Sparks Marina RV Park and Environs

While in Sparks, NV we stayed at the Sparks Marina RV Park.  It's an unusual park.  We can't figure out why it's there.  Sparks is one of those cities that pretty much consists of retail and traffic.  The park is groomed to within an inch of its life.
So, as we see, interior roads are paved.  Sites are concrete, and require some leveling.  Power is good.  Water pressure is good.  Verizon 4G varied from really good to really bad, frequently within a five minute period.  Over all it was usable.  There is a huge laundry, which we did not use.  No data on the restrooms.

This is one of the tightest RV parks we have ever been in.  That's our pickup parked next to our neighbor's sewer run.  We had to balance not running over the sewer hose with being able to open the driver's door.  If you don't like being close to the neighbors, you will not like this park.  Notice the green?  That's astro-turf.   We did like that, nothing to track in to the RV.

It's a nice looking park, but sites are very close together.

This is a man made lake which provides the name "Sparks Marina" to the area.  It's pretty.  There are paved walking paths, play grounds for the kids, stuff like that.

Sparks reminds me of an ant hill.  There is a lot of traffic, and people drive very fast.  However, it was a good stop for buying groceries, going to Trader Joe's and an RV supply store.

Even though Sparks is right off of I80, there's not much in the way of truck plazas.  There is a TA at exit 19.  It can only be reached from one direction of travel, there is a median on McCarran Blvd.  When you exit the freeway, you can make a right into the parking lot.  If you're going to the freeway from Sparks, there is a median, so you can't turn left.  There is a Petro farther east which we went to from the RV park using surface streets. So, if in Sparks, check the maps.

Where Sparks is new and shiny with three left turn lanes into the shopping malls, Reno is tired and sad.  I think prosperity has moved out of downtown Reno into the suburbs.  Reno is engaged in several large construction projects, but it doesn't look good.

Where is everyone?

It was a good stop.  We waited out the terrible weather farther north and went to the car museum.  I would not come back for an over night stay, I'd head up to Bordertown, north of Reno.