Don't forget The hunting and fishing. Great for Mule deer and Sheep. The fishing is great walleye in Rye patch,Giant cats at the cooling ponds, Wiper in lahontan, Cut throat in pyamid, rain bows in topaz, Rainbows, and samllies everywhere.
We moved from Michigan to Fernley, NV...about 30 miles east of Reno... and it was great until my wife passed away two years ago so now I'm kind of lost but Reno is a great place to get or do anything you want...especially if it involves mountains or desert. Where I live I just go across the highway and shoot my guns or hunt coyotes or just be plain free.
I think that people who love Reno, really love Reno. But it really depends on what you're into. I like living in the city, and Reno can't compare to that. It has a lot of great outdoors stuff, but if you want to see a good play, eat well, or attend anything creative, you're mostly out of luck.
Let me give you an example: There are three Indian restaurants in Reno. I work with about seven Indian programmers; one of them was talking to a Caucasian programmer who had invited him out to lunch -- and the Indian guy said, "just not Indian food; I can cook better than any of the places here."
The implication was that we wasn't a particularly good cook. The restaurants are worse. Good Thai is hard to fine; there's one African place that is just OK; not much in the way of good chinese; and I don't know of one really good deli. If you want a steakhouse, you're in luck. There are lot's of steakhouses in Reno/Sparks.
Now, if you want watersports, skiing, 4-wheeling, hiking, biking, gambling, or a foreclosed house, you're in luck. Actually, the great 4-wheeling is one of the best things about Reno
We moved from Michigan to Fernley, NV...about 30 miles east of Reno... and it was great until my wife passed away two years ago so now I'm kind of lost but Reno is a great place to get or do anything you want...especially if it involves mountains or desert. Where I live I just go across the highway and shoot my guns or hunt coyotes or just be plain free.
Sorry to hear about your wife.
I grew up in Michigan. The great thing about Michigan is the boating. With all the lakes around, both Great and otherwise, you don't have to go very far to find water. Both states have a lot of open areas to roam in. Once you get out of the Detroit Metro Area, it becomes very sparsely populated as a whole. Great place to grow up. We went to summer camps up near Torch lake and had a great time raiding the local cherry orchard during our supposed rest periods. I also got to Learn to water ski and ride horses.
Like Nevada, there's not a lot of culture in the area though. It's actually gotten better, but in the '80s there was nothing.
Okay, so maybe Reno doesn't have great Indian food because there aren't many Indians. Chinese -- what's wrong with PF Changs. They don't have good chinese? Sushi is better in Reno than in NY -- many native New Yorkers have confirmed that. And the cost is less than 1/2. 4 local breweries -- pretty nice for a city of this size.
If you want a real deli -- go to the Manhattan Deli in the Atlantis Casino.
Oh, and by the way 4 off-broadway plays a year, many Nevada opera and the Reno Philharmonic performances and the Nevada Museum of Art who has had Frida Kahlo, Raphael, Lichtenstein, Rembrandt, Maxfield Parrish, Art Nouveau, Wynn collection, Chihuly etc. to 20 years of costuming at Burning Man and hundreds of other national and international artist exhibits is not a vast wasteland of culture.
To answer the original question, since you are from El Paso, I think you'll find Reno to be similar for most of the year, and much colder in the winter.
If you like your fun in the cold (skiing/snowboarding/snowmobiling/etc.) too, then you'll find plenty of fun in Reno, if you look for it.
But if you're a desert rat you'll eventually return to warmer climes. (Like my friend who moved back to Phoenix a couple years ago because he [read his wife] was tired of the cold and snow)