The True Governor of Glubbdubdrib: Viva Reno!

Just got back today from Reno!

It was an awesome trip, as I'm sure you can guess (I'm taking the time to blog about it, after all). I flew there Sunday (Father's Day) to meet my--you guessed it--father! Whereas I had a measly puddle jumper from Burbank, this poor man had to haul it all the way from Jersey. Still, we managed to get there within 90 minutes of each other.

It was the first time in Reno for both of us. I have to say I was a little surprised by how quiet it was. I wasn't expecting Vegas just exactly, with sidewalks jammed with tourists, and Latinos on the corners handing out porn fliers and whatnot. Maybe I was expecting Vegas Lite. I dunno. Anyway, Reno really is a tiny little town. It was very quiet on the streets. The main drag, Virginia St., never had much pedestrian traffic. Or car traffic, for that matter.

Inside the hotels was another matter. We stayed at the Harrah's and paid visits to two other casinos. None were within a light year of starving for business. The Reno Harrah's, by the way, is the original Harrah's. Reno is where the chain's namesake, Bill Harrah, eventually set up shop. Indeed, the main reason my father and I went to Reno was to pay a visit to the Harrah's classic car collection, officially known as the National Automobile Museum. No joke, this joint's THE single biggest collection of classic cars, like, on the planet. My dad being the biggest car nut this side of Alpha Centauri, Reno was a natural choice when pondering ideas for our summer jaunt.

In addition to the zillions of cars, the museum features a video orientation about the museum and its founder. Bill Harrah, right? He actually grew up in Venice Beach and took a liking to cars pretty early on. You have to remember that cars were still pretty new back then. Just as TV had its naysayers in the fifties, a lot of people didn't think automobiles would ever replace horses as the primary mode of transport. Anywho, Bill majored in mechanical engineering at UCLA but dropped out soon after the Great Depression slammed the country. He helped his dad run a bunch of different family businesses, including gaming parlors. The one game that made Bill a fortune was called the Circle Game, which was very similar to bingo, only it wasn't bingo. Bingo was against the law in California at that time. Yes, you read that right. If you were playing bingo in California this time last century, your ass could be tossed in jail. So Bill and his dad started running this outdoor game parlor right by the beach in Venice. Besides the Circle Game, it also came to be known as the Reno Game. At any rate, it was just a way for father and son Harrah to get around California's gambling laws. When Bill was 20, his dad sold him the parlor for $500. In three years Bill parlayed that investment into a $50,000-a-year operation. In his late twenties he got fed up with California's puritan gambling laws and relocated to Reno. He was only 27 when he built the Harrah's in Reno.

As the Harrah's chain grew and amassed its owner untold wealth, ol' Billy indulged his passion for cars by amassing no less than two...thousand!...of them. And he didn't just buy them to show off as set pieces. As the video showed, he would make sure each and every vehicle was meticulously restored. The final test for each car would be for him to get in and drive it around. If any car failed that last part, it wouldn't be part of his collection.

Billy passed away in the summer of '78 at the age of 66 from complications following a heart operation he'd just had two days before. Holiday Inn bought the Harrah's chain as well as all the cars. They were about to sell the cars one by one to whoever wanted dibs, but a backlash ensued, mainly in Nevada. The governor of Nevada at that time, Bob List, formed a nonprofit to which Holiday Inn donated about 200 of the cars as well as a research library, which is located in the museum. Apparently that library's become a pretty invaluable tool for car scholars far and wide. The museum opened for business in 1989. One cool thing about the museum is that they have this thing called Adopt-a-Car, whereby you pay an annual due as well as an annual visit to help maintain any car of your choice in the museum. Cool, eh?

I'm not a car nut by any means, but I was still fascinated by all this stuff. The museum was divided into four galleries, and it took us something like three or four hours to get through it all. Each car had a little placard with the year, make, model, and specs. Some have little stars by them labeled with the name of the famous person who was the original owner. For instance, you've got the 1949 Mercury six-passenger coupe James Dean drove in Rebel Without a Cause. Then there's the 1941 Chrysler Newport originally owned by Lana Turner. And the '53 Chevy Corvette convertible originally owned by John Wayne, but which the Duke ended up not liking 'cause the leg room sucked. He gave it to his actor pal Ward Bond, from whom Bill eventually bought it. Oh, and are you looking for Frank Sinatra's '61 Ghia? That's here too, as is Elvis Presley's '73 Cadillac Eldorado. That was the car, according to the exhibit, that marked the end of the leaded gasoline era.

Anyway, lots of great stuff. I've got photos from the museum below, in addition to the photos of Father playing video poker at both the Jade Bar and the Zone 21 Bar inside Harrah's. You'll also notice a bunch taken inside another casino. That would be the Peppermill, 'bout three miles south of Harrah's on Virginia St. The Peppermill is hands down the best casino I've ever been in. Funny story how we discovered it. On Monday, right? We were playing video poker at Zone 21. The day before, I had told my father, sea food lover that he is, that we might try this one oyster bar atop the Atlantis Hotel and Casino, which apparently offers great views of the area. So while sitting at Zone 21, my dad was like, "Do you know how far it is?" And I was like, "I think it's just a couple of miles." And then this older guy next to us piped in with, "Where are you trying to get to?" When I said the Atlantis, he told us how to get there and then was like, "While you're down that way, you might stop by the Peppermill. I've been to just about every casino in the country, and Peppermill's pretty much the best." He said it so casually, too. I was thinking to myself, "Oh come on! The best in the country?!" Come dinner time, we took a taxi to the Peppermill. Suffice it to say that we never made it to the Atlantis. We were so enamoured of the Peppermill that we spent all of yesterday there, mainly at the sportsbook. Very comfy, that sportsbook, what with the plush leather chairs and plenty of desk space for everyone. Oh yeah, and cute waitresses bring you drinks now and again. The only thing, though, right? About the drinks thing? Is that at the sportsbook, you have to gamble a certain amount, and then you have to ask for a drink ticket, which you then give to the waitress. Want another drink ticket? Keep gambling, chappie! 'Course you don't have to gamble, but then you'll have to pay for that beer like any Joe Six Pack bar patron. During our eight hours at the sportsbook, Father focused on the Philly Park action, followed by Prairie Meadows in Altoona, Iowa. At first I was trying to do two or three tracks at once, which just got too crazy. Eventually I settled in at Colonial Downs in New Kent, Virginia, which features a huge rotund handicapper named Derby Bill. I have to say that Bill's picks turned out to be pretty decent a lot of the time, which is why it's a shame I didn't listen to him more often.

Yes, when it came to the actual gambling on this trip, I was sort of a non-entity. I won three or four fours-of-a-kind at video poker, but I didn't win squat betting the ponies. Father, meanwhile, wasted no time in making his killing. Sunday night, while we were nursing nightcaps at the Jade Bar, dude scored a royal frickin' flush! That's a cool grand to you and me. How appropriate that it was on Father's Day to boot. And then Monday and yesterday he wracked up stuff like four aces here, four whatevers there, so much so that he spotted me my gambling funds and STILL netted a gain for the trip.