And hitting the road for Barak!

Precinct 30600

45 no answers. 18 enthusiastic Obama supporters. 

The two on the left are Republicans. 1 firm, but gracious, McCain supporter.

1 undecided.

The couple pictured here are Republicans, and enthusiastic Obama supporters!

We were given a variety of campaign materials. 

The piece that Mabsie is holding is intended for the "undecideds," complete with Nevada like landscape on the back cover.

Noteworthy, on the inside there was a full-page picture of the Obama family with a Christmas tree in the background--to counter the "Muslim" rumor.

Walking along the Pico Rio, a waterway more like a jube that ran by the side of the wide wide road.

Here's Eliza blogging at the end of the day, quite at home at the Comfort Inn.

They build streets WIDE in Reno!

Even the neighbourhood streets are often four-lane roads.

Learning the ropes . . .

Knowing that there would be a crowd, we arrived 30 minutes early, but found others had done the same. We were warmly greeted and handed a map to the overflow staging area. The early ones got to move on to the second location. The staff is used to handling crowds, between 900 and 1700 volunteers from California show up each weekend. Today they expected 1200. Back in the car, we drove a few miles to the overflow staging area on Prototype Road. In the photo above a woman from the Washoe County Democratic Party schooled us in Nevadan ways: how to pronounce Nevada (short a,) that they like their guns here and don't want nuclear waste stored at Yucca Mountain. Then Obama staffer Dennis handed us our packets, urged us to try to avoid mentioning where we live, along with providing us tips on going to door-to-door. And off we went...

Settling in...

Hello from beautiful downtown Reno!

We left San Francisco only to get as far as Emeryville--to go to the Apple Store--and 4th Avenue in Berkeley--to dine on delicious Japanese fare at O Chamé.

We hit the road for real at 3:15 and also hit three or four "slow downs" before and in Sacramento. We crossed the lovely Sierras as the sun was setting behind

us, stopped for dinner at Moody's Saloon in Truckee (a real bar scene with good food) and on into Reno, landing at the Comfort Inn at 8:30.

Still getting ready . . . sort of

Mabsie is putting the finishing touches on a butterfly costume for Vanessa's Hallowe'en. . . and as Mabsie paints and stitches, we talk about politics and and rev our motors for the Nevada experience. Apparently a significant portion of the population of California is driving east to campaign - tomorrow's potluck for volunteers has been cancelled, as the numbers became too unwieldy - so instead they sent us a list of restaurants.

We are thinking that they just might not need us, and we'll end up with a night on the Tahoe shores instead  of doing the good works we are setting out to do.

Gettting ready

It is Thursday night, and we are each at our computers, plotting and planning our route, our take-off time, checking out the weather in Reno. . . but we have just interrupted our planning to spend some time contemplating Palin as President www.palinaspresident.us. This is more fun than figuring our what the I80 traffic might be tomorrow! Check it out and see what you think. . . (This photo is the view from Mabsie's and Steve's flat.)