Two Trips to Nevada

This past month has been very active, exhausting. In late October I flew up to Las Vegas by myself and spent three nights at the Ahern Hotel on Sahara as part of the Patriot Doubledown conference. It was a MAGA conference that had been scheduled at one of Caesars convention centers, but was kicked out because the media got wind and made a stink about something said by one of the organizers. The Ahern Hotel is owned by Frank Ahern, a rental equipment entrepreneur in Nevada who is a friend of Donald Trump, and who stepped up last year during the campaign to host one of Trump's campaign rallies when the mayor and governor tried to shut him out of the state. The Ahern Hotel was recently the Lucky Dragon, a Chinese casino-hotel. The conference was in what used to be the casino hall. There were still chairs with the dragon and Chinese writing on the back.

The speakers were interesting, but I was there really to see Patrick Gunnels of Reading Epic Threads, whom I have followed for over a year, and have come a regular contributing member of his writers. There were six of us in all from the RET community. It was a great joy to meet them all. We sat like the cool kids in the back of the casino hall, much of the time, forming our own clique of cool kids. There was plenty of time for breakout sessions in the cabana by the pool, and also in the hotel bar. I got to meet some awesome folks.

In the wake of it all, it was decided by Patrick and others to have our conference, to be called "Threadfest," and tentatively to held in Nashville in late April. Of course I am looking forward to going.

After the weekend was over, I flew directly up to Salt Lake City, as Ginger was up there for part of her work, staying in the usual hotel in downtown. When that was over, we flew back to Phoenix and life seemed to resume its normal pace briefly, but then we got sick by some unspecified illness which knocked us both out for a couple weeks.  It made work, even from home, challenging.

Then last Sunday, recovered, I flew up to Reno to attend the memorial of Great-Uncle Dick, who passed away last month at age 95. It was a very emotional event. Flying up, I was heartbroken, not only to lose him, and him being the last member of that generation who knew people and lived certain events, but also because I thought it would be the last time I'd be going to Reno in the warmth of fellowshipperhaps, that after this it would be an empty town for me.

Instead I found so much love from Dick's family, and got to see his children for the first time since they were teenagers and came to Iowa, and also his grandchildren, who are my second cousins, and whom I regaled with stories about our great-grandfather George, Dick's father, who was a very interesting man. They all treated like family, which was the most touching thing in the world. Reno is a still a place where I have family. In fact, in some ways, it has wound up as one of the centers of gravity of people who know me and have some love for me. The joy of that is a huge consolation for losing Dick.