I follow in the footsteps. Who made them? The snow is newly fallen. White, but silver white, in that way city lights remake the snow, at once reflecting and reflective.

I slip just for second. My fault. I can never bring myself to be shod correctly for winter, even after all those years in the East. Bean boots? I have them, but I'd rather surrender a cheap but stylish pair of Steve Maddens to the snow.

Midnight approaches. Or near enough. There's a strange exhilaration, walking through the new carpet of white, not yet smirched by cars, like political beliefs not yet shaved by necessity.

I walk on, taking in the lights. I'm reminded of why I love cities, from our little hamlet on the Truckee to the old Gotham of my 20s to the vertiginous propinquity of Shangahi, where my mother and I ate dumplings of surpassing delicacy 100 floors above the seething "economic zone."

And so in that spirit, I offer these quick takes of our beloved Reno just after the snow. As I walked home, for a few mintutes, I felt, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the city "seen for the first time, in all its wild promise."

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Johnathan L. Wright is the food and drink editor of RGJ Media, part of the USA Today Network. Join @RGJTaste on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.