A slow day for us. We spent the morning taking care of laundry and using the internet at the office to publish the blog and do some research on next stops for us.
We decided to go to a Chinese Lantern Show that was advertised in the local paper. It looked like it would be interesting and a nice way to spend an evening. It totally blew us away. It was 5 or 6 acres of really complex lanterns, though they did cheat and use led lights instead of candles. Ton killed the battery on her camera taking pictures. We had a hard time selecting a couple of pictures for the blog. It also included a show of Chinese jugglers, acrobats, and a mask dance that was really extraordinary. The young women went thru a series of masks in just a couple of seconds. We have not been able to figure out how she did it, but it was really cool.
This frog changed colors.A famous tea maker.Chinese opera.Pandas.And of course a dragon.This is a traveling show if it ever comes to your town I highly recommend you go.
We moved into the city for the weekend. Today was about a little shopping, giving Scout a bath to knock some of the mud off of her, and going somewhere we could use WiFi to catch up and post the blog. We finished everything except the internet stuff as it turns out we are in the only part of the park that does not have WiFi.
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.
