My report time this morning was 5:15am. Even living close to the airport, this required a 4:07am alarm. So when a jumpseater for United came up to the flight deck to ask permission to board, I was a bit surprised when he found my particular two day trip overnighting in Reno to be very appealing. “Do you usually bid for this?,” he asked. “Oh god no” was my reply. As we all know, I try to do day-trips. Out and back and done. Furthermore Reno isn’t anything special in my book and its reputation plummeted further upon arrival.

This particular jumpseater, however, did also announce that he is in his 28th year at United and he is commuting to work. Poor decisions were perhaps made along the way. After making a short hop from LAX to SFO, we made an even shorter hop over the Sierras to Reno. We were at the Renaissance hotel by 10 am.

I practiced my Italian for a bit before venturing out into the cold morning air. Our hotel is in an area known as the riverwalk district. This is a different location than the last time I was here several years ago when they put us up in a giant casino near the airport. The riverwalk district is a neighborhood that is trying to look nice, but failing. There are all the elements of an up and coming restaurant and shopping scene, but with a bit of an edge. There are microbrews and cute riverside cafes adjacent to wide walking and biking trails. The problem is that these areas are occupied by either druggies who shout obscenities at unseen targets or homeless people.

I picked out a place to get lunch called “Papa What You Cooking,” specializing in soul food. It came very highly reviewed and did not disappoint. My only issue was finding it to begin with. It is literally in the basement of a building that looks like a post office. This is because it was in fact a post office at one point.

This was my view as I entered the building so I thought I had made a mistake. I was about to turn around, but an older lady selling pottery in a kiosk in said building showed me where to find an elevator to go to the basement. I had a po’boy and some rice with gravy. The nice ladies at the counter also convinced me to get some cookies. Everything was fantastic. Alas, after taking the food back to my room, I still had half the day to fill.

After digesting and practicing more Italian, I went for a run. In a little under two miles, I already encountered a sign telling me I was leaving Reno. This truly is the biggest little city. Or maybe it’s just small. Either way, the running trail had ONE other runner that I encountered. Everyone else was homeless. And there were A LOT. Other than the old lady who guided me to the basement and the two women serving me soul food, there are seemingly no other women in this city/town.

After recovering from my run and warming up a bit, I decided to go for a walk downtown. It looked even worse. Despite the high rises and casinos, it was like a ghost town. And those people I did see were…also homeless. Downtown Reno looks a lot like the dystopian future of Back to the Future: Part II where Donald Tru, . . .wait I mean Biff Tannen took over Hill Valley and turned it into some kind of seedy underworld of poverty, smut, and crime.

It’s actually really sad looking, and kind of brings me to the main theme of this post. What the hell happened? The population of Reno is around 260,000. Not huge. Not tiny either. But of comparably-sized cities, Reno really looks bleak. It’s like it inherited the worst aspects of everything. It has big city homelessness with tiny town resources by the looks of things. I would say it’s a has been, but perhaps Reno was a never was.

Las Vegas too is filled with seediness and crime, but it outwardly looks classy at least. Furthermore Las Vegas is much much larger and manages to put on a better face than Reno. I did a bit of research on homelessness in Reno and supposedly they’ve improved things a lot. That then begs the question, what did it look like before?

Maybe it was the cold blustery day that didn’t add anything to my feeling of the city. Perhaps if it was a warm summer day, people come out to enjoy the riverside restaurants and play in the parks. It’s just really hard for me to imagine. For Reno’s sake, I hope they can turn things around. Also, fun fact: the “biggest little city” slogan that has been adopted by the city for the past century was actually crafted in a contest by a guy from Sacramento. Maybe that slogan isn’t working for them because Reno doesn’t seem to have a grasp on what it is anymore. It’s like Vegas, but worse. It’s like a small town, but worse. Maybe it’s time to find someone from Reno to come up with a new slogan.