Main Street open for Taste of the Towns

 Saturday is a big day for the Douglas County Historical Society with Student-Senior Day and the Taste of the Towns walking tour.

Student-Senior Day features a 2 p.m. showing of "Chicken Every Sunday." This movie was filmed in Nevada and the cast includes a very young Natalie Wood. Admission is free for seniors and students accompanied by an adult.

Take some time during Student-Senior Day to check out the new museum exhibits. Don't miss the Women in History room or the working stamp mill model. Spend the rest of the afternoon in the air-conditioning and work up an appetite because the Taste of the Towns begins at 5 p.m. Saturday.

The town of Gardnerville comes alive with the annual Taste of the Towns. The parking lot of the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center at 1477 Highway 395 in Gardnerville will be filled with food, beverage and dessert booths, music and fun. Taste to your heart's content or head up and down Main Street to sample the fare available there. Shops will be open to show their wares.

All this tasting and fun is available for $20 for DCHS members or $25 per person for nonmembers. Call 782-2555 to reserve tickets. We can't guarantee how many will be left if you wait until Saturday evening.

If you have a perfect July in Douglas County photo, bring it to the Gardnerville museum by 4 p.m. today. E-mail entries are welcome at the address below. Look for the winner at the Taste of the Towns, at the main desk in the museum and in this column next week.

The Douglas County Historical Society booth at Taste of the Towns offers the first look of the 2010 DCHS calendar, where all your winning photos appear. Pre-order as many as you like and they'll be printed and ready for delivery before Christmas. We won't be taking money for the calendars as yet; we just want an estimate as to how many to have printed.

This is the time of year when our favorite dairy cow, Sweetheart, heads out to local county and state fairs. Sweetheart will be on a leave of absence as a display in the museum's Agriculture Room for about three weeks, finishing up in Reno at the State Fair. Maybe we can get her to tell us about her adventures when she gets back.

For questions, contact the Douglas County Historical Society at historicnevada.org or at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville at 782-2555. Remember, DCHS and its two museums in Gardnerville and Genoa don't receive any regular state or county funding. It's up to our members and friends to help us keep our doors open.

Contact Ellen Caywood at in2my2cats@yahoo.com or 790-1565.

Taste food samples from Overland Hotel & Basque Restaurant, J. T. Basque Bar & Dining Room, Two Guys From Italy, Woodett's Diner and Bravo Cafe & Bakery at the Taste of the Towns event, 5-9 p.m. Saturday.

Park at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville to begin the tasting tour.

Music by Ben Crocker at the museum, the Hot Two at the JT and Mike Maloney at Woodett's.

Advance sale tickets are $20 for historical society members and $25 for non-members and are available at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center and the Genoa Courthouse Museum. Information, 782-2555.

Booths in the museum parking lot: D W's Restaurant, Papa Murphy's, The Margarita Man, Grace & Ida's Custom Cookies, Genoa Candy & Coffee Co., Keva Juice, Pine Nut Cafe, Qdoba Mexican Grill.