Getting Real With Shadra Bruce
Cleveland was relaxing and wonderful, a perfect start to our trip. St. Louis was magnificent and friendly. Colorado was majestic and intimidating with it’s high summits and plunging canyons. Utah felt like home, given the family connections we had (we even went to a movie). But Reno was a circus. From construction blocking roads making it difficult to get to our hotel to people seeing our New York license plates and assuming the worst about us to the Circus Circus hotel’s inability to keep up with the demands of their consumers (disabled and not), this portion of our trip saw some low points.
Low enough we’re leaving a day early and spending the extra time in California communing with the Redwoods.
Low enough that if we do another trip (which we’re planning for a few summers from now), we’ll navigate around heavily populated portions of my home state.
But we had great times too, from the delicious buffet breakfast at the Silver Legacy Flavors Restaurant with my cousin and his wife (a cousin I had never met except online – we connected in our shared passion for digging up our genealogical histories) to watching the kids play the same midway games that I played when I was young to connecting with my very first best friend and her family for dinner to catching up with other friends and family in the area. I don’t regret the stop, and love the connections we have formed and reinforced.
The theme of our travels really has been making and improving connections with the people who are important to us, and to cement memories of these people in our kids’ minds to ensure that they understand how deep and how important family connections are.
But for Reno, two days is more than enough time.
