Them Reno Blues

So now that the Olympics are over I can return my attentions to my blog. NBC's primetime coverage overlapped with my evening blogging time, so I've been away for a while. As far as the Olympics go, I don't have much to say that hasn't been said already except to share that Anne discovered that it's fun to pronounce Bode Miller's name as if he were Brazilian (sounds like "Bojee"). That and I'm happy I won't have to listen to Jimmy Roberts for another 2 1/2 years.

Over Presidents' Day weekend, we headed up to Reno to see the family. We saw Anne's family over Christmas, so this was a makeup trip -- already postponed by bad weather over Martin Luther King weekend. It was good to see my family, especially Lynda and her kids now that they're back in Reno. It's amazing how quickly children turn into little people.

I don't know if my Reno homies are with me on this, but Reno seems to have changed a lot since I last lived there over ten years ago. When I moved away for college, I was really happy to leave the town behind. I was tired of the conservative attitudes and lack of interesting things to do. Since then, I've been lucky to live in two incredible places (Seattle area and Bay area), and Reno hasn't looked too good by comparison. But a strange thing has happened over the past couple years. Little by little, Reno is getting more interesting. The downtown in particular has gotten nicer, with a river walk flanked by some nice shops and coffee shops, a park in the middle of the river complete with a kayak course and wading pool, and new condos replacing some of the older and more decrepit casinos. There's even a new-fangled train trench.

Granted, the changes haven't been all positive. The sprawl is totally out of hand. There are now two Wal Marts just in the south part of town. And the suburban houses are sprouting everywhere. The traffic is also worse.

But here's the thing: I'm not sure Reno wouldn't be a half-bad place to live. I spent five years doing field work outside of Fresno, and Reno's sprawl is nothing in comparison. And imagine how happy Anne and I were to be able to drive 20 minutes to go snowshoeing one day while we were up there. As much as I grumbled about those damn Californians when I was growing up, I think they've added some positives like more readily-available organic groceries. I'm not saying that we're going to pack up and move back to the nest anytime soon (especially if it puts us at risk of my sister dumping her four children off at our house without any warning, which happens regularly to my parents), but I'm not as eager to refer to Reno as simply a "good place to be from" anymore. So if the dream job opens up at UNR, I might actually be happy to apply for it. I don't think I have any illusions about Reno turning into a utopia. I'm sure our left-wing values would still be out of place, and I'm sure the developers and downtown casinos are still calling all the shots. But hey, at least it's not Fresno.