Didn’t go very far today. I didn’t have to. I found exciting places within a mile or so from here at Harrahs  that had me totally consumed. The first location that enthralled me was all the mysterious  green I had been seeing out my high up hotel window. It is the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). And it is huge and growing and quite obviously on a par with gaming as one of the main engines that drives this city.

I even took a photo of a building that was called  the Nancy    and Bob Cashell Football Center.

Long time followers of the NBG will remember that as far back as 2002 on our first first Mayors’ Ride, Bob was there to receive riders scouts coming in from Salt Lake City.

 

He even drove the Busycle  under the famous Reno Arch  when Matt Mazzotta and Heather Matthews brought it through in 2005.

 

 

And he and Marcia Morse received me when I rode from San Francisco to Salt Lake City on the Eagle HiWheel in 2009

 

 

 

Even though Bob retired last year, many still remember him fondly.

 

 

 

At the campus I ran up with  A women who just got her Masters in Anthropology. Lynn Wagener knew a lot about UNR and about the city of Reno.  She told me there were about 18,000 students there. And I just now did a wiki search and found it began in 1874 and also has an academic staff of 1500 people. The UNR payroll I am citing does not account for all the maintenance and groundskeepers and etc that were everywhere to be seen as I rolled around.

 

 

 

One can also see that the school’s sports teams are well looked after. They have  a beautiful football stadium. A well groomed baseball field and their basketball arena looks like it could house a professional team. All of this takes place on a hill  in what looks like the top upper half of the campus. Familiar my own self with the name the Wolfpack, as its teams are called,  I am sure their sports teams generate a lot of TV revenue to justify the size and quality of this sports complex.

As I finished up my lap around the track, the UNR cheerleaders were not going to let me roll by without expressig their admiration of my bike, so I stopped and posed for a photo

Before I left and took a look at the Crooked Mile, the Hub Coffee Roasters and the Laughing Planet restaurant that Lynn had suggested I took some pictures of the UNR quad.

 

 

On the way back to Harrahs just a short ways down the hill from the campus, I turned left and headed over to the Reno Bike Project. I didn’t see any familiar faces so I didn’t stay long. But I did pose for a picture of “my” iron works company across the street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back to the hotel I took  picture of what is called the ditch that runs behind Harrahs. It is the Amtrack line I came in on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a quick bite to eat back in the room, I went off in search of good drinking water. I located a place called Great Basin Community Food CoOp about 8/10 of a mile away and wow was I in for another surprise. It was a health food store with kombucha and soy milk and organic raisins and chocolate and etc, all the stuff I’d been biking the five miles to Whole Foods to purchase!!

And bicycles form a part of their motif as you can see in the pictures below:

 

 

I was in heaven and pedaled back to the hotel to offload my groceries.  Which I did.But on my way back, I flatted. I found a shade tree and a nice patch of grass and fixed my tire. Or I thought I did.

 

Well, after I found the Riverwalk and  and the Crooked Mile,  and  the Hub Coffee Roasters, and I  had finished my conversation with Carol  Perry who returned my call from City Transportation department,  I noticed my front tire was flat again.

 

 

 

This time I studied the tire a lot better and found a goat horn buried in the tire that I had  helluva time getting out. Well there must be another one in there, because as I type this my tire has gone flat again, ugh..

Coming back to Carol, she and Rebecca Kapuler, who is filling in for Patrice Echola who I worked with last year to get this Reno Biking Report Card together, will meet with me next week to discuss what they’d like to see me shed light on with the Virtual Tour of Reno that will be the result of my time here.

As we return to rewind mode, the Riverwalk bears special mention. Not a path like it is all the way from Harrahs all the way to Sparks and I-80 on the way across Nevada, as it heads west for about a mile, there are sidewalks and roads that twist and turn under an often thick canopy of  shade trees. Many of the bridges are festooned with flowers in full bloom. Huge river rocks line the swimming holes that abound all through this part of town.

And you’v got to know I will be back to explore this beauty tomorrow because I also found out that the storybook coffee shop, the   Hub Coffee Roasters  that is such  a hit with all the local cyclists is run by Mark Trujillo, the same guy who made me feel welcome at his Wallden’s Coffee Shop when I came through here on the Eagle in 2009. Mark hammers the miles pretty hard himself, so I am excited to catch up with him.

I also found out that the Laughing Planet restaurant that Lynn had suggested I add to our tour, is run by another long time bike contact, the man who started Reno’s famous bike race the Tour de Nez and who used to run the Deux Groz Nez, bike centric coffee shop, Tim Healion.

 2009 Host Mike Damon, Tim’s brother kneeling and Tim Helion at the far right, my Eagle is leaning against the  telephone pole…

Too much propitiousness ! Yahoo!!