Nevada Learnings (Andre)

In a recent post we said that one of the things that we sought to gain from our time in the Great Basin desert/Sierra Nevada transition zone (as we do in all our travels) was to learn about new places and what life was like there. So, based on our three months stay at the Galena Creek Visitor center, half-way between Reno and Lake Tahoe, here are some things we found interesting and new to us.

·         Nevada is the most mountainous state in the country. There are hundreds of mountain ranges, I think the number we saw was 348 – or something like that. Most of these mountain ranges are oriented north to south and make travel east to west (or vice versa) quite challenging.

·         Nevada has more public land than any other state in the country. Approximately 94% of the state is some kind of public land, mostly BLM, but also national forest, national park, and state and local public lands.

·         There are only three population areas in Nevada. One around Las Vegas in the south and by far the largest. Northwest Nevada around Reno and Carson City. And a small population center in the northeastern part of the state near Salt Lake City and the town of Elko, Nevada. The rest of the state is pretty darn empty, dry, and mountainous.

·         Nevada became a state during the Civil War, in the year 1864, this year being the 150^th  anniversary of the state. This is notable because founders of the state were very pro-Union and wrote into the Nevada state constitution that Nevada would always defer to the will of the United States government. (This is notable in the Cliven Bundy story who stated that he only followed Nevada laws – I guess among other problems, he doesn’t know his own state’s history.)

·         The first settlement in Nevada was a Mormon trading post called Mormon Station. Mormon Station was a trading post at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains just south of the current location of Carson City that was started to sell goods to travelers heading to California during the 1840’s gold rush. Mormon Station later was abandoned by the Mormon settlers and eventually became the first town in Nevada called Genoa. (By the way, Mark Twain started his newspaper career in the very town before moving to the larger town of Virginia City Nevada which was the location of the Comstock Lode silver strike.)

·         Reno has a major image problem. (This may sound familiar to RI’ers.) We read and heard many stories of Renoites (or whatever they call themselves) struggling with the negative image they and others had of their city as a second rate gambling town. They are working on reinventing themselves, but are still at the early stages of this process.

·         Nevadans have a thing for dogs. They expect to take their dogs everywhere with them, stores, parks, trails, public buildings, etc. Not being dog people, this took some getting used to. A such, it is not surprising when you enter places in border towns of California that there are reminder signs for the Nevadans that they must control their dog-tendencies and leave their pets behind out of their own state.

·         The Sierra Nevada Mountains have been and are a major barrier to east-west movement. They were historically – you can read lots of stories of the wagon trains and gold rush people struggling with how to get over these mountains. They would plan their whole journey to arrive at a time when one could get over and down safely, and history has many stories of people who misjudged that calculation. Still today, getting over the mountains is an impediment and you really need to decide to you want to go across the 10,000 foot mountains to get anywhere in California.

·         Nevadans, like many people we met in the west, have a strong ethos of leave me alone, I can do what I want, where I want, when I want, how I want. We guess it kind of goes along with the land, open spaces, and spirit of I am on my own!

·         Fire, meaning wildfires, is a way of life out here. Not only Nevada, but California, Oregon, Washington, and other states in this part of the world. Local news has regular segments on current fires, staying safe from fires, and weather conditions that may create fires. We never saw a major fire, but there were several smaller ones in the Reno area during our time here.

There’s lots more we could add, but we hope this offers a glimpse into some of the things we learned about the state of Nevada during our time here in the summer of 2014. We’re glad we are moving on, but as always happy for what we gained from our time in Nevada.