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Last week He-Man and I had a little get-away for our 43rd anniversary. We didn’t go too far just up to Sparks, NV.
We booked a balcony suite at Hampton Inn & Suites at the marina for the view of Helms Lake, and view of Reno’s skyline. This lake has an interesting beginning.
“The site was once a gravel pit owned by the Helms Construction Corp. (1968-1995) The pit is 100 feet deep. They found petroleum and solvent contamination seeping into the pit in 1987 so it was declared a Super Toxic Sight and clean up began. In 1996 it was declared free of petrochemicals and the site was turned over to the city of Sparks.
Millions of dollars of spill mitigation money was made available to the city, which they used to construct the park and make the pit a recreational pond. They had planned to fill the pit to 30 feet, but in January 1997 the Truckee River overflowed its banks and filled the Helms Pit creating what is now Richard Helms Lake or Sparks Marina Pond.” You can read a little more about how it stays filled at the link. https://www.ndow.org/waters/sparks-marina/
Now for our view-

It was pretty windy the day we were up there as you can see by the water.

We both really enjoyed having this evening view when the lights in the city came on.
I had hoped our 4th floor balcony room would afford a great view of the sky so I could also try to photograph Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, but alas we had a storm rolling in and cloud cover.
Finally, Monday night April 1st…no joke! We had a clear night so I went out to my front yard and spied the Comet.



We had a lovely anniversary walking around the lake both days, and we found a new Indian place we liked a lot for dinner so, we’ll make the drive up for that again when we’re craving Indian food, and we’ll be staying there again when the weather is warmer and we’ll take our kayak up for a paddle around the lake.
I hope the stars have lined up a fantastic week for you.
Nikon D850| Nikkor 80-200mm| iPhone 14 Pro| PS CC 25.5.1
more to come…













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