debor026

I have lived in Reno for 8 years-ish. When I first moved here I heard that there was a zoo and I took my kids out there. It was, um, well it was bad. The poor animals looked sad in little dinky squares with not much natural shade, plants etc. The kids didn't like it and we never went back. Not long after that I heard that there is also a wildlife sanctuary here but after my zoo experience I never went out there to have a look around. That was a mistake! We took all of the kids out to Animal Ark on Saturday and it was wonderful. The viewing areas had a nice view of most of the animals and this big boy came right close up to see us. The animals have nice big spaces to move around in, the big ones are rotated often so they aren't out all day and there is a lot of natural shade and interest in their homes. We were there around the time that they were changing the bears around and the kids really enjoyed watching it. They placed fruits all around for Yogi (yes, the bear) to...

This Sunday, I was a 10-10-10 bride. A little over a year ago we were deciding on dates when hubby, being a computer geek, noticed that the date was all 1s and 0s and could be a binary number. Since he was sitting at the computer anyway he converted it to decimal and behold, it was 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything At least, it is according to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but maybe there is something to it because it sure felt like a great day to me. Our ceremony was in a casino since I do live in Reno after all. And I must say if you are getting married in Reno, the Atlantis really was beautiful. We looked at several of the chapels here and considered the possibility of an outdoor wedding. Unfortunately, the weather in mid October is a little too unpredictable to guarantee good outdoor weather (though it did turn out to be a beautiful day) and all of the chapels we saw looked like they might have been decorated in the 80's and then forgotten. I want...

We went to check out the fowl today. They are NOT afraid of you. Actually they are pretty demanding because they assume you have food. This poor fellow looks like he needs direction through the masses. And apparently someone was crazy enough to go out on the ice. Since there are areas of this not so big lake that are completely melted I'll stay on the nice firm ground, thanks. But it sure was beautiful!

We brought in the new year downtown. It's the first time I've gone downtown for this in the 7 years I've lived here. And mostly what I can say about that is "wow". It's pretty cool to be among that many people as the last seconds of the decade are counted off. Today I am also kicking off my very first 365 . I've joined up with two groups for this here and here . Since I have a new camera I need to learn its ins and outs so that I may live up to the potential. Wish me luck! Unfortunately, I didn't take the shiny camera downtown knowing that it would be somewhat of a body press so I'm starting off the 365 with my Canon P&S. They shot the fireworks from 3 different casinos this year (these are off the top of Harrah's). As we watched the display we had quite a few bats also flying overhead which were, I'm guessing, a little flabbergasted as to what was going on. This is what downtown looked like, in every direction, about 10 minutes...

Sometimes in the winter we get a pretty heavy fog here, which is unusual for a desert. Unlike regular fog, though, this is an ice fog (called pogonip, meaning cloud) and everything gets covered in little ice crystals. With our temperatures reaching an uncommon -10 in some areas this week it's hung around for a couple of days. I'm told pogonip is terrible on your lungs (ice crystals can scratch up the lung and throat linings) but, despite that, it is rather pretty. Looking towards the sky the fog looks more like it's a snow of teeny tiny glitter. The ice crystals sparkle and catch the light and they are so fine and tiny that all of the air around you seems to shimmer. So cover your mouth with a scarf and drive carefully but take a moment and look around, too, because it'd be a shame to miss the view. This was the scene at the elementary school yesterday morning about 10 minutes before most of the kids started arriving. Don't you just want to climb that?