Why Did I Move to Reno?

This is a question I've been asked a lot over the past year.   There are so many quick answers, like "to be closer to the mountains to ski" or "ask my husband?".    But the real answer is longer and more nuanced.  I believe that God moved my husband and I to Reno.  There were two many unusual turns of events that lead to us making this move.  We didn't simply sit down one day and decide to move to Reno.

It's difficult to say exactly when he first planted the seeds for us to move here.  After moving to Santa Cruz, we'd fly to Reno to meet friends in Tahoe to ski because the drive was so much longer from Santa Cruz than what it had been from San Jose.  With all the traffic on highway 80, we'd stopped going up to Tahoe to ski until our friends got a cabin in Tahoe City.

My first memories of Reno, as a kid living in Yerington, were 1) taking 4-H lambs to the state faire in our station wagon that broke down on the way home and 2) when my parents went to the casinos downtown and I remember the sign lite up in lights proclaiming Reno as the "Biggest Little City".

Sometime later, one of our good friends got a contract in Reno.  Dave visited him and learned the The Hub  coffee roaster located along the Truckee river and other fun spots.  He also discovered the Somerset community nestled  in the foothills on the way to Truckee.   He brought me back hoping to interest me in a home there. I order to buy a second home there, we'd need to become renters; something neither of us were wanting to take on.  We moved on with our lives and didn't think much about it.

However, several years later, things changed. After the CZU lightening fires which devastated our Bonny Doon community, Dave and I agreed to host a friend and his daughter who'd lost their rental in the fires.  We offered them a part of our house we'd setup for our parents to live should they ever need it.    After having our friends with us for a few months, we realized how difficult it would be  to find an affordable rental.  So many landlords had hiked up rental prices after the fire. We decided to rent out that part of our home to them permanently.   The modest rental income we received from our friends opened up the possibility for Dave to fulfill his heart's desire to own a home in the Somersett community he'd discovered several years back.   We began looking for a home there, but stopped our search when we didn't find anything within our budget.

Shortly afterwards, one of our good friends bought a place in Midtown Reno.  In the process of Dave helping our friend move into his new home, Dave stumbled upon a king sized Justin Timberlake bed at Habitat for Humanity for roughly $50,  The bed was identical to the bed Dave and I'd bought ourselves in San Jose just before getting married over 25 years ago.  On a whim, Dave bought it and stored it in his friend's garage.   I laughed and said that now we'd need to buy a house for the bed.

Dave began considering the possibly of buying a smaller house in the Somerset area.   When a smaller home more suitable for our budget and with a view of the mountains became available we jumped at the opportunity.  I began scouring Facebook Marketplace for used furniture to furnish the place.  In May of 2020, we drove to Reno with a U-Haul loaded with used furniture we'd purchased throughout the Bay Area on Facebook Marketplace and unloaded it in the garage.

The day we arrived, the garden was in perfect bloom with all my favorite flowers.

The plan for the house at the time was to have a place in the Sierras where we could spend more time in the mountains we love.   That first summer, we'd come to Reno one week a month to paint and get the place situated while our friend would check in on our two kitties back home.   We then decided to bring the kitties to Reno for the 2021 ski season to see how the managed with being indoor cats.  The kitties loved the cosy little home and we began discussing making Reno our permanent residence.