Thom & Carol's Adventures: Smith Valley, Nevada

We are now in Smith Valley Nevada at the Walker River Resort. It may be in the middle of nowhere, but it’s a lush campground along the river and in high desert country. What a pleasant change in weather. The highs are in the low 90’s and cool nights in the 50’s. How nice not to need A/C 24 hours a day! Two weeks schedules at this location, but there are more day trips and activities we can do in this region.

To give you a frame of reference, we are located in the Carson Valley/Lake Tahoe region of northern Nevada. In my (Thom) opinion, this is one of the most beautiful areas of the country. We are along the eastern side of the Sierra’s in basically ranch land at 4000 + elevation with mountains and forests less than an hour away. We are located about an hour from Carson City.

Last week, our day trips were to Reno, Virginia City and Carson Valley. Quite a few changes since Carol and were here last. We haven’t been in this area since we were married in 1986. Gardnerville/Minden was two small towns about 2 miles long, but now it takes about 30 minutes to drive through the towns due to expansion.

Reno has grown dramatically, but the expansion is in the suburbs rather than downtown. Downtown looks like it is the middle of resurgence, as the day we were there, they were having an off road vehicle event. There were lots of unusual road trucks, motorcycles and specialty vehicles to look over. They closed off center town, so it was a fun event. The city is also trying to redo the river district around the college with plenty of specialty restaurants, pubs and coffee shops. It’s a work in progress. We also went to Sparks in search of the Harrah’s collection, only to find out it no longer exists. I didn’t know the Holiday Inn Group sold off most of the collection in the 80’s and donated 150-200 cars to a non-profit called the National Museum. Unfortunately, I learned this after we had completed that day trip. Oh well, something for the future to check out.

Virginia City is replete with Nevada history and we were surprised to discover that mining (strip mining) is back in operation, not to the liking of the locals I might add. As long as gold prices hold, my guess is it will continue. They haven’t changed the town of Virginia City or Gold Hills; otherwise, I think there would be a tourist rebellion. We spent much of our time in St Mary’s Catholic Church, which has been there since the beginning and rebuilt 3 times of the years. Beautiful with plenty of artifacts and architectural highlights.

We also took a train ride down to Gold Hills and had to have a beer at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. Train ride was interesting and harrowing for Carol as the tracks went along the side of a mountain with steep drop and a tunnel. She had fun, or at least I told her she did!?

One thing that hasn’t changed is the first Nevada settlement of Genoa (founded 1851) since I’ve been here last. The town has been kept the same and development is occurring outside of town at golf resorts communities about three miles north of town.

Some of the good old things still survive. The JT Basque restaurant in Gardnerville is an experience that, if you’ve never had dinner at a Basque restaurant, you should try. Dinners are fixed with main courses of the day, usually three or four, and the rest of the meal is serve family style. They will bring soups, salads, bread and sides as much as you like. Good food and plenty of it.

Well, enough for this post. Next week is Tahoe (yea!), Bridgeport and Carson City and whatever else we can think of.

Thom & Carol