Scott Schrantz's Blog

It’s been several months since I wrote about the Reno Condo Invasion. And since I don’t spend much time in Reno, I haven’t been following all the developments and new projects going on downtown. Luckily there are a few good Reno blogs popping up on the scene now, and they’re doing the work for me. A few of them, like Yukon Sully and Myrna The Minx, even live in downtown condos, so I bow to their hands-on expertise. And just today, Diane Cohn, of the Reno Realty Blog, posted an update outlining her thoughts about some of the downtown condo projects, as well as a few that I missed, like the Sierra Vista Towers on West 4th Street and the Village at Idelwild Park.

I definitely like to see new blogs about the Reno-Carson area. Diane’s even has a podcast! If you know of any other new ones, send them my way!

An opening date has finally been set for Phase One of the Carson City freeway. The stretch of road, which runs about four miles from Hwy 50 East to the north end of town, will open to traffic on February 16th. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the morning, and the first cars will roll up the on ramps later in the afternoon. This opening is at least two months ahead of schedule, as the original plan had the freeway opening in April. But, the whole project is decades late anyway, so it all balances out.

The Saturday before the opening, on Feburary 11th, the freeway will be open to foot and non-motorized traffic for a few hours. You can walk the entire length of the roadbed, looking down on the city and feeling like you’re on top of the world. This is your last chance to get up there and walk or ride your bike along the freeway without fear of getting run down by a semi, so you might want to take advantage of it!

This new half-freeway will be a great help to people who live out in the east part of the valley, and cut down on their commute times to Reno by a large margin. But won’t make much a of dent in the lives of those of us to the south. That won’t happen until the entire freeway is completed, meeting up with Hwy 50 South at Clear Creek in 2010. Only then will the rest of us get to bypass Carson Street and take the express route into Reno. Construction starts this summer on that phase of the freeway, and is going to stretch for the next four years. And where the northern half of the freeway is above ground, the southern phase will be down in a trench as it passes by Fairview and Edmonds Streets. So the next time NDOT has one of these "Fun Runs", you’re not going to be so much on top of the world as down in a ditch.

Come celebrate and tour the soon-to-open Carson City Freeway on Saturday, Feb. 11, from 9 a.m. to noon!

There will be a 10K (6.24 miles) and 5k (3.1 miles) fun run beginning at 9 a.m. with the public invited to come walk or ride a bike (or any non-motorized mode of transportation) on the Carson City Freeway from 9:30 a.m. to noon. We’re asking everyone to park in the Mulligan’s parking lot, across from the Pinon Plaza Casino, on U.S. 50 east where the freeway ends. Runners, walkers and bikers will enter the freeway using the northbound on ramp.

Everyone is invited to run/walk or ride the entire freeway. It’s approximately three miles to the Arrowhead intersection and about 1.5 miles to the College Parkway intersection.

The event is free and we’re expecting refreshments to be provided.

When: Saturday, Feb. 11th, from 9 a.m. to noon

Where: U.S. 50 east where the first phase of the Carson City Freeway ends at the Mulligan’s parking lot.

Who: Open to the public

From Yukon Sully comes word of another Reno blog that started last month, Reno and it’s Discontents. It looks like it’s going to be a communal blog, with multiple authors, and a mix of local and national politics and opinions. Definitely one to keep an eye on!

One unfortunate thing about the site is the link on their blogroll to Salon’s Broadsheet, which Miss Alli deftly ripped apart a couple of months ago. But there’s no accounting for taste; I’ll let them slide on that one.

A new statue was installed in Minden over the weekend. It’s right at the northern entrance to town, at the intersection of Hwy 395 and Hwy 88, tucked away in the middle of some trees. Workmen have been building the concrete pedestal for the last few weeks, and then this weekend they hoisted the statue itself on top.

The statue depicts a cowboy riding a horse. It’s a posthumous gift to the Town of Minden from Larry Willson, who died two years ago from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Larry commisioned the statue several years ago, and provided his own face as the model for the cowboy.

The statue is meant to be a tribute to the cowboys that worked on the Dangberg Ranch, where Larry grew up. He was never very good with horses himself, but as a boy he revered the working ranch hands of the Carson Valley. So when he grew up, he decided to create a statue that would capture the essence of the Carson Valley, and honor those men and women from his childhood. Unfortunately, there were a lot of setbacks along the way, problems with the sculptor and with bills, and Larry himself died of ALS before it could be finished. So this statue is as much a tribute to Larry himself as to the old cowboys.

The Record-Courier has photos from the statue’s installation, plus the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza has an article on the life of Larry Willson and the story of the statue.

I wrote about it back in July, and now the work has finally begun. The old Wendy’s building in Minden, at the corner of Hwy 395 and Hwy 88, has finally started its conversion into the Valley’s second Starbuck’s store.

After being closed for renovation for a few weeks, the Carson City Arby’s is open again. Only the kitchen and drive-thru have reopened, though. The dining room is still a few weeks away from being finished. But at least now you can get your fix for Market Fresh Sandwiches without travelling to Reno.

It may not look it, but the drive-thru is open!

It’s pretty sad how sick and depraved some people can be when they’re being cruel to other people, and it’s even worse when they’re doing it to their own children. The story has been breaking all weekend about the two Carson City kids who had been trapped in a bathroom in their apartment for five years. The Nevada Appeal had this as their front page story on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It seems that the unnamed 16-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother have been forced to live in a locked bathroom in their Como Street apartment for at least five years. They were beaten with sticks, they were denied food as punishment for talking, and they had to stay in the bathroom while the rest of the family (including three other kids who for some reason weren’t treated this way) watched movies, had friends over for dinner, and went about their normal lives.

The police only found out about this when the 41-pound girl escaped by locking her grandmother in the bathroom and took to the streets with a shopping cart full of food. She told her story to the police, who went back home and confronted the rest of the family. The family denied it at first, saying the girl was crazy and didn’t know what she was talking about, but slowly everything she had been saying proved to be true. Her brother, who only weighed 31 pounds, and who the parents originally said was living in California, was found hiding under a bed. A deadbolt was found on the bathroom door - installed on the outside. And a search of the apartment has turned up sticks that match bruises on the children’s bodies. All the pieces are coming together, and it looks like this unbelievable story is actually true.

This kind of thing doesn’t even compute in my brain. How completely off the ranch do you have to be to lock up your own kids (two of them!) and pretend that they don’t exist while you live a normal life? How can you think that this is an acceptable punishment, for anything they may have done, and carry it out for years and years like this? There are sick people in the world, and they can end up in any town. This bunch just happened to end up in Carson City.

And you have to wonder, how many other kids are locked up in closets and bathrooms out there, that haven’t been found yet?

Oh, see, I spoke too soon yesterday. The storm wasn’t over, it was just gathering strength for its second act. It started snowing again just before sundown, and it didn’t let up all night.

So that’s a typical Nevada snowstorm. Unpredictable.

Okay, I guess I got excited too soon about the snowstorm. After dumping about a half inch, the snow has stopped, the skies are clearing up, and the little snow that did fall is melting off the roofs already.

Typical Nevada snowstorm, I guess. Two hours later it’s like it never happened.