Visiting Reno
Located on the western borders of Nevada is the “Biggest Little City in the World”. Long before Las Vegas was born, the city of Reno was America’s gambling capital in the early and mid 20th century. Las Vegas took over the spotlight and surpassed Reno in the 1970’s. Once that happened Reno lost all its fame. As a matter of fact, few people outside the United States have even heard of it. Although its glory days are over, Reno is still full of night life, casinos, and entertainment. Reno isn’t famous anymore but its arch still is. Here they proudly claim to be the biggest little city in the world.
Reno still has some fairly large casinos in its downtown area. Some of them seem world class to me and are pretty impressive. I figured there’d be a large collection of one story buildings filled withs low machines. But as you can see from the Dorado Casino, this guy could easily compete with some of the places in Vegas. The photo below shows the inside of the giant sphere which is called the Silver Legacy.
As a city, the casinos in Reno can’t compete with the diversity or size of those in Las Vegas, but they are similar experiences and entertainment. Inside one of the casinos was a free gynmastics show. The woman above showed off her crazy abilities inside the Circus Casino.
Smoking, gambling and drinking is very much part of the Reno culture. In one of the casinos I went into I saw a cigarette machine! I have never smoked in my life, but I haven’t seen one of these since the 1980’s when they used to be as popular as soda machines. Of course these disappeared when it provided an easy way for underage kids to purchase cigarettes, and its hard to imagine they are still legal today.
In this photo I took a picture of some coupons I got for free drinks; $10 worth of games and other deals at a casino simply for staying in a chain hotel! I had hoped to turn my $10 into $100,000 so that I could have enough funds to climb Vinson Massif and Mt Everest but I left broke. My girlfriend who was with me used her $10 on slot machines and cashed out after doubling her money.
These two photos above and below were from the Peppermint Casino. Not the best name I thought but the place was huge and had a lot of variety, especially with its bars and restaurants. I went to the Pub, and had some not so awesome nachos there, but they made up for this with their live band. The photo below shows a huge arcade to keep the kids entertained while you lose your money elsewhere.
Reno has a very nice river walk that’s worth a trip during the day or night. I always think of the entire state of Nevada as a dry desert, so a city river walk isn’t what you’d expect in Reno. One of my waitresses from a casino I ate at recommended the river walk and told me they had just finished remodeled everything. The river walk was beautiful. I had some great drinks here and the best bruchetta I ever had! It wasn’t until I got home that I realized I hadn’t taken any photos of the river walk! I did get a picture of this bird below that was built into the ground along a fountain. I wish I had more but at least you can get an idea of some of the effort they put in decorating the sidewalks along the river. The photo below shows a city bridge that crosses the Truckee River.
This might be the only thing that counts from the river walk. There was a large “Before I Die” sign where people could use their imagination to write their dreams. There was still plenty of open spaces and chalk available but I didn’t write anything myself. I suppose I felt like I didn’t have to because I was proud to find that five other people had already written “travel the world”!
