NevadaGram #200 – Skiing the Rubies, A Foodie in Vegas, Shopping in Winnemucca
Introducing a new section of the NevadaGram, Let's Go Outside with Curtis Fong.
"I remember the guide telling us what line he was going to ski and indicating a stop point at the bottom and...
NevadaGram #199 – Skiing in Nevada, yep
Our Guest Author this month is Curtis Fong, “The Guy From Tahoe”. He has been a familiar figure on the ski slopes of Lake Tahoe, on the tv screen and on the radio, for...
NevadaGram #198 – Must See-Must Do, Hot Spring Getaway
It is traditional for us to unlimber our Nevada 'Must-See Must Do' list in this first edition of the New Year. In the past Robin and I (and once, Shorty — he loved the...
NevadaGram #197 — Virginia City at Christmastime
Virginia City is what's left of the Richest Place on Earth, and a major attraction for visitors in Nevada. It's a wonderful place to visit any time, but if you really want to catch...
NevadaGram #196 – Following Mark Twain around Paris
On the 4th of July 1867, Sam Clemens was 32 years old and had acquired the beginnings of a reputation and a career by becoming Mark Twain. He had embarked on a 5-month tour...
NevadaGram #195 – Incline Village, Crystal Bay and Coaldale
In all my years of exploring Nevada the most difficult place for me to get a handle on has been Incline Village. I could never find the There there. Now with the help of...
NevadaGram #194 – Laughlin, Art Flap at Baker
We'd been a long day on the road and running late, hurrying now that a sunset was setting the sky on fire, worried we'd find all the campsites taken. We'd visited the Big Bend...
NevadaGram #193 – A Drive down 95
Driving and jiving down 95, first stop in Yerington where we had some bad news: Kings Diner, last year's great Yerington discovery, is gone. We liked the food, but more than that we liked...
NevadaGram #192 – Snake Valley Days at Baker
All you have to do to get to Baker from anywhere in Nevada is to get on US 50 and drive east. That's what Robin and I did, and then drove up the east...
NevadaGram #191 – Dream Train to Elko, Comstock Mining Update
The 34th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is scheduled for January 29-February 3 next year. Its theme will be "Basques and Buckaroos: Herding Cultures of Basin, Range and Beyond" and tickets will go on sale...
NevadaGram #190 – Ichthyosaur Digs, Rural RoundUp in Elko, Nevada Calendar
Rural RoundUp 2017
This year's Cow Counties Tourism Pro-Am convened in Elko. Story below.
More than 500 fans of a Reno-brewed IPA, and of its namesake — a giant prehistoric ocean-dwelling reptile — attended a fundraiser at...
NevadaGram #189 – Fallon’s Secret Revealed, The Nevada Calendar for April
Here's what Fallon has been so carefully guarding from the world: There is no quieter, calmer, sweeter or more secret getaway in Nevada than Fallon.
I know, right? Does not compute. That's how clever Fallon has...
NevadaGram #188 – Meet Me at the Martin, Nevada Calendar for March
In the summer of 2004 a man and his wife set out from Maine, heading west for their new life in Nevada, and on the way the wife suffered a cracked tooth. Despite her...
NevadaGram #187 – Snowbound at Tahoe, Nevada Correspondence, Comstock Mining Update
Mark McLaughlin
Our Guest Author is an award-winning, nationally published author, speaker, and photographer with seven books and more than 750 articles in print.
He has been a regular contributor to California and Nevada media, and has won 5 Nevada...
NevadaGram #186 – Must See-Must Do in 2017, Carson City at Christmas, the January...
A Brand New Carson City was unwrapped at Christmas time.
Photo courtesy Carson City Pix
Not only had the last of the street barricades and detours been removed from the renovated stretch of Carson Street downtown, but...
NevadaGram #185 – Great Basin Observatory, Nevada Correspondence, Sourdough Slim in Eureka
Sourdough Slim at the Eureka Opera House
Story and video below
Among the many things they can brag about, the rangers at Great Basin National Park can point to the sky and say, "It gets really dark...
NevadaGram #184 – Gerlach, City of Dreams
South Tahoe Food & Wine Festival
See story and photos below
We drove to Gerlach north from Silver Springs, through Fernley, Wadsworth and Nixon — towns most visitors never notice, if they see them at all...
NevadaGram #183 – World Human-Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain
We are in Battle Mountain for the World Human-Powered Speed Challenge, which is a contest to see whose bicycle can go fastest on five miles of straight, flat Highway 305 about 15 miles south...
NevadaGram #182 – Visits to Eureka, Tonopah and Winnemucca, Richard Bangs Makes it to...
In Silver City, Saturday August 20th was a hot and happy summer's day as townspeople, former residents, grandparents, friends from out of town, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins by the dozens gathered at...
NevadaGram #181 – Comstock Mining Update
We failed.
For more than five years residents of the Comstock tried to keep an upstart mining company from digging an enormous pit mine in the the Virginia City National Historic Landmark just above Devil's...
NevadaGram #180 — Pioche to Great Basin National Park, Wine-Walking in Eureka
Nevada State of Mind
(Part 2: Pioche to Great Basin National Park)
by Richard Bangs
Pioche was once the baddest town in the West, badder than Tombstone, Deadwood or Dodge City.
In its heyday as a silver...
NevadaGram #179 – Exploring the Edge of the World, Comstock Mining Update
Nevada State of Mind
by Richard Bangs
It feels like we’re driving to the edge of the world where the water falls off.
Infinity is just ahead. To the right are mountains that arc up from the...
NevadaGram #178 – Rural RoundUp in Laughlin, Detour to Paris
Rural RoundUp is the annual conclave of Nevada's tourism industry, Cow County division, a party it throws for itself. The venue rotates; last year in the beautiful Carson Valley in the shadow of the...
NevadaGram #177 – Sparks, City of Mystery
Last week, unable to spare the time for a vacation in Tuscany, I decided to spend a day in Sparks.
You might be tempted to begin a self-guided tour downtown where Sparks grew up across...
NevadaGram #176 — Tonopah Rising, Nevada Correspondence
Tonopah, 4 am
The city was sleeping with its night lights on, silent except for the occasional snore of a semi-truck traveling US 95 through its center. The night was warm and the air was...
NevadaGram #175 – Winter at South Shore
Lake Tahoe is well-known as a vacation/recreation destination, and so we made a visit between January snowstorms to see what the Lake has to offer in winter.
“We were like a couple of kids,”...
NevadaGram #174 – US 50 is Burger Road, Comstock Mining Update
The Best Burgers in the World are found along US 50 in Nevada.
Anyone who has driven the "Loneliest Highway" and had a burger along the way will agree. No matter how long ago it...
NevadaGram #173 – Elko’s Christmas Trees, 2016 Must-See Must-Do, Global Tourism Summit
Christmas in Elko is a delightful mini-season that begins each year with the Festival of the Trees, which came this year on the last day of November.
This is one of the major annual art...
NevadaGram #172 – Carson City at Christmastime
Carson City is a real city now. No, really.
There are lots of ways to measure this, but in my mind the true mark of a city is whether or not you can do all...
NevadaGram #171 – Wheezer Dell
A while back I posted a NevadaGram about Wheezer Dell, the first Nevada-born child — Tuscarora, June 11, 1886 — to grow up to play major league baseball, first for St. Louis in 1912...
NevadaGram #170 – Smith Valley and Yerington, Nevada Correspondence
A while back I recounted our drive along the Bodie Road in far western Nevada, and our homeward journey via Smith Valley and Yerington. Shortly after that NevadaGram was dispatched I was chided by...
NevadaGram #169 — Lovelock Cave, Comstock Mining Update, Nevada Correspondence and More
One of Nevada's greatest attractions to visitors goes mostly unmentioned, even by our most enthusiastic promoters: Time Travel.
This is conveniently accessible and easy to do here, and one enjoyable way to do it is...
NevadaGram #168 – Far Western Nevada (Bridgeport, Bodie and Aurora)
Nevada Correspondence
In this NevadaGram we debut a new section of Correspondence from around the state on matters of interest to Nevada-lovers, both residents and visitors. Please try a taste, and add your comments in...
NevadaGram #167 – Adrift at Lake Tahoe, Comstock Mining Update
Imagine that you've made arrangements for an exciting weekend with a friend who shares your enthusiasms and at the last minute it all fell through, leaving you alone and adrift at Lake Tahoe.
Lake Tahoe!...
NevadaGram #166 – Rural RoundUp, The One and Only McKeen Car, The Diana Mine
This year's Rural RoundUp — the 25th Annual — was held in the Carson Valley. For the rural tourism marketers in attendance it was an enjoyable visit to one of the most beautiful places...
NevadaGram #165 — Wheezer Dell, Two New Breweries
I've just come from spending three pleasant days delving into the Wheezer Dell archive, and especially the thick scrapbook into which Eleanor Dell had pasted newspaper clippings about her husband's career as a baseball...
NevadaGram #164 – Eagles & Ag in Carson Valley, Comstock Mining Update, a Post...
The last time I was an agri-tourist was 42 years ago, when I was led inside, outside, through and around a pig farm in Aarhus Denmark, but my memories of it are still vivid...
NevadaGram #163 – 2015 Must-See Must-Do Awards, A Visit to Ely, Elko’s ‘Lost Ski...
And now the moment that everyone has been waiting for: the announcement of the annual Must-See Must-Do List for 2015.
As always, this list reflects our personal preferences — lots of nominations on the website...
NevadaGram #162
Our beautiful Christmas Card
Our thanks to Deb Sutherland for allowing us to share her image of the Northern Nevada Railway depot in East Ely. It caught my eye when I first saw it on...
NevadaGram #161 Sesquicentennial Nevada Day
Nevada Day was very big this year, being the Sesquicentennial edition and all. The year-long effort to celebrate the milestone with events and activities around the state — more than 500 of them...
