Day 275 on the road.
Firehouse Coffee Co., Laughlin

I'm sitting on a comfortable couch at the Firehouse Coffee Company in Laughlin enjoying a cup of coffee. After 17 days straight of playing poker for at least 6 hours a day, I've decided to take a day off from the poker room and relax. My brain needs a break from figuring pot odds and keeping track of player tells. The truth is, I'm exhausted.

I have with me my Rand McNally road atlas to contemplate a possible trip to northern California. For the remainder of this month, I've planned a routine of staying in Laughlin weekdays, Monday through Saturday, then spending weekends in Las Vegas. Essentially, I've got two weeks left in Laughlin and three weekends left in Las Vegas for this month, the last weekend being the Memorial Day weekend. I'm considering returning to the road in June, perhaps moving northward.

Looking at my atlas, I'm looking north toward Reno and Lake Tahoe, then perhaps west into northern California. For one thing, it's getting hot in Laughlin and Vegas, with temperature forecasts for next week topping 105 degrees. I'm not thrilled with the idea of being in Las Vegas or Laughlin when it reaches 115 degrees or more.

The average temps in Reno for the summer are the upper 80s. Lake Tahoe is even cooler, of course. Temperatures in northern California at the upper elevations are also in the 80-degree range throughout the summer. Susanville, California, for example, rarely gets above 90 degrees. Eureka, California, on the Pacific coast in northern California rarely gets above 80 degrees during the summer! According the national weather map, the average temperatures for the year in Eureka are between 40 and 80 degrees. Although Eureka receives an average of 40 inches of rain each year, it stills looks like a nice place to visit.

Of course, it may come time to settle down for a while in the Vegas area and put off visiting northern California. I'm still taking one day at a time and have no real plans for the future beyond Memorial Day.