Touring The Washoe Valley

Today we went for a drive to see what the Washoe Valley area was like since we've seen some property listings we like. We skirted both sides of Washoe Lake. One side is up against the mountains and features lots of towering pines, blue jays and chunks of granite--very 'Lake Tahoe'. The other side is more flat and has more sagebrush, elms, magpies and cottonwoods. Both were pretty and nice homes.

Although sadly, it isn't on the market, this old farmhouse-church building right next to highway 395 sure caught our eye. I would LOVE to live here...

Wow, the Bowers Mansion sure has seen better days.

Just kidding, here is the real mansion:

It's lovely and has a very nice, large, shady park surrounding it. When we stopped by the local sheriff's jailhouse crew was working on the grounds, a happy group of guys in old-fashioned striped jail-issue outfits. I guess if you have to do service like that there are lots of worse places to work!

The old log cabin we didn't have time to stop and check out properly, but we will soon. It was an honest to God log cabin with a well-constructed stone fireplace & chimney--whoever built it knew how to make a log cabin.

We found two of the houses on our short list of possibilities, one was occupied so we just looked at it from the street, the other--a two story clapboard farmhouse with a picket fence was vacant so we were able to walk all around it. The inside of it has been updated and is very nice, but the outside needs paint, landscaping and TLC. The area is very rural but has neighbors close enough so there should be playmates for the kid.

But damn, it was JUST the kind of place I love. Gotta get the realtor to let us in to look it over!