Brian Sandford: Carson a stop on bicyclists’ good-cause causeway

Last week’s column focused on aspects of Nevada life that surprised me when I arrived about 54 weeks ago. There were far too many things to list in one column; this week’s is the second of two parts.

Elevation: The first time I bounded up the stairs at the Appeal, I walked into the second-story design center and opened my mouth to speak with a colleague. Only I couldn’t, because I was out of breath. My first thought was that the stairs here must be unusually steep. It didn’t occur to me until later that I’d moved from a city at an elevation of 380 feet to one more than 4,500 feet above sea level. Now I understand what a disadvantage it must be for, say, visiting NFL teams playing the Broncos in Denver.

Food: I will admit I was a seafood-and-hummus guy in the Pacific Northwest. Tofu was a regular part of my diet. It’s difficult to maintain that type of a diet in Northern Nevada, so I sat down at a casino a couple of weeks after arriving with one goal in mind: eating a steak for the first time in maybe a dozen years. If you think a filet mignon tastes good, imagine feasting on one for the first time in more than a decade.

Cross-country trips: Last spring and summer, a man biking across the country for a good cause contacted us about his planned stop in Carson City. Not long after, someone else did the same thing. And then it happened again. We even had two men biking independently across the country stay in Carson on the same night. Until you’ve lived here, you don’t realize Carson is on the good-cause causeway. Those crossing the country heading east should enjoy our city’s amenities while they can; the next city anywhere near Carson’s size on U.S. Highway 50 is Grand Junction, Colo., 750 miles away.

Active summer: I’ve never lived in a city with as many organized summer celebrations as Carson. Something is happening almost every weekend. June 15 alone, residents had four appealing options: the Taste of Downtown, an open house at the Carson City Airport, an anniversary celebration at the Children’s Museum of Northern Nevada and an open house marking the 150th anniversary of the Warren Engine Co. Advocates to End Domestic Violence Executive Director Lisa Lee said she and others did some research and figured out that the weekend in the middle of June has the best odds of good weather. We’re only four months away.

It’s a privilege to live and work here. I’m looking forward to learning lots more about Nevada in my second year here.

Editor Brian Sandford can be reached at bsandford@nevadaappeal.com.