Flamingo Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip for the late mobster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Because his construction managers had difficulty getting paid for the project, Webb personally went to the hotel and nervously asked Siegel for the money.

Noting Webb’s nervousness, Siegel reassured him with the words: “You’ll get paid, don’t worry about it. We (mobsters) only kill each other.”

Just to make the story even more all-American:

The Webb Corporation erected the nation’s largest rocket engine test stand, embedding the 22-story-high structure in a mountainside of a remote area at Southern California’s Edwards Air Force Base. The joint venture missile construction included $77 million Minuteman silo complex in Montana and a $31 million Titan II project in Kansas. 

Eat hearty, lads:

Poker's enough of an enticement, but poker in a pan? Sign me up:

Style and high-class gents:

The spot today: utterly devoid of glamour.

One more detail from the banner:

This is what greeted me in my elevator lobby on the 4th floor:

The Thunderdome! An ancient Reno attraction? No, it's Burning Man.

See that dot over on the right side?

After a few trips through the lobby this fellow began to unnerve me.

Oh no, no, not another Western

This matters, because once the Black Whip Who Has Nothing to Do with Zorro takes off the mask, they’ll realize - she’s a wo-man! A gen-u-wine Wo-man!

But first, the resolution. We’ve seen how many cars and trucks and buckboards and wagons go over the cliff, and we always know how the hero gets out of it, don’t we? He rolls out at the last minute.

Well.

He’s okay, no need to help, gotta go

Then there’s lots of back-and-forth and horses and bad guys and eventually Not Zorro (really, there's no mention of Zorro ever) is forced to reveal herself, OR.

OR, YOU KNOW. I’ll do something bad based on this here gesture.

Can’t even bring himself to say he’s gonna kill the guy.

That'll do! See you around.