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At the end of the week before last, my friend John texted me to say that he was going to be in Reno, NV for 2 weeks and it would be cool if I could come down for a few days. I went to Expedia and saw that it would cost only $196 for round trip tickets. I usually don’t go on trips on such short notice (4 days), but I didn’t have a job and it wasn’t expensive, so I figured I would go. My former co-worker and Alston and I had said that we wanted take a quick trip just to take a break from job hunting, but we never got around to planning anything. He was hired by a company that I referred him to and I had a feeling that something would be happening for me any day, so there didn’t seem like a need for a trip anymore. I figured that if I had any requests for phone interviews while I was gone, I could do them in the hotel room.

John was busy during the day, even on Saturday, so we could only hang out at nights. That gave me a chance to shop and explore.

Tuesday – I arrived in Reno around midnight via San Francisco. I went straight to bed.

Wednesday – I did some shopping during the say. I think all I bought was a card game and some books. I got a request for a phone interview on very short notice. I nailed it. I decided that instead of leaving Friday as originally planned, I would leave Sunday so that John and I could drive to San Francisco Saturday. That night we went to a casino and ate dinner there. Afterward, we gambled some we went home.

Thursday – I think I did more driving around and shopping during the day. I bought a hoodie because I left my jacket in Portland and I knew we would be outside that night. That night we drove to Lake Tahoe, ate dinner, and took in some of the scenery. John wanted to get some pictures of the sunset.

Friday – I went out, bought another book, and bought an auxiliary cable for the rental car we’d been using (actually, it was a minivan because they didn’t have anything else when I arrived Tuesday night). A little after 4 I got word that I had gotten the job that I interviewed for on Wednesday. I was hoping I would find out something before 5, so I wouldn’t spend all weekend wondering about it. We celebrated with drinks that night.

Saturday – I bought some presents for other people this time. John and I drove to San Francisco. We got there so late we didn’t have time to do much. We hung out in the Castro all night. We got pretty drunk.

Sunday – John wanted to see trees so we drove to Muir Woods. We got to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge on the way there. The woods were fun. We go a lot of exercise walking along the trail. After that we drove back to Reno because I had to catch a flight back. I made it back to Portland via Seattle a little before midnight.

I had a great time. I think that was the longest I’ve been away from Portland since I moved here. It was great to get away for a little while and it’s always fun to hang out with John. I think I’ll be seeing him again in November.