Lookout Over Reno, NV

Recently, my friend Dave at A Bit of This – A Bit of That commented on some photos I’d taken. He said he’d like to see more photos of local stuff here in Reno. He is in England, and would like to see more of “here”. Well, I finally talked the husband into going for a drive today so I could capture some. His patience is short with such things, but I did get some photos from a prime spot in which you can see just about all of Reno, NV. This is the Lookout upon Lakeside Dr. From here you almost have a 360 degree view of our valley. Reno proper is in the valley bottom at 4500 feet above sea level. I would guess we are at about 5500 feet at the lookout. This wasn’t the best day for photo ops, as there was a “nice” inversion layer of smog on the valley floor, but the new zoom lens is working nicely…it’s just that the smog made the photos not as clear and crispy as I would have liked. Notice in the photo of the downtown casino area skyline Harrah’s Casino at the far right. Bill Harrah founded this casino. It has long been a Reno icon, and Mr. Harrah also opened the famous Harrah’s auto museum here in Reno. Since his death, many of the amazing cars have been sold, but it’s still a highlighted tourist attraction downtown. This is Ranch Harrah, the former home of Bill Harrah. In it’s hay day, and even into the early 80’s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that you can see in the background or to the sides of Ranch Harrah even existed. Reno is currently the third fastest growing metroplex in the nation. If you will notice, the Bank of America building, and the smaller white buildings to the left of Ranch Harrah have similar architecture and the same color roofing as the ranch house. I have no doubt that this was required as the city grew around the historical landmark as to not aesthetically take away from the old ranch’s appearance. You can see Atlantis Casino in the foreground, and in the background the Grand Sierra Resort (this is about to take on a maxi-million dollar renovation to become a huge indoor water park and family style casino resort). It was the former Reno Hilton, even before that, it was Bally’s, and originally it was the MGM Grand Reno. In this photo far away, you can see the two twin towers of John Asquaga’s Nugget Casino & Resort. If you will notice in the foreground, you can see the workings of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. The odd shape of the Nugget’s second tower was required as it sits in the immediate flight path from the airport. From our lookout spot, we caught some locals around Ranch Harrah riding their horses. The Reno valley is odd in the fact that we get very little snow in the winter. However, just a mere 30 minutes away toward Lake Tahoe, they get a lot of snow (most years…winter skipped us entirely this year so far). From the lookout here I am facing east. You can see the winter brown mountains and hills to the East. All I did in this photo was turn around in the same spot at the lookout, and you can see the ski slopes of Mt. Rose on the way to Lake Tahoe. We continued driving around the countryside a bit after leaving the lookout, and I managed to catch this old lonely tree and a black bird sitting on the rock below. When it comes to photos, I am a sucker for trees, barns, windmills, and anything old and rustic that reminds me of my country days growing up in Texas. I couldn’t resist this last photo. It’s my little stuck up Persian kitty “Poofy”. I think he wasn’t impressed that we left him on Saturday afternoon to take a drive. This was fun, perhaps I’ll find more time to capture more intimate sections of Reno on a more regular basis. Thanks Dave for the suggestion, and for getting me out of the house today with the camera :)