Carson City, NV

Leaving Sparks, we looked up and there it was - snow!  Oh no!  Did we wait too long to hike in the mountains?

Our move was pretty short, only 30 miles to the RV lot of the Carson City Nugget Casino.  It's pretty small, but nice and level anyway.  It's also within a couple of blocks of the Capitol building.  Nevada will be celebrating their 150 anniversary of statehood next year.  Ranked 7th in size, it's only 35th in population (most of that in and around Las Vegas.)

We walked over to check out the Capitol building, built with Nevada sandstone.

Since it was Sunday, the doors were locked, so we pressed out faces to the door.  That looks like a pretty interesting statue.

Nevada is nicknamed the Silver State and the building's domes celebrate that fact.

Near our parking spot was this building with an unusual bell tower.  In addition to the traditional Westminster chimes every 15 minutes, it also played a tune on the hour.  But the unusual part was the type of songs.  When we first arrived, we heard B-I-N-G-O and She'll be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes.  I don't remember any others, but they were all children's songs.

Happily they stopped at night.

We walked around in the evening and found this cute train mural.

From 1870 to 1893, this building was the site of a United States Mint, producing $49,274,434.30 in coinage.

What is going on over the Capitol dome?  It looks like some kind of alien invasion.

We went back to see the interior of the Capitol on Monday morning and found out the statue was Sarah Winnemucca, a prominent Native American activist and educator in the latter 1800s.  We really liked the fringe on her dress.

But walking around, we were confused.  The Assembly room was empty and I don't mean of people.  There was no furniture.  And there was a museum in the Senate.  There we saw a cool beaded version of the State Seal.

And an interesting bit of history - In the 1970s the building was gutted and totally rebuilt.  Wild.

But that didn't answer our question.  Where is the legislature?  Well, it turns out that a new building was built nearby in 1970 and the three branches of the government each have their own building.  The new building is very modern looking.

Interesting fact - Regular sessions of the Nevada legislature are held on odd-numbered years beginning with the first Tuesday in February and are limited to 120 calendar days. Now there's a good job.