Nevada

We left  our campground in western Utah on Saturday,  September 7^th and headed down the “Loneliest Road in America (Route 50) towards Nevada.  

The first part of the road was straight and flat for a long ways but we could always see more mountains in the distance.  

When we crossed into Nevada, we were in those mountains and we detoured to see the Great Basin National Park and the famous Lehman Caves located there.  Unfortunately, we would have had to wait two hours to do the tour of the Caves and we didn't feel like we could wait that long.  The state campground we were heading for didn't take reservations and, since it was a Saturday, we felt like we needed to get there so we would be sure and find a place.  

So we headed on to Cave Lake State Park which is located just east of Ely, Nevada.  It was a beautiful park on a fairly small lake – very quiet and peaceful.  We did find a campsite near the lake.  This was our first time “dry camping” – no hookups at all.  There was a water fill station on the way in where you could fill your water tank and a dump station to dump your tanks when you leave but no electricity or water at the site.  We are pretty self-sufficient without the electricity.  We can cook on our gas stove, the refrigerator will run on gas as well and we have 12 volt lights.  The only things we can’t do are use the microwave, toaster, or the TV.  We probably wouldn't have gotten any TV stations at this remote location anyway J. 

Since we got there fairly late in the day, we waited until Sunday morning to go canoeing on the lake.  We decided not to take Poppy this time (although we did let her swim in the lake for a while) because it was pretty chilly out and we didn't want to take a chance on her dumping us.  She’s never done that but it would be just our luck that something would get her excited on a morning when it was in the low 60’s and who knows what the water temp was.  We went out on the lake fairly early and there was no wind – it was so still you could hear all the bird calls.  We were careful to dip our paddles gently so there was very little sound and it was so peaceful and magical out there.  We circumnavigated the lake and then pulled the canoe out and loaded it on the truck.  

We went back and hitched up the camper and headed into Ely.  We had a few maintenance things to do, including laundry, so we spent two nights at a campground in town that had a laundry, hookups and WIFI.  We also wanted to visit the Nevada Northern Railroad Museum that we had been told not to miss.

Monday morning, we went to the Railroad Museum with our tickets in hand to ride the seven mile trip from Ely to Ruth.  The railroad has a lot of history from when this was a big copper mining area – they ran 60 trains a day to carry copper ore from the mines to be processed and also to carry passengers to school, work and shopping.  It was built in 1905 to 1906 and continued to run until the early 1980's when the copper mines closed.  The museum took on the railroad when it went out of business and restored the tracks and the old steam locomotives and made them a tourist attraction.

The ride on the train takes about 1 ½ hours with a narrator pointing out sights of interest along the way and telling the story of the role of the railroad.  This was our friendly conductor.

Pictures taken out the windows...

Bob was really hoping they would use one of the steam locomotives to pull the train but they used a diesel when we rode.  They use the steam engine about once a week but it is a lot of work and someone needs to get there at 4:30 in the morning to start the fire in order for the train to be able to run at 9:30 AM.  After the train ride, we had a tour of the “shop” which was where they did repairs to the engines and other cars.  It was a huge operation with huge tools which Bob loved.  I’ll have to admit it was not my favorite sight on the tripJ.  This was the elderly gentlemen who led the tour of the shop.  I think he worked on this railroad when it was running.

We left Ely (on the eastern side of Nevada) on Tuesday morning and started back on the “Loneliest Road in America”.  The road was beautiful with lots of mountains to cross and incredible scenery.  

There were only two towns between Ely (in eastern Nevada) and Fallon, where we were planning to spend that night: Eureka and Austin.  Both were really quaint towns with just a couple of blocks of main street.  They both had gas stations (thank goodness, since there was a long way between them) and both had lots of old western style buildings.  These pictures are of Austin -- I forgot to take any of Eureka.

After Austin, the last 50 miles or so until we reached Fallon were really desert.  The landscape changed quite a bit from what we were used to.  There were still mountains but they were much more barren.  On either side of the road, there was nothing but sand and we passed areas where people had written their names (or whatever) with rocks in the sand continuously for miles along the side of the road. 

We stopped at Grimes Point (a must see according to one of our travel books) to see the petroglyphs.  It was really incredible.  There were carvings in large boulders, some of which were more than 7,000 years old.   We parked and walked around the field of stones, bearing the markings made by people so many years ago.

It definitely made you aware of the history of this continent and how old it really is.  Although we were standing in desert, the signs stated that there had been water in this area and you could see horizontal lines on the mountains that showed where the water level used to be.

We stayed that night in Fallon at the County Fairgrounds which had RV sites with water and electricity for $14/night.  A great deal and there was only one other RV there.  Fallon is a big town just east of Reno and we were able to do some grocery shopping and pick up some things that we needed.

On Wednesday morning, we headed west for California!  I was so looking forward to seeing this state – have never been there.