Royalty rides to Reno to see the Aces play!

After spending another night at Casa De Narry Sunday night August 11th, the King, Duck & I woke up after the Narry family left to go to work Monday morning August 12th. Tike gave me a key to lock up the house once we got ready to hit the road. They woke up early & we slept through.

Tike who now works for Amtrak as an engineer was driving a train to Reno. We arranged to meet him later in the day there. He decided to join us for the minor league baseball game we were seeing there that night.
Once we left his house we drove back to Stockton because I told the King I was going to make sure that we would go visit his sister Alice Casiano who lives there. True to my word, we did indeed. We wound up going to her home first. We saw her and her husband Miguel. After we spoke for a short time, we decided to go to get something to eat. She recommended Denny's which was nearby. We asked her is there anything else. I suggested IHOP because I know Duck likes that place. She said yes there is. So she decided to drive us all in her SUV. We wound up having a nice breakfast together. It should be noted everything we've gone to Northern California, we've also made time to see her along the way. With that being said, it was nice to see her again.

Once we got back to her house, we said our goodbyes and we continued on our way to Reno aka the Biggest Little City in the World. We got there around 4:30PM. We parked the car in the El Dorado casino garage for free thanks to Tike who told us to do so. We then walked over to a restaurant in the Casino called The Brews Brothers where we met up with Tike for a pre game meal. He told me they have amazing specials from 2-5PM. We timed it perfectly as we got there just before that ended. As a result, we got to take advantage. Even after Tike told us about a time that he and some buddies drank there for a few hours for next to nothing, the King couldn't believe the bill when the waitress brought it to us. We had some really good pizza, wings and microbrewed beers. I want to thank Tike again for another solid recommendation.
After we finished eating, we walked over to Aces Ballpark, home of the Reno Aces which was a few blocks away. It should noted that the Triple A All-Star Game was held there in June. On the way, we stopped by the Amtrak station which is right by left field. Tike showed around there. We then proceeded to head towards the box office to get tickets for the game. Before we got to do so, a guy outside said here's tickets for the game. We were all caught off guard. He just gave them to us. We all thanked him and we proceeded to go inside. We were in the right place at the right time. As I like to say, timing is everything.

View from Aces Ballpark

As for the game we saw, the Reno Aces, the Arizona Diamondbacks' affiliate were hosting the Nashville Sounds, the Milwaukee Brewers' farm team. The Aces got up to a fast start as they batted around in the first inning. They wound up scoring six runs. There were a few walks, an error, a wild pitch and a few timely clutch two out hits that resulted in the big inning. The Sounds broke the shutout with a run in the top of the third inning to make it, 6-1. The Aces answered back in the bottom of the third inning with three more runs to go up, 9-1. The Sounds came right back as they scored four in the fourth & two more in the fifth to make it a game at 9-7. The Aces responded with three more in the bottom of the seventh inning to put the game away as they went on to win, 12-7.

Duck, The King & Tike

After the game we said goodbye to Tike and thanked him again for all he did for us. We told him we'll see him again Saturday when we return to Oakland.

We drove 45 miles to Minden, Nevada where we spent the night at the Carson Valley Inn, which was another great recommendation by Tike.

Stay tuned for the next installment of this journey as I try to make time to catch up.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman