Thursday, September 19, 2013

Great Reno Balloon Race

The Great Reno Balloon Race
The Great Reno Balloon Race
The Great Reno Balloon Race is the world's largest free hot air balloon event. The race is held each year at Rancho San Rafael park in Reno, Nevada. The event takes place the Friday through Sunday following Labor Day.
This year we went on Saturday morning in time to see a few balloons still giving rides to guests. The butterfly and stylized bee balloons were very colorful and impressive. They inspired us to wake up at 5 o'clock Sunday morning to watch the Dawn Patrol and the Mass Ascension. It was very impressive to watch almost 100 balloons take off from the park at the same time. The park seems really big until you place 100 huge hot air balloons on it.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Sunset Flowers

Reno Wasabi Flowers
Reno Wasabi Flowers

Sidewalk decoration outside a Wasabi restaurant at the Summit Sierra mall in southern Reno. We had just finished watching Monsters University. The sun was sitting low on the horizon and gave a great soft shadowed look to the decorative hanging flowers.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Reno Rainbow

I was on my way to work the other day when I saw the most amazing rainbow. I just had to stop and take a picture. This is the view from a pullout near my house in the South Meadows area of Reno. The camera on my iPhone 4 is really good but it still doesn't do justice to the colors in this rainbow. 

It's been a long time since I've seen this much of a rainbow. In Reno we don't get a lot of rain so rainbows are a rare treat. You can see the storm clouds over the mountains in the distance. The storm threatened to drop some rain in town all day but nothing significant ever happened. The best part of this storm system was the rainbow.

Reno Rainbow
Reno Rainbow
It is interesting to note that the desert scrub in the foreground is not actually the native ground. This area was cleared around 2008 to put in a housing subdivision. When the market tanked, this area was left untouched. In the last 5 years the plants you see have started to grow. Just goes to show that nature will still reclaim ground even in the desert.

Double Reno Rainbow
Double Reno Rainbow
This end shows just a hint of a second rainbow above the first. Nature's optics are truly amazing.