This is the first weekend I have been home in some time. I flew into Reno Tuesday night around 9. The drive home is about two hours and I get up and get going to work around 6 a.m., so both coming and going it was dark, and I didn’t get a good look at how the house addition was progressing. Finally, the following evening, the sun was just dropping behind the mountain when I got home from work, and I was able to get a good view of our home addition. It’s coming along nicely. There have been some delays, as with every build, but the plan was to have it done in October, and I think it will be. Unfortunately, Gary’s shop has been delayed, and it won’t be done when planned. We had hoped that the shop would be up by this weekend so Gary could have the time between races to organize it. Now, with the timing, Gary will be on the road when it’s done.

Speaking of the road, that’s where Gary is now. He drove the transporter from Virginia to Las Vegas and hopefully is driving home as we speak. His birthday is Monday, and it would be nice if he could be home for that. This year, it’s not a big party for him. He just wants to come home and stay for a while. We usually get together and celebrate Gary’s birthday with our friend Penny, whose birthday is one week earlier. She took this past week off of work, so on Friday, I brought her lunch and we tried to catch up. It was a noisy lunch due to her animals. Penny and Ron have 11 animals at their house: one cat, three dogs, five birds, and two Lion head bunnies. Now she’s looking for a goat. Whew; I have a hard enough time dealing with my ever-loving, yet sometimes very vocal, cat. Oh, well.

Penny and I made plans with my mom and her mom to go to the Genoa Candy Dance on Saturday. It’s a dance, but it’s also not a dance. It started out years ago as a get-together for all the Genoa town residents. The women of the town would get together and make candy for the celebration. The tradition grew and developed into one of the largest craft and food fairs in the West. They have over 300 vendors selling everything from custom-designed picnic tables to therapeutic heat wraps, and the variety and convenience usually provides me a good opportunity to get my Christmas shopping going. I also do my part and buy some candy. The proceeds of the event go to the maintenance and upkeep of Genoa, “the oldest city in the state of Nevada.”

We were there early Saturday morning, and, as you can see, it was already packed from shoulder to shoulder with people. We did our usual shopping and headed out around 2 p.m. We had to get going because Penny had to get to Reno. She had an appointment for her first tattoo. I was going to go with her but opted out as my day began to fill up. I’ll take a picture and post on my next blog if she really did it and didn’t chicken out. I’ll be back in a couple of days.