Classic Trip: Brothels, Casinos, and the Basque...House Hunting in Nevada's Carson Valley

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  Letty and I both grew up watching "Bonanza" in our childhood years. Who wouldn't want to live on the Ponderosa? Now, we're in the real-life location of that fictional ranch and one question bothers me...with Carson City being closer to their house, why did the Cartwright men spend so much time in farther-away Virginia City than in the closer, and bigger, state capitol.

This morning will be occupied by "business"...we're up here to investigate if it is a place we'd want to retire to. Specifically, we're looking at the area in the south end of the Carson Valley...around Gardnerville and Minden...to see if that's where we'd want to spend the rest of our lives after I retire.

Watch the Video!

The pros are good housing prices, low taxes, and country living are the draws.   We're playing house hunters, with three houses lined up to look at and see if we like what's in our price range.

House #1 on a 5 acre spread is too far back up towards Topaz Lake and has evidence of a large, recent wildfire on the hillside across the highway.

House #2 is nice, on a half-acre lot in Gardnerville near the country club but the street around it is not as nice.

House #3, across from the golf course club house looked good on paper but was pretty miserable in person.

Along with the 10-hour drive to see our families, pretty crushing traffic (due to only one main highway in the area) for a fairly rural area, a pretty desolate feel, and loss of California benefits for Tim, we decide to cross the Carson Valley off of our retirement list.

We'll pick that baton back up in a few days when we cross back over the mountains to our home state but, now, we're free agents...ready to explore the area as travelers.

Back up and around Carson City, we head over to Virginia City. Make sure you have a strong engine if you plan to take the shortest route up with a harrowing 15% grade. Easy parking is hard to find, so I relent and pay $6 to park in the Delta Saloon's (home of the "world famous suicide table") lot.

It's like Tombstone, set in the mountains. An old west town, where open-carry is a way of life (many of these costumed, and armed, men are also security guards at the local casinos so I don't know how many of these are props or real).

The hilly geography means wheelchairs are like rollercoasters on the undulating boardwalks. Tim has a few exciting moments where the wood meets the pavement.

It's chilly, so we retire to the Delta's casino with a cup of coffee an see the suicide table while feeding pennies to the slot machines.  After, we head down the street to enjoy some baked goods and the hundred mile view out behind the coffeehouse we're in.

A little window shopping later and we're heading down the hill.

Just for the heck of it, we drive through the Bunny Ranch brothel's parking lot to snap some photos and video (we're, by far, not the only ones).  I offer to drop Tim off and pick him up later but he declines...

While illegal in Vegas, brothels are legal in much of the rest of the state and several are out here east of the Capitol. Some innkeepers have told us of mild-mannered guests to their facilities who come up here just to tour these houses of ill repute.

Enough of that, after an afternoon break at the hotel, it's off to the "Biggest Little City In The World," Reno, to have some dinner.

While we could have a cheap spread at one of the local casinos, we opt instead for a delicious Basque meal in this Basque country.  The Santa Fe Hotel, an historic shepherd's boarding house that's surrounded on three sides by the massive Harrah's complex, will be the destination for tonight. We're a little early...the bar opens at 5, dinner is served at 6, and it's 4:30.

An hour is killed by going to a local pawn shop and then the Cal Neva casino at the end of the block where Tim wins $10 on the penny slots and $25 for me on the quarter machines.  Just enough to have a picon punch before dinner.

We strike up a nice, long conversation with the bartender at the Santa Fe (she's also a speech therapist so we have some common ground here and there) while waiting for the dining room to open.

The Santa Fe is a true, oldschool, Basque restaurant meaning that you don't get a table to yourself. We sit at a table made for at least eight wth a couple of gentlemen from the area joining us in a lively, talkative dinner of soup, salad, sausage, cheese, bread, wine, steaks, and fries.

It's an experience you won't get at a casino buffet and the price is not all that different.

(Note: It appears that the Santa Fe Hotel has been a victim of the pandemic and permanently closed althought their website is still live and their Facebook page still lists opening hours - Ed)

Appetites sated, we say goodbye to our dinner companions, our new friends in the bar, and the city of Reno itself as we retire to the Homewood Suites to rest up for our drive over the Donner Pass tomorrow.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2014 - All Rights Reserved

The Road Less Taken - L.A. to Reno via Highway 395

"It's one of the most scenic drives in California," I tell my son.

"When does the scenic part start?" he replies.

Can't say I blame him all that much as you have to drive through a lot of ex-urban, partially developed desert land that would be more suited for a role in "Breaking Bad," before you get to the good part.

Prisons, large subdivisions, and the roads that are ill-suited to so many newcomers pushing into these communities just on the other side of the Cajon Pass from San Bernardino put a damper on this part of the drive.

"Be patient, it will be scenic in awhile."

Watch the Video!

Gradually, the last of the gargantuan Southern California's metropolitan sprawl passes by and we get to a more empty desert scenery sprinkled with ghost towns and lonely gas stations serving as rest stops for weary travelers.

Once we climb the grade that separates the desert from Owens Valley at the appropriately named Little Lake, the scenery does change dramatically.

The mighty Sierra Nevadas line our left side view. It's not long before we pull over for a restroom break at Lone Pine to take a gander at snow and cloud draped Mt Whitney in the distance (see picture at the top of this post).

Still, my jaded son is going "I've seen mountains and desert before."

Oh well, you just can't please all the city lovers sometimes.

Soon, I'm pointing out historical points that my wife is slightly more interested in than Tim.

"There's the courthouse where they tried Charles Manson (in Independence)...John Wayne stayed at that hotel while shooting westerns in those rocks to the left...that mound on the left is a mass grave for earthquake victims...(and, most poignantly of all) that big, green building is all that's left of Manzinar."

Tim perks up a bit when we stop at Jack's Restaurant in Bishop...which will always be Jack's Waffle Shop to me...where it was a mandatory meal any time we drove up to Mammoth in my skiing days.

...and now a word from our sponsor.  We're very happy and long-time customers of Paul Kalemkiarian's Wine of the Month Club. We'd be pleased to see you become members, too. Now, all gift purchases get a free wine Accessory. Click the following link for some amazing wine deals: The Wine of the Month Club 45th Anniversary Sale. Thanks for your support, now back to the story...

Bishop also marks the point, about 3/5 of the way to our destination, where I need to fill the gas tank again so we stop at the Paiute Casino and gas stop at the end of town where my wife also buys some Indian fry break being cooked up in a little trailer in the parking lot.

Back on the road, we soon pass the aforementioned Mammoth Mountain, covered in a fat snow-filled cloud (hope it's a good season for them), then climb over Sherwin Summit at over 8,000 feet to get to Mammoth's sister resort of June Lake. 

Lee Vining and Mono Lake are next. Every time I drive through here, I think of Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter," which was filmed along the shore.

Bridgeport is next, a town that gets so snowbound in winter that it'd make you think you're in Montana rather than California, with it's gas prices more than a dollar a gallon higher than what we paid in Bishop.  It gets so cold here that the Marines use it for cold weather warfare training at the Mountain Warfare Training Center located nearby.

Through the Walker River Canyon, where a tragic bus accident happened years ago and 3 airborne firefighters are memorialized with dozens of t-shirts and a roadside plaque near the spot where their C-130 tanker crashed fighting a blaze.

After this beautiful but sad canyon drive, Topaz Lake marks the state line with the ubiquitous casino. Down a hill, Gardnerville and Menden mark our entrance to Nevada's Carson Valley and our ultimate destination while we're here to take a look and see if we might want to retire here.

That's for tomorrow, though, as we continue north...maddeningly...along the highway as the governments here have decided to throw up an unsynchronized signal every now and then, turning a half hour drive into an hour plus when we finally reach our hotel in Reno, across the street from the Harrah estate.

It's been a long, nearly 10 hour drive but you can see the whole thing compressed into 6 minutes in the video above. For now, we'll turn in to our room at the Homewood Suites and continue this house hunters thing in the morning.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Photos by Letty Musick
Copyright 2014 - All Rights Reserved

Following History...Donner Pass

They say hindsight is 20/20. I can imagine that's what the Donner and Reed families were thinking later in 1847 after the ordeal they had. 

If they hadn't followed that dastardly Lansford Hastings and his shortcut that was anything but. If they'd wintered over in the Carson Valley instead of a late fall push over the mountains. If they'd tried to get some experience before they went. As they say, though, if  "ifs and buts were candy and nuts, everyday would be Christmas."

Watch the Video!

It was four years before settlers would set up in the area as the party left Truckee Meadows in Nevada heading for Sacramento. It would be over twenty more before the area would become the railroad nucleus called "Reno."

Taking what they thought was a small risk to cross the Sierras in early November, the Donners and Reeds would get stuck in an historic snow fall and have to rely on their almost non-existent survival skills to make it through the winter in that unforgiving place.

Some would even have to resort to cannibalism...eating the bodies of those who died...to make it through. It's one of the most gruesome and infamous tales of early California pioneers there is.

We're following the path of the Donner Party, now a modern Interstate highway, also making our way from Reno to Sacramento. On this November day, 168 years later, we're in no danger of getting snowed in at what we hope is the end of the worst drought in California history.

...and now a word from our sponsor.  We're very happy and long-time customers of Paul Kalemkiarian's Wine of the Month Club. We'd be pleased to see you become members, too. Now, all gift purchases get a free wine Accessory. Click the following link for some amazing wine deals: The Wine of the Month Club 45th Anniversary Sale. Thanks for your support, now back to the story...

The story of the Donners and Reeds has always fascinated me so we make a stop at the Donner Memorial Park, just off Interstate 80 about a mile or two west of Truckee, California.

It's a chilly but dry, sunny day as we pull into the lot. A tall memorial stands at the east end. We make our way into the visitor's center to pay our fee and watch a movie about the Donner Party.

It just wasn't in the cards for them as mistakes, misfortune, or plain incompetence followed one after another. 

Out back of the visitor's center is a large rock, against which a shelter was built by one of the families. 

After the survivors were rescued, U.S. Army Captain Kearney and his troops came upon a cabin in which they found cannibalised remains of some of the party. The men dug a hole in the cabin, buried the bodies, and burned the cabin down.

It is upon the site of this burned cabin that the large memorial is built.  The rocks in the memorial, over 20 feet tall, mark the depth of the snow that harsh winter.

For us, after we pay our respects, it's on to a much easier traverse over the mountains through the pass that now bears the party's name...Donner Pass.

It's a pretty but uneventful drive where we check into the Hyatt House hotel in Rancho Cordova, cross the street, take the trolley over to Old Town Folsom, and enjoy a deep dish Chicago pizza at Chicago Fire.

It's a cold night as we watch ice skaters navigate the old train turntable while we wait for our train home.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved