Tubing in Reno with Kids

Anticipation is half the fun! Photo by Frog Mom

Next time you go to Reno, skip the casinos. The cool cats surf and tube in Reno, did you know? Dress the kids in swim attire and head downtown to Wingfield Park where you can splash the whole day away at the Truckee River Whitewater Park. Next thing you know you put the right foot in and you go "Awww!" or "Eeeeek!" depending on how you feel in a snowmelt-fed river. But since the kids are in for fun, you don't have a choice and you splash right in before dropping down pools and laughing it off. There's something utterly crazy about going down the river and looking up to see the big ugly towers of casinos sprouting up from the river bank but that's exactly what makes tubing in Reno so much fun. It sounds so off and yet it isn't!

Downtown Reno, river side. Photo by Frog Mom

When we arrived in Reno during our Labor Day road trip, I knew I wanted to check out the river side. I vaguely remembered a Sunset magazine article on the waterfront district and we googled it to find activities to do with the girls after the Reno Museum of Art. As it turned out, the museum was closed on the day we went so we just walked over to the riverfront at Virginia Street and Mills Street.

Temps were soaring in the low 90s, a light breeze cooled off the riverfront and we were amazed to find a paved path along the Truckee River. Parts of the path hover right above the water in hanging gardens, others meet up with the street level under a green canopy of trees and you can hike for a good uninterrupted mile before turning back on your heels.

Street level path. Photo by Frog Mom

The highlight of our walk that day was a group of fearless surfers and rafters tackling a bigger drop pool on the river. The rafters struggled to go up the pool and the surfers took turns at water acrobatics at the end of two lines tied to a bike on the street! Geez, these guys sure were daring and when they wiped out, they just swam downstream until they could come back to the edge. Our girls were gobsmacked.

Surfing in Reno. Photo by C.G.

Then we saw a family of 3 - a dad and his 2 boys, ages roughly 8 and 10 - approaching on big tubes. The first slid down the drop and joined his dad. The young'un followed but got stuck in the whirlpool part of the drop. A surfer dude went to his rescue. A few other people followed the same route in tubes of all sizes. All this got us thinking and it didn't take us long to find where people rented tubes: Tahoe Whitewater Tours.

The next day we were back with swim suits and water sandals. We parked the car in front of the tube rental office and rented 3 tubes for $6 an hour. I was planning to swim alongside the tubes so I had my swimming goggles on and a swimsuit. However after our first trip in, I found the right arm of the river to be so shallow that I dressed in capris and tee-shirt to avoid getting scraped on slippery rocks. Aha, that explained why I had seen so many people swim fully-dressed the day before! I thought they were poorly prepared for a river swim when in fact they were.

Imagine this on your head

Filming with the GoPro
To get a unique angle the water experience, I filmed the first water trip with my Hero HD Helmet GoPro camera. This amazing high performance waterproof camera comes mounted on a head band and you can film any water or action sport without using your hands which is pretty neat. It shoots at a 170 angle which gives a nifty National Geographic magazine feel and the sound is true to life. Just tighten the headband around your head and get swimming! I know that I'll be using it for my ski adventures too as I've seen great footage of winter sports with this camera.

 Hint: move curser to 2 minutes to avoid the lengthy preambles of "should I or should I not get wet". The YouTube movie I made is quite long because once I was in, I was more concerned about the safety of my girls than the graphic diversity of my movie. Plus this GoPro camera doesn't have any viewing screen and I wasn't sure what I was filming - or whether I was filming. When the GoPro shut off on second take because the batteries went low, I didn't realize it until I downloaded the files on my computer and saw they weren't there. That was very frustrating but a 10-minute Google search showed it was a battery problem - not the fact I hadn't pushed the right button. I charged the battery on a USB drive and was able to use the camera a few days later without problem in a lake. Aside from that, I was amazed by the quality of the image and I hope you'll enjoy the movie.

Itinerary
From the tube rental place, you reach the river just upstream from Wingfield Island. The river divides into two arms. Right/south of the island is where the water is shallow, tame and safe for kids of all ages. Drop pools are smaller but still provide good fun. Left/north of the island is rougher to rough with much more depth, strong currents and higher drop pools. You won't be able to stand everywhere and you'll need to be a good enough swimmer to reach the shore in case of emergency. If your child is uncomfortable with water, avoid that part.

We explored both sides but after my 6-year old had a scary experience on the north side that ended up with a scraped knee, we came back to the south side and enjoyed it a lot more.

River booboo. Photo by Frog Mom

Safety
Kids will need more than swimsuits and tubes to go tubing. Any water sport has its own risks as I learned when my 6-year old's tube flipped over sliding down a drop pool and she went under the water. Those were the longest 10 seconds of my life and until I was able to reach her downstream, my heart went in hyperdrive mode. When I got her out of there, her knee was bleeding and she was shaking. Me too. I wish the tube renters had warned us better about the north arm of the river.

So please even if the river looks tame, make your kids wear a lifejacket and a helmet. You can never be too cautious.

Practical Details

• Tube rental: $6 an hour 
• Location: 400 Island Ave., Reno, 
• Phone: 1-775-787-5000
• BYO: swim suits, waterproof shoes, towels and dry change of clothes.
• When: Temps hit the 80s and 70s in September and October, it's not too late this year to feel the rush!
• Ages: I would not recommend this activity for kids under age 5.

Dining
You couldn't think you could tube the day away without filling your stomach, right? First the kids. We took ours to The Hop, an ice cream shop where you can get the frozen thing in every color of the rainbow. They drooled over the windows, picked a flavor each and couldn't finish their scoop. That's when I saw on the counter a tiny sample cup for kids. Why didn't the waitress give me that when I asked for kid size? Lesson: adult scoops are meant for adults.

In the evening, we had a wonderful dinner at Old Granite Street Eatery, a Reno restaurant where veggies mean more than mashed potatoes and good micro-brew beers exist. Following the Yelp reviews, we shared the Devils on Horseback as appetizers but I was tempted by the farm fresh deviled eggs too. All the menu looked right out of San Francisco's Ferry Building! What a great surprise in Reno. Rather than the kids' menu, my girls shared the pork tenderloin with sweet corn, bacon and Swiss chard and I had a wood grilled burger. My husband flank-steaked. All were incredible. I should add that parking was ridiculously easy and service very friendly. In a few words: go there to eat in Reno!

One Night in London, Accidentally

What do you do when in London for one night only? One night sounds ridiculous but we were stranded at Heathrow because of our horrible, epic and unbelievably long journey from San Francisco to Paris. Once checked in at a London Heathrow airport hotel, we needed some fresh air. Since all we had with us was our cabin luggage (books, toys, computer), some light shopping seemed de rigueur. 

An hour later, we were in a cab in front of Harrods. At 4pm on a chilly December Saturday afternoon, Harrods is not for agoraphobics. The place was nuts! Shoppers left and right, families looking for the Christmas shop, visitors headed to Lady Di and Dodi's memorial shrine at the bottom of the Egyptian escalators with red roses, ceilings loaded with themed holidays decorations. It was a total sensory experience. 

Amidst that hustle, we made our way to the the upper levels. All we wanted was tea, scones and underwear. Tea and scones with clotted cream, we found at the Terrace Bar - note: in my opinion, Lovejoy's Tearoom in San Francisco puts up a better tea & scones- and the rest we found easily. Easily yes, but as a total Harrods rookie, I was floored by how expensive things were. Say, the children's clothing department. It's either designer brands (mostly French and Italian) or formal wear - as in, upscale school uniforms or formal attire for functions. There is strictly no middle ground, as at Parisian big department stores. We settled quickly and headed for the London Eye. 

If we only had one night in London, we wanted to show the city to our girls. Where else than the biggest local tourist trap, from a bird's eye view? Rising 135 meters (442 feet)  above the ground, the London Eye is the world's largest cantilever observation wheel. A sort of monste-size fair wheel. Each oval-shaped glass-walled capsule takes 30 minutes to revolve completely around the axis, taking two dozen visitors on an aerial trip above the Thames. 

For people afraid of heights - like me - the woodwork on the central bench is nothing world-class but you can't see completely through it and that's more than you can say of the 360 degree scene around you.

For others, the city at night was an incredible sight to behold. Pointing to the Tower Bridge, St Paul's cathedral or Big Ben over the Palace of Westminster, to the OXO Tower and the Millenium Bridge, my husband was ecstatic and loud. On a sugar high, my girls were playing monkey bars on the side railings. Finally, Peter Pan's flight over London came to an end. Again, I needed fresh air.

After the "flight" (that's how they call it), we decided to walk down the South Bank to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, so we'd be able to see a few London landmarks before hitting the Heathrow airport hotels. Walking along the Thames is a real pleasure as you can follow the Thames Path, a pedestrian path that's not only clearly signed but literally crosses the city from West and East - and conversely - with large paved pathways. The river-side cityscape is an eclectic mix of delightfully traditional Ye Olde English Pubs and loud modern installations, this one with multi-colored neon lights. It's absolutely fascinating. 

As we passed the Christmas market at the foot of the London Eye, we admired the bright golden globes of the carousel spinning next to the pretty wooden huts as the crisp air filled with sausage smells mixed with vapors from German mulled wine. Here and there, hard frozen puddles shone like steel mirrors. The night was cold but not windy. 

We kept going. One of the tunnels was walled side-to-side with tiled black and white renderings of the old London, its bridges and 19th century city life. Soon we reached the outskirts of the Tate Modern and the Millenium Bridge. 

Late at night the doors were closed but just being there and admiring the building was something. Between the Thames and the former power station, eerie rows of birch trees lit with white spots in the ground framed the green lawn on the plaza.  It felt fitting for the place. 

The landscape architecture of the Tate Modern waterfront was a perfect link between the heavily industrial past of the site and a realistic reminder of the lack of green spaces in that area. It was a place to play tag, a place to reflect, a place where trees act like sculptures out of their element. 

Had we known then that we were to spend another 24 hours in London due to snow storms on the continent, we would have come back the next day to explore the current exhibits. Instead, we meandered  between the trees, stared at the red neon scriptures in one of the display windows, absorbed the size of the building and left. All of a sudden I felt starved for museums.

Soon we would need to leave to feed the troops and I absolutely wanted to get to Shakespeare's Globe Theater. I was dead set on that. I wintered in London once in my former life as a tax attorney and my favorite haunts were in the East End, around St Katherine's Dock, Hackney's markets and along the Bankside. For some reason, Shakespeare's theater epitomized the old and the new. 

This thatched building is a mid 1990s reconstruction of the 1599 Elizabethan playhouse where Shakespeare's plays were performed and where he acted himself. 

Interestingly enough, the current Globe was founded by Sam Wanamaker, an American actor and director who was disappointed not to find a lasting memorial to Shakespeare and his theater in London. Nowadays, the theatre is a performance venue as much as a giant classroom on Shakespeare and his legacy. 

Here was the theater finally. We decided to make it back to the hotel. Wandering through back alleyways and streets, we were on the lookout for a taxi but we were obviously away from major arteries. The girls started complaining. They were cold and tired.

Only the thought of a "funny taxi" with opposing stools and seats comforted them. They were eager to get on the stools and look at the city lights. Four hours in London. It had been short but nice. Now I wanted to come back for a proper visit.