Our Reno, Nevada Trip, Part II, August 5-6, 07

We rode the elevator to the 29th floor of the Nugget Hotel in Reno and took this picture.



The contrast between the old and the new buildings is very striking. The new one looks like domino blocks. The old one with its beautiful relief and statues is a much better architecture.



Ahh! It is nice to see water in Reno, but it must have cost a lot to buy water from other States.



We went to a coffee shop behind the water fountain (picture above) to get some ice cream. Anh Vu and Bao played some rounds of checkers and got cooled off in the air-conditioned shop while I went out to take some more pictures.



While we were there, the sky was always blue and full of beautiful, fluffy white clouds like in this picture.



The Route 66 band played songs of the 50s and 60s like Twist and Shout, Venus and so on. Some of the middle aged people danced and enjoyed the nice lyrics and gigs of the good old days.



This dancer twirled and whirled in the street with her pink ribbon wand and was very popular with black tourists.




This is the Sands hotel that we stayed for the night. It cost 44 dollars for a room with 2 queen beds a day. It had air-condition, but no refrigerator. I paid for both rooms-one for me and a lady acquaintance and one for Anh Vu and Bao. The Food Courts in all of the hotels that we tried were okay.


From the 11th floor room of the Sands hotel window looking out around 6:30 in the morning.



The next day the bus driver drove us to Sparks, another gambling spot about 10 minutes from downtown Reno. Most of the surrounding area in Reno looks pretty much like this picture.





Around 10 o'clock in the morning, Sparks turned on this fountain for the kids to play and cool off. It was about 86 degrees Fahrenheit at the time.





A movie theater in Sparks. We were interested in finding where the library was too, but ran out of time and had to make a rendezvous with our bus for the trip back to the Bay Area.



They don't allow pictures taken inside the casinos so we took lots of pictures outside. There were more slot machines than people though in all of the hotels/casinos that we went in. Perhaps partly because of the Internet, it would be cheaper to play online than to travel, I guess.



If water is gold in Reno, milk would be "silver?". I called this the "Moo Bus."



There were an art and craft fair that morning in Sparks. I met this Navajo musician there. We talked, shared our love of nature and I bought one of his CDs for 10 dollars. He played the flute and made beautiful music. His name is Wayra which means Wind, and his email is wayra@rocketmail.com if you are interested in Native American music.



Car shirts and related souvenirs at the fair to go with the classic cars show that week.



These polyester blouses were made in China. They cost 15 dollars each, but the price can be negotiated.





I forget what these were for, boat paddles perhaps? We came back to Berkeley around 9 that night and vowed never to come back to Reno.