TRIP TO RENO AND VIRGINIA CITY
My husband has been working out of town lately and he is in Reno now. It's been a long time of him working out of town and months apart from each other, traveling back and forth to spend time together. I am still in Arizona. I recently made the trip out to Reno to go house hunting and visit my husband. He was born in Reno and I was excited for him to show me around town. He showed me the house he grew up in, his grandma's house by Washoe Lake, and many other places. I was also happy to be out there for his birthday, where we took the trip to North Lake Tahoe. And boy is it as beautiful as it looks online! We didn't stay long since we didn't have much time because he had to be back to work the next day. So we left the lake early and ventured to Virginia City.
Driving in was awesome, unfortunately we didn't see any wild horses, but when I drove his car up a few weeks before this visit, I saw them running on the hills, and it was so majestic! And if anyone knows me, they know I absolutely love wild horses and photograph them often! Mostly in Maricopa AZ, and the Salt River in Arizona. But I have seen and photographed them in Page, AZ and Pinetop, AZ as well. I have those for sale online. I add more photos constantly so keep an eye out often! I can't wait to photograph the beautiful wild horses in Nevada!
You can find my art here: Art Gallery Website
Back to our trip to Virginia City, The drive in was beautiful. My heart will still be in the beauty of the Arizona desert, but I'm excited for new adventures!
Virginia City is, or was one of the largest mining towns in the US. They have tunnels that span about 700 miles underground.
Our first stop was the Fourth Ward School. We spent a lot of time here, because we love reading the history on places. My husband more than me. Because I love to take photos. Most everything you see from the school is original. The kids were even allowed to sign the walls as the school was going to get torn down, but they ended up keeping it up and have refurbished most of it. The wood floors, chalkboards are all original, as well as the switchboard that a blind lady ran for nearly 45 years. They typing room was so loud for the rest of the school, they built a room in the room for the students to type so the noise wasn't as loud. There is so much I learned and so much more to learn about this amazing city with so much history. I will definitely blog more from my next trip there!
We stopped at quite a few shops that had awesome stuff inside and I'm definitely going to go back once I get up there permanently to get some decor for the house!
All of the organs were the originals.
Next, we made it to the Washoe Club. And if you watch Ghost Hunters like I do, you will know that's where they got their start, and have been back to Virginia City a few times to ghost hunt there again and they have visited MacKay Mansion too. It was awesome to see the Washoe Club in person. Carl, our tour guide, who you can see on episodes was awesome. Unfortunately, we stayed in the museum too long around closing time and I didn't get a chance to buy his book and get it signed, but I'll be back for that too! And I'm pretty sure I captured Lena the ghosts face in between the banisters because it's not on every photo I took and my EMF meter was going crazy! At one point upstairs, it was going crazy, and we walked through a really cold spot. I'm definitely going to be going back to do the tour again and hopefully catch some ghosts on camera! We saw the door that slammed in an episode of Ghost Hunters, and saw the crypt where they kept the dead bodies in the winter because the ground outside was too cold to dig graves. Eew. We were standing in a room where dead people were kept. We definitely won't be doing the overnight tour. We are not that brave! Especially knowing about the people that stayed there, the suicides that happened and the ghosts that haunt the place. We didn't have time to see MacKay Mansion, so definitely going back for that too!
The door that slammed on the last episode of Ghost Hunters. You can see the crack underneath the handle.
It's a little grainy and hard to see, but there's definitely a face in there! It's slightly tilted to the side. But I can see the eyes and a nose and hair for sure. Did I get Lena on camera?
You can read more information on the Washoe Club history here. How cool is it that we were standing where people like Mark Twain once stood!
I can't wait to go back to Tahoe also and explore the beautiful scenery there and go fishing!