This morning, early, we took the RV in to finally have the brakes worked on.  We shut the kitties into the back of the RV so they wouldn’t get away if the technicians had to leave the door open for any time.  Then Mark and I went to get some breakfast.

Over breakfast we tried to decide what to do with ourselves while our home was in the shop.  We decided to check out the Reno library since we hadn’t been there yet.  The library closest to our park is the central library in the downtown area.  There was no free parking.  We paid for the upper limit of two hours and went in.  It really is a beautiful library.  It has multiple levels that are all open to the main floor, and from the lower level there appears to be an arboretum.  We spent the two hours on our laptops.

When it was time to leave, we weren’t sure what to do next.  Then I remembered Paige Riewe saying they had visited a place called Scheels that we see on our way to and from work every day.  She said it was like a large Cabellas, only more expensive.  Just seeing it from the highway I’ve been curious about the design of the building.  The roof is peaked glass and there appears to be an airplane hanging inside the front of the building.  We decided we’d go there.

Scheels is something to see!  It’s the largest sporting goods store I’ve ever been in.  Inside both the front and back entrance is an archway that serves as a huge aquarium.  The fish inside are life-sized because they have all that room to grow in.  At one point during the day I got to see the fish being fed.  The food was the real stuff, not the little flakes you put in your goldfish bowl.  I could swear I saw carrot and broccoli pieces and bits of seafood floating in the water.

In between the two sets of arches, and the reason the ceiling is peaked, there is a working Ferris Wheel.  They even have a little museum that tells how it came about that George G.W. Ferris Jr. invented the Ferris Wheel for the Chicago World’s Fair in the early 1900s.  His Ferris Wheel had streetcar sized cabins with plush velvet interiors instead of the benches we’re used to, and when full, it could hold 2,000 people!  This was his answer to the Eiffel Tower at the Paris World’s Fair previously.  Only a few years after his success, George Ferris died at the age of 37, but his invention lives on.  Mark and I even took a ride on it at the end of our visit!

There was a mountain with all sorts of “wildlife” on it in the center of the store.  Mark took a picture of the top of the mountain from the highest point of the Ferris Wheel ride.  All of the animals on the mountain were labeled.  There were other animal displays throughout the store.

One thing that fascinated me (while Mark was off looking at guns) was that around the balcony on the second floor they had realistic clothed statues of some of our past presidents.  Imagine the balcony forming a rectangle.  The statues on the long sides just sat or stood…Truman, Washington, Eisenhower, John Adams, etc.  But on the two short ends, the statues moved, gestured and spoke.  On one end was Lincoln giving both the Proclamation of Emancipation and the Gettysburg Address.  His body, hands, head, eyes and mouth all moved.  It was so realistic I felt it would be disrespectful not to stand and listen through the whole speech.  On the other short end was Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence.  School children should be brought there to learn their history!

There was indeed a plane hanging in the front window, but it was a 60% sized replica of the real thing.  It was one of those kinds that has pontoons on the bottom and there was a little plaque that explained that the Scheels all enjoyed flying.  The father flew in WWII and his sons took after him.

The store itself had every kind of sporting equipment and gear you could imagine, including ice fishing shelters, freeze dried food, RV and camping stuff, hunting and fishing, biking, and sports.  I thought of Jamey and Sarah.  There were statues of people doing different things outside of Scheels on our way back to the car and I had Mark take a shot of a bicyclist!

Here are some pictures we took: