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Part 1: Reno and Death Valley

Part 2: Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, and Valley of Fire

Part 3: San Diego

Part 4: Downtown LA and Hollywood

Part 5: More LA and Long Beach

Part 6: Santa Barbara and the California Coast

Part 7: San Francisco

Part 8: Sacramento

 

 

Welcome to the first of several photo threads documenting the Great UrbanOhio Road Trip of May 2015, in which four forumers went out west and put 2,381 miles on a rental car.

 

I was alone for the first leg of this trip, which started in Reno, Nevada. What better way to start a trip than a skyline panorama?

 

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Without a specific plan, I drove downtown to explore. Fortunately, I quickly found the Riverwalk District, which was lined with parks, shopping, and residential towers.

 

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Park Tower was built in 1961 but repainted in 1991. Residents either love or hate the new color scheme.

 

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Reno may have the best City Hall of all time...

 

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On to the Midtown area of Reno. This up-and-coming area was home to the same type of coffee shops, trendy cocktail bars, and nice restaurants that you'd find in Over-the-Rhine or the Short North. Some interesting old buildings:

 

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And some new construction popping up:

 

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By the way... Did you know that Reno has a cap over Interstate 80? But instead of building some cool mixed-use, street-fronting building over the highway, they built... a suburban-style Walgreens, complete with a parking lot in front.

 

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oddest store ever by glitzypursegirl, on Flickr

 

S2PN

 

A few last shots from Downtown Reno:

 

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Time to head south on US-395. Leaving Nevada...

 

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I stayed the night in the tiny town of Bridgeport, California (population 575) and hoped to head into Yosemite the following morning. However, due to some snowfall high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Tioga Pass was closed and I was unable to drive into the park. So I instead continued south towards Death Valley.

 

 

Near Mono Lake:

 

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Stovepipe Wells, California:

 

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Zabriskie Point in Death Valley:

 

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From there, I headed towards our next destination, which I will share with you in Part 2... Las Vegas!

 

Reno may have the best City Hall of all time...

 

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Reminds me of Canton's... maybe they need to add a big "CANTON!" sign to the top:

 

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By the way... Did you know that Reno has a cap over Interstate 80? But instead of building some cool mixed-use, street-fronting building over the highway, they built... a suburban-style Walgreens, complete with a parking lot in front.

 

4098588078_79a1079d16_b.jpg

oddest store ever by glitzypursegirl, on Flickr

 

The Backstory on it:

http://www.bjginc.com/What-We-Do/I80-Walgreens/i80-walgreens.html

 

"air rights" structure for future casino constructed when I-80 was built --- sat as an undeveloped pad for a long time

Thanks for sharing. It makes sense that Walgreens would utilize the cap since it was already built and went unused. I guess the most shocking thing to me was that the cap was built in the first place. There is no shortage of parking lots and vacant lots in downtown Reno where new buildings can be built, as well as single-family homes and low-rise apartments in the downtown business district that could be demolished and replaced with a higher density buildings, if the demand warranted. Also, this cap does not serve the purpose of mending a gap in a business district, like Columbus' cap does and Cincinnati's FWW cap would do.

Great photos.  Next stop...BOOZELAND!!!

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

Great set! I really liked the video

  • 1 month later...

Nice work, Travis! I’ve been sorta curious about Reno for a couple years now, but I never knew that the Riverwalk district was so nice. That I-80 Walgreens, however is something…else. Lol.

 

Zabriskie Point in Death Valley looks pretty cool, but as Mr. Obvious would say, the color pallete of the geological landscape in DV does look rather subdued compared to what we saw in the Valley of Fire a few days later…but still breathtaking. Pretty nifty hyperlapse video as well!

 

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