This was Sunday and a day of great weather as well as variety. We did a lot. We watched the service from our home church in Louisville via live stream (10:30 there was 7:30 here). After that, we headed toward “The Biggest Little City,” Reno, Nevada.
We could have cut across to a pass just southwest of Red Bluff but decided to take the less curvy route; the one maintained as an interstate highway. We headed toward the northern edge of Sacramento where we’d jump from I-5 via a connector to merge onto I-80 toward Tahoe and Reno. We had reservations at a campground between Truckee and Reno and arrived there after going over Donner Pass. It was only a distance of 248 linear miles but a change in elevation from up to down, back up, and then down.
Though Byron had made the trip 25 years ago, this was Martha’s first of going into Nevada from Sacramento. Byron got us to just north of Sac but Marth took over the rest of the way. She did well. She put the throttle down, held onto the steering wheel, and just let the motor home do what it wanted to do. The Allison transmission did what it was supposed to do as did our Caterpillar 3126e engine. When we arrived at Verdi, Martha commented that it seemed easier than our days in the Cascades and was actually an enjoyable!
After a nap and some nourishment, we had time left in the afternoon and took off for Reno. We had two things to accomplish: A walking tour of the city and a walk through the casinos owned by Ceasar’s Entertainment.
We loaded the narration for the walking tour to our phones once we arrived near the center of Reno. The tour was quite interesting and covered a good bit of historical information over the course of the 45 minutes. We learned how important the Truckee River was to Reno’s founding, how it was abused by the 1920’s, and how it has been rehabilitated. We also learned how the impact of legalized gambling and lax divorce laws helped the city flourish and how the city has managed to transform itself through time.
As to the abuse of the Truckee River, the natives of the area had survived for hundreds of years along the Truckee without harming the water or preventing the migration of fish for spawning. The river was originally home to Lahontan cutthroat trout and cui-ui sucker. During normal years, adult trout ascended from Pyramid Lake and descended from Lake Tahoe to the Truckee River and its tributaries to spawn. Settlers from the east ruined that. They over-fished the Truckee (shipping tons of fish via railroad regularly) and dumped mining waste into it. The straw that broke that camel’s back was the sawdust and residue from sawmills clogging the Truckee so the fish could not come and go. (Conservation was not important at that time like it has become today.) Thankfully, conservationists got the attention of the locals and restoration of the Truckee River has been done including the restoration of fish to the waters.
After the walking tour, we moved through Silver Legacy Casino in search of the performance at Circus Circus Casino. Unfortunately, the performers were on break at the time we were there. So, we returned by walking through the string of three casinos that are connected by above-street walkways.
No comments:
Post a Comment