My month in Nevada

My take on Nevada

where I went this month

As you can see, I pretty much skirted the edges of the state and missed the entire middle.  There are only a few roads that service that middle - a few paved roads, I should say.  Most of the roads marked on the AAA map aren't paved.  

The "Home Means Nevada" plate is the current version and the kind that's issued if you get a new license plate today.  But many of the cars I saw were of "The Silver State" variety, and though I've searched the DMV website pretty hard, I can't figure out how people get them or when they were issued.  That "Home Means Nevada" slogan, by the way, is the name of the state song.  "The Silver State" is NV's official nickname.

Nevada's a big state - 500 miles long and more than 300 miles wide - and most of the roadways aren't interstates, or actually anything more than 2-lane roads.  It takes time to get from anywhere to anywhere else.  I did the best I could and think I saw a representative sample, even if I had to miss some specifics.

I think I'd have to summarize Nevada as being a study in contrasts.  

Las Vegas stakes its fortune on being "Sin City," and every town of any size has at least one casino.  I saw slot machines in regular grocery stores like Safeway.  And though NV ranks 5th lowest in church attendance nationwide, I still saw active churches in every town I visited.

Nevada bases much of its economy on entertaining people - gambling and nightclub shows, hiking and camping and wildlife viewing, bicycling and off-roading.  

But there's plenty of traditional work going on here too, especially in ranching and mining.  To avoid the need for irrigating, most farmland is used for ranching - especially beef cattle, though there are also dairy cattle and 70,000 sheep here.  Nevada is the #1 gold producer in the US and #3 in the world.  It ranks #2 for silver, after Alaska.  NV mines most of the US's barite, along with a number of other metals.  It produces a third of the US's share of diatomite (used for filters and kitty litter).

Nevada has some of the hottest and coldest temperatures in the US.  It's the driest state of the 50, but it can get flash flooding, too.  The climate feels very different between Las Vegas and, say, Winnemucca - there can be a 15° to 20° temperature difference between the two, as well as a moisture difference.  And I think that's likely because of the neighbors.  Winnemucca's close to the forests of Oregon while Las Vegas is in the Mojave Desert, with more than 400 miles in between the two towns.

Las Vegas is a majority minority city, where most residents were born outside Nevada, while rural residents tend to be less diverse in each community (though those communities may consist primarily of minorities) and be mostly native-born Nevadans.  But 75% of Nevadans were born elsewhere - the highest percentage in the country.

But the one thing that seems to me to tie the state together is the desert.  I think it's unique among the states for this.  Sure, there's plenty of desert in New Mexico and Arizona and California, and I visited a lot of the desert set-asides in those states.  But each of those states also has forests and other life forms that aren't desert-related.  But in Nevada, the desert is what it is.  Of course there are trees here, but they're mostly the kind that can survive desert conditions.  I suppose you could say the exception is the Lake Tahoe area, which of course is partly in Nevada, but there's so little of it in the state that it's really more the exception that proves the rule.  If you don't like desert, then this is not the place for you to live. 

In case I'm sounding critical, I want to hasten to say that I liked the time I spent here.  I couldn't really be fair and give Nevada the entire month, which it deserved, because of having been so unprepared for California.  But although doing much driving in this state can be boring because of not much more than desert to look at, I enjoyed it nonetheless.  

Though the sandstorm near Tonopah was unnerving and disorienting, it was an experience I won't forget.  Though I thought the Las Vegas Strip was incredibly gaudy and cheap, I also thought it looked like a lot of fun.  My impression is that this is a state where people are doing their best against the odds.

Nevada - Day 30 - Pyramid Lake, to Winnemucca

Silver State RV Park, Winnemucca

Saturday, 30 April 2022

I was walking the dogs right before we left the campground today, and Dext was showing urgent signs of wanting to go meet another dog walking nearby.  That dog's owner said to me, "He must be young, huh?"  And I said, "Forever young."  It was very perceptive of the other owner to recognize the behavior that most dogs grow out of (mostly) as they age.  And Dext has gotten much better just in the last few months.  But I think the dog trainers I talked to in New England have it right: he'll live his life as if he's still with his litter mates.  Well, young at heart may keep him going strong.

Speaking of which, Gracie's still falling down - several times a day, usually.  And I think she's getting deaf, which makes sense if she's got a tumor pushing on her inner ear.  And Dext tried to get her to play one morning and she just turned away from him.  But she'll often trot along looking happy and I don't think she's in any pain.  She's just getting old.  It happens to us all.

today's route

I didn't want to leave Nevada without getting a look at Pyramid Lake, one of the remnants of the ancient Lake Lahontan.  I haven't had a chance before this, so I plotted a detour on the way north.

At one point I noticed a beautiful view of snow-topped mountains in the rear view mirror and I couldn't figure out where they were.  I didn't drive past them, but maybe I was seeing some of the Sierra Nevadas?  What I was driving through was a valley between ranges of hills.  And I passed a group of cowboys - though I think they prefer the term wranglers.  Anyway, they were on horseback herding a large number of cows from one field to another, as wranglers have done for generations.  Nice to see that some things don't change.

I passed a huge herd of horses in a large paddock.  Maybe they were the horses those wranglers used?  Or maybe there was a dude ranch around that I didn't see a sign for?  A whole lot of horses, anyway.

Two miles from the lake I came to the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, and a Scenic Byway began there.  Myself, I didn't see anything scenic about the road except the view of the lake I got.  I stopped at a pull-out area that had informational signs.

Just scrubland, besides the lake.

The caption on the historical marker, with some
information most European-Americans don't know.

Pyramid Lake

I've enlarged parts of this sign below.

That Cultural Center is just down the road in Nixon,
and I'd like to visit when I have more time.

Pelicans in northern NV?  I guess they like the sun.

Ice Age calcium.  Incredible.

We stopped a a small rest area because the dogs needed a walk.  Nobody else was around, I thought.  But after we'd walked by one of the 2 small restrooms, I looked back and saw a man standing on a rock outside it looking at the lake.  And after we'd walked a little further, a 2nd man came out of the 2nd restroom.  And after a little bit further, a pickup truck appeared from nowhere and turned onto the main road and left, presumably with the 2 men.  It's impossible that I could have missed seeing a regular-sized black pickup truck, and I couldn't figure out where on earth these guys had parked it.  Or why they'd left the truck to walk to the restrooms to walk back and immediately leave in the truck.  I have a lot of spare brain room, driving through desert country with not a lot to look at.

As we too drove down the road, I saw what looked exactly like 4 white pelicans flying past us.  But at that point I hadn't read that sign above, so I didn't know they were breeding here.  I wondered if maybe there were storks in this area.  But pelicans they surely were.

I passed through Nixon, where there was no highway sign but I passed the Pyramid Lake Paiute museum and visitor center, and passed several solar fields.  At Wadsworth, elev. 4,076' and 2020 population of 991, I saw another solar array but was struck by not seeing any people anywhere in town.  It was almost out of a Twilight Zone episode.  I finally saw a total of 6 cars moving, presumably with drivers, but I didn't see a soul anywhere.  It was about 11:00 Saturday morning.  Seemed weird.  We crossed the Truckee River and then left the reservation.

I joined I-80 near Fernley, where I passed a large Sherwin-Williams Paint plant.  

Farther along the road I came to 2 US Silica mining operations, spaced widely apart.  They call themselves "a global industrial minerals and logistics leader."

I saw a selection of billboards: one announcing the annual Run-A-Mucca Festival in Winnemucca at the end of May (for motorcycles and music, they say); another warning "Illegal Drugs . . . You May Not Be Buying What You Think . . . One Pill Can Kill" (a reminder that cocaine, e.g., can be laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl); and one I saw in another state a few years ago: "What To Expect When You're Expecting" except the drawing is of an excited teenage girl getting car keys from her dad.

I passed a smallish fieldstone house with an additional outside framework made of the bones of a large mammal - maybe elk (they're around this area).  This framework was attached to both the first and 2nd stories of this house and looked very strange.  Very close to this house was a 2nd house, even smaller than the first, also made of fieldstone, and this house had maybe 6 sides.  Perched on the flat roof was a much smaller 2nd story made of wood.  I'd guess an eccentric family lived in these 2 houses.

Once again I saw snow-topped mountains in my rearview mirror, but I know I didn't pass mountains with snow so where did they come from?  I'm starting to think northern Nevada is a strange area of the country.

For the last hour of the drive, we finally saw a little sunshine and blue sky.  It had been overcast and gray all morning, which is fine but gets a little old when the countryside doesn't have much variation in it.  Mostly a continuous view of broad valleys of desert plants and sand or sandy dirt surrounded by hills of various heights.  

There was no highway sign to say so, but I knew we were in Winnemucca anyway.  It had a 2020 population of 7,754 and sits at 4,295'.  It has a nice little downtown.  The campground was a little strange but had 2 small dog parks, so we managed okay.

Nevada - Days 27 - 29 - in the campground

Reno KOA at Boomtown, Verdi 

Wednesday, 27 through Friday, 29 April 2022

I had hoped to have 5 days in the campground at the end of the month, so I'd have one day to visit Pyramid Lake and 4 days to catch up my blog, make plans for my first few days in Oregon, and do the chores around the RV I always try to do at the end of the month.  But the snow and ice in Ely cut that time short, and here I have only 3 days.  I was very busy.

I got 6 posts done, but I needed to do 2 more to be caught up and would need 2 more after those to finish the month.  Still, I was in better shape than when I left California.  I got held up by slow wifi at times, but I think I'm figuring out how to get around it.

I attached the new drawer latch, which turned out to be a much bigger production than I'd expected, but I got it done.

I made reservations for my first 3 days in Oregon, planned the driving routes, and checked the weather forecasts from now until then.  

I have a cousin and several friends who I thought were living in Oregon, and I tried to make contact with them, remembering what a mess I'd made of that in California.

Steller's Jay

I'd forgotten that when I stayed at this campground earlier this month I'd seen Steller's Jays, and here they were again.  I looked them up in the bird book and learned they aren't supposed to be in Nevada at all - except apparently they frequent the Sierra Nevada, which Verdi (where the campground is) is in the foothills of.  So I guess they do belong here.  I've always liked them, though they tend to be bullies at bird feeders.  But they're smart and really pretty.

House Finch

I saw several of these little guys feeding under a pine tree.  They're native to desert habitat but have made themselves adaptable to just about anything that comes along, so they've been spreading throughout the continent.  Pretty little things.

I cleaned the windows and the floors and the bathroom, changed the sheets, did laundry - all those chores that have to be done but aren't very rewarding after the first couple of hours because things just get dirty again.

You may not remember, though I do clearly, that when I stayed here at the beginning of the month, I couldn't find a campsite at all level and my frig stopped working.  Well, I'd carefully picked my site this time, and I think it's one of the most level this park-on-a-hill has to offer.  But once again my frig stopped working.  

I remembered that last time I'd switched the energy source for the frig from electric to propane, and that may not have made a difference but the frig did start working after that.  So this time I switched to propane as soon as I realized its interior temp was into the 50s.  And sure enough, it started working again.  

I hate to admit it but buying this new frig was a very expensive mistake.  My original one was working fine and I probably thought it'd stopped working just because it didn't cool down as quickly as a regular frig in a regular kitchen.  This one is temperamental, beeps at me for no reason I can tell, stops working for no reason I can tell . . . anyway, I think I'll just leave it on propane power for a few days and see how things go.

Although this is a large campground, there aren't as many places for the dogs to walk as we'd like and the "dog park" is just a fairly small fenced piece of hard sand/gravel with no shade.  No dogs visit there because their owners look at that and give it a miss, so my dogs don't even have anything new to sniff.  I took them there a few times anyway as a place they can be off their leashes, but they were always ready to leave after a few minutes. 

But aside from the problems for my dogs and with my frig, this turned out to be a comfortable productive period, and I wished for one extra day when I could have gotten completely caught up.  But it was a better way to end the month than I'd begun it.

Nevada - Day 26 - the road to Reno

Reno KOA at Boomtown, Verdi

Tuesday, 26 April 2022

On our 2nd walk this morning (the first was in pitch dark because Austin isn't using street lights (maybe to conserve money due to dwindling population), we found this reminder of the town's historic past.

Gridley Store
(see plaques enlarged below)

And just for my memory, and in case you're curious, I took a photo of the Austin Baptist Church, our hosts.

Austin Baptist Church

This is the sign on the side of the church building.
I'm really curious what they had in mind when they posted this.

today's route

US-50, the highway that's the main street in Austin and the road we took on our way to Reno, is called The Loneliest Road in America.  I was curious where it got that name and looked it up.  US-50 runs from Sacramento to Ocean City in Maryland, and crosses a lot of land that "civilization" hasn't bothered yet.  It's apparently these remote regions that gave rise to the road's name.

I thought maybe it was the amount of traffic on the road, and I counted vehicles as I drove.  Between Austin and almost to Fallon, in more than 100 miles, I counted 17 oncoming and 4 going my way.  There were plenty of times when I could see for miles - once I clocked it: 9.5 miles ahead of me and at least a couple of miles behind me.  And there were no vehicles in sight in that distance.  Still, there were enough that I didn't worry about not having help if I broke down.

The road again crossed the "Pony Express Trail 1860 - 1861."

The road took me across more mountain summits: Mt. Airy Summit, elev. 6,679'; New Pass Summit, elev. 6,348'; Drumm Summit, elev. 4,600'; Sand Springs Pass, elev. 4,644'.  That's a drop of 2,000'.  In case you forgot, Austin sits at 6,785'.  A real change.  (And all these elevation changes have caused none of the extreme dizziness I experienced when I was in New Mexico, once again confirming that it wasn't caused by altitude sickness.)

I passed signs saying I could turn left to go to "Earthquake Faults" and "Fairview Peak" and "Earthquake Peaks."  As far as I could glean from information I found online, in 1954 Nevada had a series of severe earthquakes that resulted in a noticeable change in topography (mountains rose and streambeds changed, e.g.) as well as a lot of damage to property (not much to people, fortunately), even as far away as Sacramento.  

It turns out that Nevada sits on quite a few fault lines and, as a result, is the 3rd most seismically active state in the US (behind CA and Alaska).  I'm guessing that fact helps explain why Nevada has more mountain ranges than any other state.  The National Park Service says a fault lies at the base of almost every mountain range here.  I had no idea.

I passed a sign saying turn right to the US Navy Centroid Facility.  Never having heard the word "centroid," I had trouble finding anything online to explain it.  The closest I found was this very strange article that isn't complimentary of the Navy, but may still be accurate, for all I know.   http://www.newsnet1.com/electricnevada.com/topgun2

After passing the left turn for the "B17 Naval Range," I came to Sand Springs Pass, elev. 4,644', followed by what appeared to be a seriously dried up lake - a very large area that seemed to go on for miles.  There were no signs to tell me what it was, I can't figure it out from the AAA map, and I can't find anything online.  So maybe it actually is a big dried up lake.

By this time we were all past ready for a break, and when I noticed what looked like a rest area on the right, I turned in quickly.  Not exactly a rest area, but instead Grimes Point Archaeological Area, that protects petroglyphs from as far back as 2,500 years ago.

historical marker - message
enlarged below right

There were some exhibits explaining what's here and why it matters.

see details below

some of the petroglyphs

see illustration below

The captions read:
- On this spot 10,000 years ago, you would have been standing under water.
- By about 5,000 years ago, Lake Lahontan had receded significantly, leaving
Grimes Point as a peninsula and exposing what is now known as Hidden Cave.
- By about 1,000 years ago, little was left of the once great Lake Lahontan.  You can see
the remnants of this ancient lake today at Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake.

And this is where they think Lake Lahontan
extended during the Ice Age.

Scientists believe this area, Grimes Point, emerged from Lake Lahontan first as a peninsula.  The display at left says it was marshland then.  Take a look at the land behind the historical marker above and see the desert that marsh has become.

Back on the road, we came once more to Fallon, "Oasis of Nevada," remember?  We passed a factory labeled Harvest Hero, which I learned online is a company that makes soil additives and things for gardeners to use to grow vegetables.

Fallon was followed by the towns of Hazen and Fernley - and all of them had casinos.  In this state, you're only as far from a chance to gamble as the nearest patch of civilization.

I saw a Nevada license plate that said: SEPT 12.  Do you suppose it's a reference to the day after 9/11?  Or maybe a reminder of a wedding anniversary (that's one way not to forget)? 

I had some errands to run in Reno and passed a Burger King that said they were hiring staff.  The sign said they were offering a free meal for those completing a job application.

One of my stops was at Camping World.  Two or three days ago the latch on one of my drawers broke; I usually keep extras because they break often (everybody told me this, and it's true) but I didn't have any in the RV.  This time I was luckier than in previous latch breaks, because the drawer was the big one I use to store tools and odds & ends - your basic kitchen junk drawer but also including all my tools.  The heavy contents keep it from sliding around as freely as the drawer with silverware, for instance, but it still slides.  And it's right by the dog beds between the 2 front seats.  Yesterday I had to make a sharp turn and it slid out right in front of Gracie's nose and scared her, poor thing.

So Camping World, which is supposed to have everything, didn't have any version of these drawer latches, which are a standard item I've found all over.  They suggested I try the business just down the street.  That's who had these latches, and I bought 2 extra to keep on hand.

I also picked up refills for my blood pressure meds and dropped off the recycling I'd accumulated since I left Las Vegas (how can I have come up with so much in just a few days?).  Stocked up on groceries and drove down the highway a few more miles to the KOA I stayed at when I first came to Nevada.

Nevada - Day 25 - to Elko and Austin

Austin Baptist Church and RV Park, Austin

Monday, 25 April 2022

today's route

I joined I-80 in West Wendover and took it about 2/3 of today's distance.  Not far from West Wendover, I saw 2 mining operations (I guess - no signs but that's what they looked like).  The first looked like they were taking apart a mountain.  The second, about 20 miles down the road, was exposing red rock:

In between the two operations, I went over Silverzone Pass, 5,940', and saw what I think was Pilot Peak on the right.  Its height is 5,276', which is lower than the pass, but it's an actual mountain standing by itself.

A pickup truck had a Nevada license plate that read: LILBKRU.  I'm assuming that's Little Buckaroo?  Cute.

The road took me across a broad plain of desert land with mountain ranges all around.

A sign with a flashing light warned me of a major deer crossing for the next 11 miles.  I really did keep an eye out, and figured in this countryside it shouldn't be all that hard to spot a deer.  But they just didn't show up.

Next came Pequop Summit, elev. 6,967', followed by the town of Wells.  Somewhere after that summit I started seeing a large, long, broad-shouldered mountain range that had heavy snow about 1/3 of the way down its sides.  It seemed to begin its north/south run at Wells, so I continued to see it as I drove on to Elko.  I saw that the range was longer than I'd thought, and on its west side the snow was even thicker and extended 2/3 of the way down its sides.  (That's the rain shadow effect, I guess.)  The map told me I was seeing the East Humboldt Range, which includes Hole In The Mountain Peak, at 11,286'.

On the other side of the highway, I saw the trailer part of a tractor-trailer that was completely burned with the highway side gone entirely and the contents also incinerated.  That must have been a scary mess for the semi driver.

I guessed that I came into Elko, though there was no highway sign, but it was where I thought it should be.  There were 20,564 residents here in 2020, so it's much the biggest place in this section of the state.  We stopped at a park to take a walk, and I saw a sign saying it was "Homeland of the National Basque Festival" on the July 4th weekend.  I'd heard that many Basque had settled in Nevada, and I think it's great that they're keeping traditions alive.

In the park I saw lots of birds' eggs smashed at the bases of trees.  I saw another area that was covered with colored glass - like Christmas balls - that had been crushed and scattered.  I wondered if they'd had a major storm here - maybe that ugly thing that attacked me via the sandstorm near Tonopah.  And it was high winds that had knocked the birds' eggs out of the trees.  And maybe they'd been decorating the park for Easter and that's where the colored glass came from.  Just a guess.

They have artists in town.

These were on a small building in the park.

I ran into traffic problems trying to leave the gas station across the street, went around a few blocks, and found the Northeastern Nevada Museum.

This is the side of the museum.

Looks like it might be worth a visit when I have more time.

Leaving town I passed the California Trail Interpretive Center.  A nice-looking building but I saw no cars at all, even for staff.  Maybe it's closed on Mondays in the off-season.

Down the road I came to a tunnel I hadn't expected.  It wasn't a bad tunnel - flat, well-lighted, with decent lane sizes, and only a third of a mile long - but there was something strange about it because the pressure inside was so intense it hurt my ears.  I've never had that happen before in any tunnel, let alone a flat one that wasn't under water.

Near the tunnel was the small town of Carlin, pop. 2,277 in 2020, where I saw a sign: "Where The Trains Stop and The Gold Rush Begins."

Past there I-80 started to be a collection of steep hills up and steep grades down.  Plus a strong crosswind kept pushing me onto the bumps at the right edge of the lane and driving me crazy.  Bzzz.  Bzzz.  Over and over.

There was no sign telling me I was in Battle Mountain, a county seat though it's unincorporated.  One website told me it was a ghost town, but 3,705 residents seem too many for a ghost town.  It sits at 4,514'.  It was there that I turned south on NV-305, that AAA said is a scenic route, to head to Austin.

I wondered, during the 87-mile drive south, why AAA would say this was a scenic area.  I'll give you 2 samples of what I saw and you can decide.

I lightened this photo so you could see some detail
(what there is of it), but the sky was actually as
darkly overcast as in the other photo.

I think I took this trying to show that area of sand
stuck out in the middle of all those scrubby bushes.

I saw only 2 things of real note (relatively speaking) on this drive.  One was an area of purple fields, though at first I thought it was a trick of the light that made me think that brown fields were purple.  Then we stopped at the Valley of the Moon Rest Area (I have no idea why it's called that, unless they were suggesting it was as bleak as the moon's surface, which it only kind of was), where I could see the purple flowers close up.

This purple field was directly across the highway:

This may seem like I was hard up for something scenic, and I was.  

The other notable thing wasn't exactly scenic, though I saw them.

I passed at least 4 huge bird's nests on utility poles alongside the road.  At first I thought they were on platforms that had been built to encourage the birds to nest, but when I looked as closely as I could while driving down the road (no place to stop and no shoulder at all), I couldn't see a platform, only a nest.

I saw birds actually sitting on two nests, another just getting off a nest and flying away, and a fourth nest that didn't seem to have anybody on it.  At first I thought they were Peregrine Falcons, because they seemed to be about the right size and coloring - though I'll agree the overcast day and my driving speed weren't the best bird-watching conditions.  But the bird book says Peregrines only migrate through Nevada, not nest here - especially not in the northcentral part of the state.

My other guesses for size and coloring that might actually nest here would be Ferruginous Hawk and Northern Harrier.  I'm sure someone from Nevada's Fish and Game office could tell me what they were.  But whatever the species, it was really neat to see them nesting there.  And looking for their nests gave me something to do on an otherwise pretty boring piece of road.

I began to see the end of a mountain range ahead, and these too were covered in heavy snow.  Little did I know that Austin, where I was headed, was actually built on the side of part of that range.  The map told me it was the Toiyabe Mountains, and they seem to run for quite a distance.  One mountain in that range, labeled Arc Dome, is 11,778' high.

The road crossed the "Pony Express Trail 1860 - 1861," according to a sign.

And we came into Austin, elev. 6,575'.  The 2020 census said there were 113 residents, which was nearly half the 2010 population of 192.  There just didn't seem to be much going on there, though there was a nice little (tiny) old downtown area, and there were several churches.

The nice lady I talked to on the phone, who was in charge of the RV park the local Baptist church operated, told me to turn on either East St. or 3rd St., depending on which Google had labeled it.  Now I've had plenty of experience with Google's directions and know for a fact that they sometimes call a street by a name that absolutely nobody else calls it and that doesn't appear on any signs (but only in Google's directions).  So Google told me to turn on East St., but when I came to 3rd St. at about the place Google said I'd find East St., I turned on 3rd.  As it happened, Google was right about the East St. part and wrong about the mileage I'd need to get there.

3rd St. went almost straight uphill, where I found nothing but a few houses and a woman walking 2 bouncy dogs and a government vehicle that wanted to turn on 3rd St. but were waiting for me to finish the climb.  (If you've ever driven in San Francisco, it was like that - straight up, then level off for a cross street, then continue with straight up.)  Well, I couldn't ask for directions of the woman with the dogs because I figured between Dexter and her curious dogs we'd have an incident.  So I tried to flag down the govt. truck (they thought I was just waving cheerfully until I looked desperate - because I was waiting at a steep angle trying to figure out where to go), and asked for directions.  They said turn right and go until I run into the RV park.  And they were right.  That was where East St. was.

I'd tried to get an idea of this place from Google maps, but either they'd mislabeled it or I'd misunderstood what I was looking at, but I'd been completely wrong about this RV park.  Where I ran into it was considered the "lower level" which meant it was half a block down the hill from the "upper level" which was where the Baptist church also was.  The campsites on the "lower level" were all backed right up to the edge of a steep hill that dropped precipitously down almost 2 blocks of distance to the main road below.  

I decided I'd stayed in worse places, there were plug-ins (50 amp only, but I had an adapter to my 30 amp RV) and this was an established business run by the Baptists so how bad could it be for one night.  As I was getting us situated, I noticed quite a few deer tracks right through my little campsite and fervently hoped they wouldn't come back to check us out during the night.

Very strange little place.  The $25 they charged was, as the Baptists pointed out, on the honor system, to be left in little envelopes in their drop box.  I gave them $30, figuring maybe a little extra karma might help us out overnight.

Nevada - Day 24 - to West Wendover

West Wendover KOA, West Wendover

Sunday, 24 April 2022

today's route

The snow had almost entirely melted in the campground during yesterday, with no ice that I could see despite the low temperatures, so I wasn't too worried about driving today.  And in fact it turned out fine.

Driving through Ely I saw multiple billboards that suggested people not use pot.  Lots of different approaches, not just some guilt trip focus.  But I wondered why so many in this particular place?

On the road north we passed snow-topped mountains on both sides of the road, and I don't know if it's because they're usually like that or because of the snowstorm.

The town of McGill, elev. 6,193', had a 2020 population of 905.  It has a Greek Orthodox Church that had cars out front (this being a Sunday).  I passed the McGill Warm Springs Pool, which is apparently a large natural warm springs lake that the town has converted into its aquatic center.

I passed a turn for Cherry Creek, which is a ghost town, and its museum, presumably documenting its past.

The highway I took, ALT US-93 (regular US-93 heads northwest, while I wanted to go northeast), is designated part of the Pony Express Trail as well as the Lincoln Highway, which I've met before in various states.  That was the first coast-to-coast road built for automobiles.

I came to White Horse Pass, elev. 6,025', which was the pass I didn't want to go through on Friday on account of the snow.   And seeing it now, I'm glad I waited.

I'd figured I was in open range country because every now and then there were cattle guards across the road.  Then I saw a warning sign for a horse:

but the sign I saw had been altered to include a stick-figure person standing on the horse's back.  Like I said - real jokers around here.

I came over a high hill and had a view of a broad flat plain with many small lakes and ponds.  The largest seemed to be very blue, an unusual shade of blue.  And sure enough, after a while I passed a sign saying I could turn and go to Blue Lake.  All those little lakes, including Blue Lake, are fed by hot springs.  The lake is accessible to the public but it's on US Air Force property - the Utah Test and Training Range - so they limit the access.

West Wendover, elev. 4,315', was just a few more miles down the road, and I stopped at the Nevada Welcome Center there.  Not particularly welcoming, though, because a sign said I couldn't park longer than 20 minutes.  But I ignored it because only one other vehicle was in that parking lot with me, and it seemed to have car trouble.

The dogs and I walked around and found an unusual memorial to something I hadn't heard about.

This is the memorial (see below).

This is the medallion on the memorial.

And this is the plaque on the memorial.

None of this was enlightening to me, having never heard of the 509th Composite Group.  Fortunately, there was an explanation on the back of the monument.

Wendover, UT, is directly across the state line from West Wendover, NV.

In fact, as far as I can tell, the town of West Wendover, 2020 population of 4,512, was created especially to cash in on the avoidance-of-sin attitudes in Utah.  This small town has several casinos and a very large liquor store.  It's the only place in Nevada that's on Mountain Time, presumably to keep pace with Utah.

We got into town at 11:15 (12:15 their time), which was too early to check into the campground, so we drove around a bit.  I saw Wendover Will, a local landmark.

He stands on the west end of town, and you can see there's nothing much beyond him.

Tonight's campground was a little strange, being almost without staff except for a couple of hours a day.  Also being almost without campers, for some reason.  There was nothing really wrong with the campground - it was entirely gravel, which Gracie doesn't like (I think it hurts her feet), but had 2 small dog parks and, thanks to few people, lots of room for us to walk around.  And the wifi was actually adequate, for a change.  Too bad we're only staying one night.

Nevada - Days 22 - 23 - in the Ely campground

Ely KOA, Ely

Friday, 22 and Saturday, 23 April 2022

I'd checked the weather forecast after we got here Thursday and found a severe weather warning until Friday at noon.  It said to expect 3" - 5" of snow in the passes with up to 8" of snow in high elevations, and wind gusts to 40 - 50 mph.  So I knew I might have some difficult traveling on Friday.

When we went for our first walk on Friday morning, there was a lot of wind and a little sleet but nothing really to worry about.  Then suddenly at about 5:45, it started snowing heavily.  At 8:50 I noticed the snow was coming in sideways, thanks to the wind.  We ended up at 10:15 with several inches of the stuff on every surface.

I checked the website showing road conditions (every state seems to operate some version of this - my cousin Mary told me about it when I was in Colorado).  That website said, basically, go wherever you want as long as you don't go on ALT US-93, which was the road I'd intended to go on for Friday's drive.  That road requires going through a pass that's at 6,010' and, presumably, had plenty of inches of snow in it.  I don't mind snow so much, but I was seriously worried about possible ice, which does scare me.

I took a close look at the map and learned that there was no route I could take in any direction that didn't send me over at least one pass higher than 6,000'.  If I believed the NV DOT and the US Weather Service, I was stuck.

So I called this campground and the 3 others farther along the road to change my reservations by a couple of days.  I figured I'd better not plan to leave on Saturday because Friday night's low was forecast as 22°, which meant ice on the roads for sure, to me.

I may have been overcautious, considering many of the RVers driving many different types of camping equipment left on Friday, with many new ones coming in Friday night, and ditto on Saturday.

But we'd had more snow at 11:30 on Friday morning, and then sudden rain/sleet just after 5:00 PM, followed by more snow that was sticking.

I didn't hear of any ghastly highway accidents so apparently everyone made it to their destinations safely, but I still think I made the right call for me and my equipment and my nerves.

The real problem was that I'd run out of canned cat food that I give straight to Lily at supper and stir into the dogs' dry food then.  I was pretty sure giving everybody straight dry food (which is what they get for breakfast and lunch) wasn't really an option, so I opened a can of tuna I had and turned it into meals for both Friday and Saturday.  That was a hit.

While I was stuck here, I tried hard to work on blog posts, but once again the campground's internet system wasn't working well and my hotspot was slow and spotty.  I only managed to get 2 done.

Both Friday and Saturday nights I got nearly 8 hours of sleep, and I can't remember how long it's been since I got that much.  It was great and way overdue.

The campground handout told me that Ely was originally established as a stagecoach stop on the Pony Express and Central Overland Route.  It wasn't able to cash in on the mining frenzy until 1906 when copper was discovered in the area.  If it's really got more than 3,000 residents now, then it's doing better than most rural Nevada towns.

Nevada - Day 21 - aliens, mountains, hot springs, to Ely

Ely KOA, Ely

Thursday, 21 April 2022

The tiny mom-and-pop campground at Alamo had the best wifi signal I've found in a long time.  I was almost sorry to leave, except for the cottonwood cotton and for the absolutely no place to walk the dogs.  So off we went.

today's route

A highway sign told me that litter pick-up in that area was sponsored by Eagle Mothers Clan of the River People.  I've tried finding information about those folks and can't.  There's a website, written by someone in Pennsylvania (?) but clearly referring to the Mojave Natives.  The website is for the Mojave Paiute Eagle Clan, saying it's a non-profit intended to advance the welfare of Native Americans.  I couldn't find anything about the River People, or the Eagle Mothers Clan.

About 30 miles or so north of Alamo, we came to the junction with Nevada highway 375, aka the Extraterrestrial Highway (official designation by the State of Nevada).  It runs for nearly 100 miles through almost nothing but desert, but it skirts the section of Nellis Air Force Base known as Area 51.  

The closest town is Rachel, founded in 1978, population in 2020 of 48 residents.  It has almost no services at all and seems to be still in existence because of the UFO enthusiasts who visit the area.  This place must have been a madhouse during that Storm Area 51 idiocy in 2019.  In fact, I found an online discussion by the BBC of all folks that addressed just that.   https://www.bbc.com/storm-area-51

I don't myself believe in alien spaceships, especially not as they're depicted in popular culture.  I think first, that any being from another planet that's advanced enough to make it this far from their planet (and scientists have so far found no life nearer than a whole bunch of light years away) are competent enough not to crash here or be captured. 

And second, why on earth should these beings take on life forms similar to ours - with arms and legs and heads and eyes (really big slanted ones) - and why oh why should they be green, of all colors?  Are they vegetarians?  

And third, I don't see any problems with the explanations that the Air Force and the US Weather Service folks have given of the alleged UFO sightings so far.  Sometimes it's taken them a while to figure out what caused what people have seen, but they can always do it and it always sounds reasonable to me.  The whole thing started with sightings of the U-2 aircraft the Air Force was developing - and those were real enough.

Anyway, if you're curious about what you might find if you were to drive down this highway, here's an informative web page.   https://www.legendsofamerica.com/extraterrestrial-highway

As you can tell, I wasn't that curious.  But I did stop at the crossroads where there was a sort of rest area to walk the dogs a bit.  Gracie now reminds me of the Peanuts character Pigpen.  When I touch her, or when she plops down, a cloud of dust rises into the surrounding air.  She really loves rolling around in almost anything - and in this part of the country that means dirt and sand.  I need to get her bathed again, but on the other hand, why bother if she's just going to get dirty again.

Google tried hard to get me to go down NV-318 that starts at that junction, and I saw lots of cars and RVs taking that route.  But AAA says US-93, which I was on, was a scenic route, and I had plenty of time so ignored Google.

We climbed to Pahroc Summit, elev. 4,961', and then crossed a broad flattish valley - I think it was Delamar Valley - ringed by mountains.  I'm assuming this area was created by a prehistoric sea, but it's been a really long time since a sea was here.

I passed a sign telling me to turn left for the Oak Springs Trilobite Site.  I didn't, though I was curious and had to look it all up.  A trilobite is an extinct marine arthropod, one of the earliest known species of arthropods.  And this area is full of their fossils in shale outcroppings.  Worth a stop on another visit.

From Oak Spring Summit, elev. 6,237' (you can see the road was climbing), we found a very long series of s-curves on the way downhill.  And then the town of Caliente, elev. 4,398' and a 2020 population of 1,028.  Apparently the town got its name from the hot springs in the area.  I saw the World Famous Caliente Hot Springs Motel (their words), which has even been a site for weddings in the past.

I saw another watch-out-for-deer sign (still no deer) and another one of those wild bull/open range signs - and this one I managed to stop and take a photo of.

This just doesn't look like a placid cow to me.  And yes, that is Bigfoot that's been added to the sign.  They're real jokers around here.

I passed large crop fields being watered.  (Why are people living in a desert in such a water-intensive way?  The early inhabitants of these deserts weren't growing crops in commercial quantities, but instead trying to live in harmony with this arid land.)

I passed 2 state parks: Kershaw-Ryan and Cathedral Gorge.  Both protect unusual scenery and both have small campgrounds, both of which said they expected to be full on a Wednesday night (last night) because of some bicyclist gathering in the area.  I don't know where they were bicycling because I didn't see any except for those I saw back at Valley of Fire State Park yesterday.

By this time we were ready for another break, so I turned off the highway toward the town of Pioche (the town's website says its name is pronounced "pee-oach.")  It had a 2020 population of 1,354' and sits at 6,060'.  It's a mountain town, a county seat, and has many old buildings in town with explanatory markers.  We stopped at the town park, where I found some historical information.

And Pioche is still the Lincoln County seat.

The courthouse sits next to the town park on the left.  I took this photo from this angle to show that the town is high up over the surrounding valley - a real mountain town.  None of the streets do anything but go up and down (the road pictured is on a steep hill).

That courthouse was built, I'm guessing, in the Art Deco style.  I think it dates from the 1930s, but can't find anything online because all discussions center on what's known as the Million-Dollar Courthouse.

picture posted by the town with the historical notes shown above

This courthouse still exists (now a museum) and, though it was built in 1878, apparently did cost a great deal more than a million dollars.  The Wikipedia explanation is more clearly written than the others I found.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Lincoln-County-Courthouse

As we were leaving town, we passed the Overland Hotel, which has a sign saying it has been featured on Ghost TV.  I'm not familiar with that but the Travel Channel folks included this hotel in Season 8, Episode 12.

Back on the road, I was fighting strong squirrely winds again, and saw 4 signs for elk.  I'm very sorry that elk don't read highway signs as well as Bighorn Sheep do.

I watched a dust-nado form into a tall column on the right - big enough to make me nervous.  That dust storm near Tonopah made a serious impression on me that I won't forget for a long time, so seeing another batch of dust getting itself organized gave me trepidation.

Then (there was nothing else to look at out here) I watched it begin to move toward the road.  I hoped it'd cross the road either before or after I passed the area, but no.  I had to watch it run along beside - beside - the road till I got even with it and then it crossed.  We got walloped with hard-charging dirt and debris hitting the side of the RV, hitting the windshield, obscuring the road.  And then we passed it by - or it passed us by.  I really don't like dust storms when I'm in the middle of them.

We began to see taller mountains - these with snow on the tops, and came to Lake Valley Summit, elev. 6140'.  I saw a guy walking down the side of the road out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  There wasn't even a rear entrance to a ranch anywhere around.  He wasn't carrying a pack.  He was just walking down this narrow mountain highway.  Where can he possibly have come from and where could he be going?  America is strange.

A sign told me the highest mountain I was seeing was Wheeler Peak, 13,061', and that this was the Snake Mountain Range.  I guess this area is included in the Great Basin National Park, which a sign told me I could get to by turning right.  

This is one national park I'd heard nothing about, and apparently few others have heard of it either, because they say it's one of the least visited of our national parks.  And that seems to be a pity, because it sounds pretty spectacular.  Here's what Nevada Tourism says about it:

https://travelnevada.com/great-basin-national-park  The park includes campgrounds, so I'd definitely want to put it on my list of things to see the next time I'm here.

Instead, I turned left to stay on US-93 and found myself on a Nevada Scenic Byway through the Humboldt National Forest.  A sign told me I'd find s-curves for the next 9 miles.  It was accurate.

I passed 2 rock walls that were clearly pink, white and gold.  I guess there were unusual deposits of minerals in those rocks, and I wondered why just those 2 walls and not the others I passed.

Connors Pass came next, elev. 7,722' (notice they're getting higher?), followed by a 6% grade for the next 4 miles.  In other words, a 6% grade while I was negotiating a series of s-curves.  There were occasional sudden gusts of wind on some of those s-curves which were a little scary when I had to fight to keep the RV on the road.

I passed more mountains with snow.  A sign told me an unpaved road to the left led to a state prison.  Another sign told me I could turn for the Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park.  I didn't but it sounds worth a side trip.  This park protects 6 beehive-shaped charcoal ovens that were used to process silver ore from 1876 to 1879.  This website shows photos of those and more history about them.   http://parks.nv.gov/ward-charcoal-ovens

From there it wasn't much farther to tonight's campground.  I'd had bad cramps in my feet and legs that woke me up at 11:30 last night and kept me up for hours, so after all this driving, I was ready to stop and rest for the night.

Ely (pronounced eel-ee) sits at 6,437' (higher than most of those passes we came through) and had a 2020 population of 3,933.  And since I came to the campground before I came to the town, that's all I can tell you about it at this point.