tired
Arguably the star of the collection is the 1907 Thomas Flyer, the winner of the 1908 New York to Paris around-the-world automobile race. It took 169 days, with much of the trip being done by driving along railroad tracks because there really weren't roads in lots of the places the cars were trying to travel. This is the actual car that made the trip, restored to approximately its post-race condition.
There are four galleries, starting with the 1890s and ending with modern race cars. This is the car that started Harrah's collection, a 1911 (originally mistakenly identified as a 1907) Maxwell.
Between the galleries are "streets" of different periods. This is the 1930s. Note the Burma-Shave signs.
You're allowed to touch and sit in one of the cars: a Model T on the 1920s street.
travelswithkuma takes a turn in the driver's seat.
Here's the view from behind the wheel.
This is a Stanley Steamer (no relation) Bus, with a convenient watering hose; drop it into any available water source to refill the boiler for the steam-powered vehicle. There are several other steam-powered cars in the collection.
Think electric cars are a new invention? Here's an early 20th-centry all-electric car powered by some 68 batteries. Elsewhere in the museum is an electric car that held the world land speed record for all-electric vehicles at one time.
The current rotating exhibit is about space vehicles, including this mobile laboratory and a replica of a Mars exploration probe. I was fascinated at collection of Alan Bean's paintings.
Gallery 3 includes cars of the 1930s through the 1950s.
And what collection of such cars would be complete without a '57 Chevy?
The final gallery is full of race cars and oddities...
...including Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's "Beatnik Bandit" (you drive it with the joystick visible under the bubble) and a number of other one-off odd vehicles the creator of Rat Fink built.
There are more photos than what I show here; click through to see the rest of them.
We spent a fair bit of the day at the museum. I'd allow at least one hour per gallery if you like reading the displays. Also note that aside from a single vending machine, there is no food and drink available at the museum. By the time we were done, I was pretty tired and my legs hurt. It might have worked a bit better to be there at opening, look at a couple of galleries, walk across the river to downtown Reno for lunch, then come back for the rest of the afternoon.
In our case, after our day at the museum, we drove down to the Atlantis and had a late lunch/early dinner at Cafe Alfresco, where luck was really with me on the keno, and even after using some winnings to buy five more games of keno and tipping the keno runner, I still had $3.50 more than I started. Lisa also had good luck initially with the slots, but it did catch up with us later.
We did not forget to do the actual errand for which we came to Reno, and made our trip to Winco to stock up on groceries before heading home. Our timing was good; we avoided the thunderstorms that have been moving through the area, and they didn't hit us until after we got the groceries in.