Ron woke up a little early to go for a walk and chase some big horn sheep around for a while trying to get pictures. Ton’s from yesterday were better.
After breakfast we set out to explore the rest of the park. We took a couple of short hikes and really enjoyed ourselves. The weather was perfect for hiking, mid to high 60’s, and we picked a couple of easy places that still gave us wonderful views of the Red sandstone that gives the park it’s name. We really enjoyed Valley of Fire, it is a nice size and has a variety of places to visit. It is the equal of many National Parks for things to see and do.
This Raven kept an eye on us for a few minutes while we were walking.
Our next stop was planned for Lake Mead National Recreation Area if you are wondering what the abbreviation in the title for the day is short for. Ton and I were both surprised by Lake Mead as we thought the Lake would be front and center, and for the first 40 miles it was almost invisible. Instead we had a drive thru a typical Mojave landscape with occasional burst of Red from Sandstone deposits. It was not at all what we expected. We are staying at a campground called Las Vegas Cove. Once again we are parked along a river and the Lake is far away. We enjoyed a nice dinner watching another colorful desert sunset. We managed to actually drive less than 100 miles and were content to park up around 2pm. Maybe we can slow down.
Our alarm was set for 4am so we could get up to witness the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon. The skies were clear, but it was really cold. The temperatures had fallen more than we thought and it must of been around 20 degrees. Ton stuck her head out of the truck and told me to call her when the moon turned Red. I stuck around and watched the eclipse from the inside of the truck. When the moon turned Red I told Ton and she reluctantly rolled out of bed to take a look. After a few minutes she could not get a good picture and was very cold so she decided to get back under the blankets. I followed her a few minutes later. So while we witnessed the eclipse/Blue/Blood/Super moon we have no pictures to prove it, you will have to take out word for it.
Ton loves Joshua trees, we passed this one on the way to Valley of Fire.
After a little nap we got up and headed towards Las Vegas to Valley of Fire State Park. It is about 70 miles from Las Vegas and is quite striking. It has very Red Rocks throughout with many different shapes and forms. As we were arriving we noticed about 100 RV’s parked on BLM land just short of the state park and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We assume camping is free there and we were tempted to park there for the night, but decided to opt for the State Park and pay the camping fee.
Small arch in Valley of Fire.
After we settled in we went for a short walk near the campground to a site of some Indian petroglyphs. They were quite impressive. Our reward for ponying up for the campground came in seeing 5 big horn sheep a couple of hundred yards from Scout. While we have been in lots of places with signs warning us to watch for big horns we had never actually seen one until today.
Petroglyphs in Valley of Fire.Big Horn sheep near our campground.
I love the west. Today we drove a ridiculous distance thru the Mojave Desert. We wanted to position ourselves to see the Blue Blood Super Moon eclipse tomorrow and decided a good place we had never been before would be Kershaw-Ryan State Park near Caliente Nevada. So to explain tomorrow is a blue moon, the moon is supposed to turn red after the eclipse, and it is a super moon. The only problem it was over 400 miles away. But we decided to go for it and if we were tired in Tonopah we would shorten up the trip.
The drive from Reno to Caliente is thru mostly unoccupied desert. Quite often you do not see anything built by a human for miles and miles. Our route once we got clear of the urban area around Reno was US 95 to Tonopah, US 6 to no were in particular NV351 to a small town we forgot the name of already and US 93 to Caliente. We are familiar with US95 from Fallon to Tonopah as it is the route we take whenever we go to see Alex or to Death Valley, we had one of our flat tires on US95 near Hawthorne a few years ago. We had never been on the rest of the roads on the trip but they were fun and really isolated. Route 6 goes thru long empty valleys with nothing to stop you. The roads are straight as an arrow for miles and miles. Ron began looking at how many miles it was before curves in the road and we had stretches of 11, 14, and the longest of 16 miles of perfectly straight roads.
This stretch of highway was 14 miles without a curve.
NV351 is also known as the extraterrestrial highway as it skirts Area 51 where everyone knows the government is secretly keeping the aliens that come to earth. The businesses along the road know a good thing when they see it so they have set up souvenir stands. We of course stopped and bought a magnet to put on the fridge at home.
Ron could not resist getting his picture taken with an alien.
Our stop for the night was at Kershaw-Ryan State Park, Ron was a little worried about arriving late in the day as it is a small park. There was no need to worry as we have the place to ourselves. it is a pretty location in a little canyon, and all of the facilities look brand new. We went for a short evening stroll, and the Blue-Blood-Super Moon gave us a little preview.
Ton had a restaurant on her bucket list that is near Reno. So we began our day by heading towards Gardnerville to get a Basque meal at JT Basque Restaurant. She had read about this place at a Basque Museum in Boise and she had been looking forward to the next time we passed thru Reno to give it a try. We had the family style meal which included all you could eat soup, salad, beef stew, bread, beans and French Fries, and an entree and a small bottle of wine. The food was superb and it only cost $25 per person. Ton was really pleased and crossed JT’s off her bucket list with all of her expectations met. If you are in the Reno area JT’s is worth the 45 minute drive over to Gardnerville.
After JT’s we headed over to Virginia City. It is one of the most famous boom towns from the gold rush era. At one point it had a population of over 30,000 including Mark Twain who worked at the paper in town. It is in the hills above Reno and has a great collection of mid to late 19th century buildings. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and we were impressed with the buildings and the setting. We were tempted by a couple of the saloons in town, but were too stuffed from our lunch in Gardnerville to do it. It is probably overrun with tourists in the summer, but was pleasantly quiet in January.
A saloon originally built during the gold rush still in operation in Virginia City.
Our last stop was the Costco in Sparks. We were excited because the Sparks Costco had Diesel available and our experience on our Alaska trip was that Costco had by far the cheapest diesel in any town. So after going out of our way and driving during rush hour to get there we were disappointed that the Costco fuel was actually higher than one of the major chain stations in town. This is the first time Costco has let us down.
Today we headed to Las Vegas as the trip is starting to wind down and it is time to begin heading in the direction of San Francisco for the last stop for Dang and Noi. We decided that Vegas was a reasonable drive, and it gave Ron and Ton a chance to check up on our son Alex who is a teacher in Las Vegas.
Tonight we are staying in a parking lot/RV park in Mainstreet Station Casino near the Fremont area of Las Vegas. It is not much to look at, basically an extension of the employee parking for the casino. But the location is good, it has full hookups, and only costs $21. It is also located directly under one of the main freeways for Las Vegas and next to the headquarters for the Vegas fire department, so it is not going to be quiet tonight.
Alex Dang and Noi on Fremont Street.
When we planned the trip we did not realize we had picked Halloween night to be in Vegas, but it turned out to be a nice bonus. We met Alex for a buffet dinner in the casino, and then headed out to Reno street to people watch. It was everything you could expect from Las Vegas on Halloween. Really quite wild in a very fun way.
We visited the Red Rock National Conservation Area outside of Vegas today. It is run by the Bureau of Land Management. The conservation area is just outside of the city and was quite busy. The visitors center was quite well done. Showing both the land and native plants and animals in a very interesting and engaging way. We did the loop and it was quite beautiful and exceeded our expectations.
Flowering cactus.
We met Alex for dinner at a casino that Ton declared the worst buffet in history. The good news was due to teacher appreciation week Alex’s buffet was free.. After dinner Ton, Alex, and Dang went to the strip to do some tourist stuff and Ron took Scout back to the park to do some maintenance.
Today was supposed to be an easy day. We planned on a drive into Reno expecting to arrive there around 2pm, do some shopping and then stay in our normal Reno stopping point at the casino.
When we had arrived back to the campground yesterday Ron took a close look at the tires as we had worked them hard the previous two days. Our tires had about 30,000 miles on them and were starting to approach the end of their service life. But despite the tough workout from Titus Canyon and the drive to the Race Track they looked ok, the air levels were good and there were no signs of cuts or punctures.
When we got up it had stopped raining, but the valley was fogged in. It had rained steadily most of the night and it was amazing to see how quickly the plants around the camp ground were greening up.
From Death Valley to Reno the first 180 miles is thru the desert and there are only three towns with any services spread out about every 60 to 100 miles. We had been cruising for about 130 miles averaging about 60 mph when as we were leaving Hawthorne Nevada the front right tire blew and proceeded to shred itself. Ron wrestled the truck to a very narrow soft shoulder right at the edge of the town.
While it was a problem to lose a tire like that it could have been much worst. First we were actually in one of only three towns along the route. Second we were only going about 40 mph when the tire blew, for long stretches we were traveling at 70 mph and it could have been much worst to lose the tire at that speed. Ron got out to take a look at things, we were on a narrow shoulder on a fairly busy stretch of highway, while we were clear of the travel lane it was only by inches. The shoulder was extremely soft and Ron was concerned about the stability of the jack in the soft sand. At that point he decided that since we had AAA coverage he would call them to assist us.
Going to need a new tire.
Ron had just pulled out the card and was in the process of calling AAA when a young man walked up from behind us. He asked Ron if he was calling AAA and when Ron confirmed he was, he laughed and said he was AAA in Hawthorne. How is that for service? He said he heard the tire go and looked out of his window and saw us on the shoulder. So our streak of extraordinary luck continued. He had us on our way in less than a half hour.
So our easy travel day had a complication. After calling around we found a set of tires we had been thinking about as an upgrade at Reno Vulcanizing Works (had to get that name into the story) which is the oldest Good Year Tire Dealer in the world. And after a more exciting day than we had planned we were on our way to the casino for the night.
Another day of hard driving. We have spent a lot of time since we got Scout transiting through and exploring Northeast Nevada and Northeast California and we like it here. To get us on a new route we decided to head a little further east out of Klamath Falls and headed towards Gerlach Nevada for no better reason than that is the closest town to Burning Man. There are not a lot of towns in this desert area.
We came across a small town in California called Canby that had an extensive Christmas and Thanksgiving display along the highway. We stopped and took some pictures.
A wiseman, a wiser woman, and another dude.
This area averages less than 10 inches of precipitation, we ran into some snow going over a pass and we got some nice pictures. A little later we ran into Gerlach and got a couple of pictures of extraneous stuff left over from Burning Man, and mission accomplished moved on south.
Unexpected snow near the Burning Man site.
We missed the campground we were planning to stay at on Walker Lake so we kept heading and ended up in a Casino parking lot in Hawthorne Nevada. While not elegant the price is right.
Ron had once read that US 50 thru Nevada was the loneliest road in America. Great Basin is on US 50 so we got to drive it today. To tell the truth it was not that lonely. We probably passed about 100 cars over the 250 miles. There are only three towns on the route and very few structures in between so it is pretty far between people. The road crosses 7 or 8 mountain ranges with passes in the 6500 to 7300 feet, in between are large valleys on average about 30 miles across which are at 6000 feet. It was a pretty interesting drive, but not that lonely.
We planned to stop in Reno for the night at a Casino. It was a parking lot park with no soul, but it turned out to be interesting. We got there early and had time to catch the second half of the Timbers Soccer game which was a disaster, but there was something interesting going on. As we have traveled thru the west in the summer you encounter lots of European tourists in RV’s. Today at the casino we witnessed one of the places where they pick up the RV’s and observed the process of orienting them and having them practice driving the RV’s. It was kind of fun to watch them learn the in’s and out’s of slides, levelers, dumping their tanks, and driving a vehicle which is the size of a commercial truck in Europe. We also noticed that a lot of the campers had colorfully and unconventionally designed bicycles, it turns out that they are heading to Burning Man.
Today we left Utah behind reluctantly. Our target for the day was Great Basin NP which our son Dylan highly recommended. It was a long days drive and we needed to take care of some shopping so we arrived too late to do the cave tours. Surprisingly the Campgrounds were pretty full and we had a tough time finding a spot, so we got a late start exploring the park.
The view from the top of the road.
The park is famous for Caves and Bristlecone Pines. We knew that the Caves were out for the day but hoped to see the Bristlecone Pines. Some of the Bristlecone Pines in the park are over 5000 years old which is pretty incredible. We drove the road from the campground at 7000 feet to over 10,000 feet for the trailhead to the Bristlecone Pine. Unfortunately we realized when we got there we did not have time to do the 5 mile roundtrip so we also missed the Bristlecone’s. I guess we will have to do another trip to Great Basin in the future.
Today we had the most unlevel camp spot ever, despite using every leveling block we had we still had a distinct tilt to the rear of the car. Despite that we slept well.
Today we drove across US 95 from Las Vegas to Reno. This is one of my favorite highways as it goes across some of the most empty land in the country. The mountains that are on either side of the highway for most of the drive are really beautiful. There is a lot of mystery in this area. Part of the highway follows the Air Force test range that is also known as Area 51. Once again we were disappointed that we did not see any aliens or secret aircraft along the way. I think this is an area that we will have to Scout again in the future.
A cute tourist trap between Las Vegas and Reno, but it does have the cheapest gas on that stretch of highway.
We decided to spend the night in Reno as it is a nice distance from Las Vegas. As we were researching campsites, we on a whim checked the cost of a couple of the Casinos in Reno. One of the larger casinos was offering a good room for what was essentially $20 more than it would cost to stay in a campground. So we decided to indulge ourselves with a room and a buffet for the night, and we stayed out of the casino so the cheap room stayed cheap.
Had a short drive to Las Vegas this morning. Leaving Wickenburg on US 93 we came to an extensive forest of Joshua Tree’s. Do you call a bunch of Joshua Trees a forest? We pulled over a couple of times to allow Ton to take some pictures. We were discussing how we are both westerners at heart. The big vistas and the open spaces really make us feel at home. I can really tell with Ton as she spent a great deal of the day shooting pictures while we are on the move, something she did not due east of the Mississippi.
Are a bunch of Joshua Trees a forest?
We arrived in Las Vegas early in the day and Ton’s Costco alarm went off as we were driving through Henderson. Sure enough there was a Costco there that she had apparently went to with our son on a trip she took to Las Vegas last summer. She used the stop to stock Alex ,our son up with some food, and to buy something to bring to the superbowl party.
We met our son and went to a superbowl party with him at the home of one of the teachers at the elementary school he teaches at. We got to hear some of the stories of teaching in an inner city school. The levels of dedication of these guys and gals, buying supplies out of their own pockets, and putting in long hours on the weekends doing paperwork and lesson plans is inspiring and disconcerting at the same time.
The game itself was a huge bust and was pretty much over in the 1st quarter. While the game was a non-event, it was nice to spend time with Alex.
We have spent a great deal of time in Scout exploring California. In 2015 we visited Sequoia and Kings Canyon. There are two sets of entries for Joshua Tree, and three sets of entries for Death Valley. In 2016 we did a trip down the Pacific Coast Highway and visited Anza Borrega State Park. While California is mainly famous for its cities, there is plenty of back country to explore also. 2018 and 2019 our son Dylan was working in San Diego, which gave us an excuse to visit that beautiful city. Since we began the blog, we have spent more time in California than any other place.
Today we reached our target to begin exploring instead of driving. We arrived at Anza-Borrego about 1:30 after driving about 250 miles. Enroute we stopped
Today the weather was tremendous, the nicest weather we have experienced since we bought Scout. In addition there was exceptionally high surf along the whole
I woke up early and decided to head over to one of my favorite places. Zabriske point overlooks the gold canyon, and after today I think it is my favorite view in the US. I have been thinking about places that I really enjoy, and Zabriske point at sunrise is hard to beat. My writing style (military log book may be the best description) does not allow me to do justice to the beauty of Zabriske point at sunrise. The way the light cascades over the desert and hits the different colored light is magical to me. I could spend days on end watching sunrises there and never tire of it.
I do not have the photographic skills or equipment to do Zabriske at Sunrise justice.
Now that I was up early I had to decide what to do until my first planned event of the day which was a ranger talk at the old borax production site and mine. I headed over to the visitors center to watch the park movie to get some ideas. The movie was good and I enjoyed it but I did not get any ideas. So I finally just started driving north up the valley to see if anything drew my attention and before I knew it I was near Beatty Nevada which is the closest source of reasonable fuel so I decided to head over there to top off Scout. The fuel at the center of the park is $5.37 a gallon which must be close to the most expensive fuel in the US. There are two gas stations in Beatty one was $3.20 and the other was $3.09 when I tried the $3.09 the pump told me to go see the cashier. The cashier told me that their system was down and they could not do credit transactions, I asked about debit and she told me with a bit of an attitude that it was the same system and today was cash only. I went down the street and paid the higher amount with a credit card.
I ended up being late for the ranger talk due to my running around Beatty. I watched the last few minutes. A lot of the people at the talk were like me attending every talk while they were in the park so I was beginning to recognize faces. One guy told me I had to try the Indian Fried Bread Taco at the Timbisha Shoshone reservation in the park. The Timbisha are the native Americans who lived in this area. I decided to follow the recommendation, though I doubt this is really traditional fare of the tribe as beans, cattle, and corn would not have been native to this area. But as some one in France when I asked if a dance was traditional, he said no, but it could be in a hundred years. So Fried Bread Tacos may be traditional Timbisha food in 100 years. I now have had one, and I can cross it off my list.
One of the original 40 mule team wagons used to haul Borax out of the canyon in the 1880’s, the rear wheels are over six feet tall. The rear wagon is a water tanker as there was only water source on the 10 day trip.
I spent the afternoon hiking Mosaic Canyon a nice flash flood canyon with interesting rock formations. The road to the trail head was a mess and gave Scout a workout, but the first 400 yards of the trail were worth the drive. The ability of water to carve the rocks in the west never ceases to amaze me. The rest of the hike was nice but not super spectacular.
Mosaic Canyon had about 300 yards where water has cut down to the bedrock which is quite pretty.
I ended the day with a nice ranger talk at sunset at Mesquite dunes.
I started the day by heading over to the visitors center to see what ranger talks were available today. I was there as they opened and one of the Rangers was running up the flag for the day. I talked to her on the way back in after the flag was done, she told me there were two talks for the day and she was leading one of them.
So with a little time to kill until the first talk at gold canyon, I decided to do a little exploring. I had noticed a sign for another campground above the one we usually stay in here. The problem with Sunset campground is that there is no electricity so all of the big RV’s run their generators all day to power all of the stuff in them. They require generators to be shut down from 7pm to 8am, but nothing ruins sitting outside to enjoy the sunset than the buzz of three or four generators running around you. The Texas Spring campground costs $1 more than Sunset but is generator free and prettier so I moved up here and bought two nights.
Part of Artists Pallette Drive. A really nice one way drive in the park on the way to Badwater.
The first talk of the day was in gold canyon which is one of Ton and my favorite hikes in Death Valley. The person leading it was not a ranger but a young man on an internship at the park. He took the duty very seriously and one thing I learned is that some of Star Wars 1 The Return of the Jedi was filmed in the canyon. Besides that I learned a great deal about fan canyons which Death Valley is famous for.
Gold Canyon.
The second talk was at Badwater Basin which is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 280 feet below sea level. It is one of the must stop photo stops in the park. Besides being the lowest spot in the West it is also an interesting salt flat, and does have a spring which is 4 times saltier than sea water.
Badwater Basin, the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere.
I returned to Texas Springs for sunset and climbed a hill above the campground to watch the sunset. Since the mountains on the west side of the valley are about 5000 feet higher than the valley but quite close, sunset happens about an hour and a half before the light fades which is kind of weird.
We are both still struggling a little bit with our medical issues so it is time to head home so we can see see our proper Doctors. Ron prefers to drive home east of the Sierra Nevada mountains rather than deal with the heart of California so we left San Diego and headed north and east towards one of our favorite National Parks to spend the night.
The drive to Death Valley was pretty uneventful, even the traffic from San Diego to San Bernardino while dense was moving pretty well with no significant slow downs. After you get out of the southern California metropolis, you quickly get into the Mojave and go from bumper to bumper freeway traffic to almost no traffic as you travel thru the desert.
When we arrived at Death Valley we checked in to see what had reopened after the shutdown. It turns out only a couple of the campgrounds have been re-opened so we are in a big gravel lot across from the visitors center with about 100 other RV’s. We took a walk and Ton got some nice sunset pictures, and we had a couple of short conversations with some of out other campers before settling in for the night.
Today is Dylan’s birthday so we planned a big day around town to celebrate. We started out with a seafood brunch at Point Loma Seafood. It is part fishmonger and part restaurant, definitely a laid back California experience, but the food was really exceptional, and was a good start to the day.
Our next stop was Cabrillo National Monument on a bluff overlooking San Diego harbor. This was the first day it was open after the government shutdown and a lot of people were coming out to use the facilities. It is an interesting place located on former military property with stunning views of the harbor and the ocean. The monument has exhibitions on Spanish explorers, as it is believed the monument contains the landing place of the Spanish explorer who was the first European to land in San Diego. It also has a whale watching platform, some nice tidal pools, and exhibits on the military uses of the area. We really enjoyed it.
The Cabrillo Monument to the first European to see San Diego Harbor.
Next we headed over to another San Diego brewery located right next to Point Loma Seafood. We had a couple of rounds of really excellent Lagers and IPA’s and were quite impressed with Epigg Brewing. Our next stop was going to be Pariah brewery for Pizza and beer. When we got there Pizza was not available so we headed down the road for a great Mexican meal to wrap up the day. Thanks Dylan for a fun week in San Diego.
Dylan suggested we head up to San Juan Capistrano to visit the mission there. It is about an hour north of here and you have to transit thru Camp Pendleton. The Marines were out playing today. There was an amphibious ship off shore, and we saw some ship to shore movement including some helicopters, and amphibious tractors. It brought back some nice memories for Ron.
A CH-53 helicopter stopping traffic on I-5 as it passes thru Camp Pendleton.
San Juan Capistrano is one of the best preserved of the California Missions. When the Spanish were colonizing Alta California in the 1700’s they built a string of missions along the coast about one days horse ride apart. Each mission was part fort and part Catholic church. They were designed to encourage the native Americans to convert to Catholicism. California uses the missions as part of the 4th grade curriculum for elementary schools. We remember helping Alex with the construction of his model mission when we lived in California. The mission at San Juan Capistrano used to be famous for an annual return of swallows to the mission. These days the swallows are going some where else due to urbanization around the mission.
The interior of the chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano.
After the mission we stopped at a couple of breweries, and swung by Walmart to buy a new water hose for Scout as our old one gave up the ghost yesterday. We have been really impressed with the quality of the breweries in San Diego.
This morning Dylan came over to give us his car for the day. We planned a shopping trip to stock up for the ride home, and to pick up a couple of things only available in California.
After spending the morning shopping on the Navy Base, we joined Dylan for a nice pizza lunch in a restaurant in his neighborhood. After lunch we headed over to Costco to pick up Ton’s favorite noodles that are only available in California. When Dylan finished work he joined us at the RV park for dinner and a couple of good Oregon microbrews we had brought down. We had a nice chat for a couple of hours before turning in for the night.
The good news is that the government shutdown is over, and Dylan will be able to return to a normal schedule on Monday. He was telling us that he attended a conference in Washington during the shutdown, and despite the shutdown they arranged for him to get a tour of the Department of Interior headquarters. He said it was quite weird walking thru the empty building with the Christmas decorations still up in mid-January.
Not much to talk about today. We did the laundry, and both tried to relax and recover from our ill’s. Dylan joined us for lunch, but had a dinner date, so we ate some leftovers and turned in early.
