End of the Trip

It was windy again in Carson City last night, and a lady in Virginia City told us it was windy every day in Nevada.  Perhaps so, or perhaps we are experiencing March winds since the trees and flowers that are blooming in Nevada now are the same ones that bloomed in March for us at home.

Virginia City is a pretty town, with many historical buildings dating back to the mid 1800s.  Wooden sidewalks line the main street, which is crossed by very steep side streets.  The main street is full of little shops--kind of a cross between Sierra City and Columbia in the mother lode.  We helped the economy along with our lunch out (excellent) and the several bags we carried back to the car with our purchased treasures.

The last night in Carson City was a quiet one, and we breakfasted out there this morning before hitting the road back along highway 50 to 395 to 88, and home.

The walmut ranch has changed since we left--the asparagus which had been harvested and showed just tiny stumps right before we left was pretty much back up and leafed out, so no more asparagus for the season.  The walnut leaves are fully leafed out, but still very thin and new looking.  The cherries are turning pink, but not ripe yet.  The orange tree, which just gave up the last of its fruit, is in full bloom--smelling sweetly from thirty feet away.

The roses have also opened and are in full bloom, including the red Lincoln rose, below.

Tomorrow I go to Santa Rosa EARLY to participate in the Human Race, then back here to get the trailer for the trip home on Sunday.  Our late April trip is now officially at an end.

Extra Terrestrial Highway

The wind kicked up in the night and kept Liz and I awake for some time since both of our beds are at each end of the trailer, then fold out and are covered with heavy canvas which really whips in the wind.  Helen sleeps in the third bed within hard-sided walls, and she heard the wind, but her new memory foam bed was so comfortable that she immediately fell back to sleep.

The next morning we left Cedar City, heading west.  We planned to stop at Cathedral Gorge State Park in Panaca, NV, and we did. It is an interesting park, well maintained, protecting these eroded clay barrens that looked almost like miniature reddish hoodoos of Utah.

After filling up with gas in Panaca, we drove the few miles to Caliente, NV, and continued east to connect to the Extraterrestrial Highway, route 375.  A tall statute of a Roswellian ET stands by a roadside business (seemed closed) just as you embark on the highway.

Several small communities were dotted along the map of our route, and we planned to get gasoline halfway, when my tank would be slightly over 1/2 full.  Nowhere did we see any sign that no services would be available until Tonopah, our destination, and about 170 miles from Panaca.  Generally, I can count on about a 200 mile range pulling the trailer, unless there are several passes or long grades that reduces the mileage from an average of 10-11 mpg, to about 6-7 mpg.

The first  inkling of concern came when one of the little communities on the map was no longer even a remnant on the highway,  and major concern hit when we pulled into the gas stop halfway along the route and the pumps were still showing gas at $2.33/gal and the associated rustic minimart, which sported a sign saying it was open, was locked and the shelves inside were empty.  A dried up mop lay scattered on the floor.  I had a little over half a tank and we had 115 miles to go to Tonopah. Then the climbs through about 1/2 dozen passes began and my tank dropped more quickly than I liked. We were in a real desert  now, with cactus instead of pinyon pine and juniper. Few if any cars passed us, and only one or two were encountered going the other direction.  The highway is remote and lightly traveled through a very dry desert. It was time to be nervous.

Our plan was to go as far as we could, but when the gauge showed 1/8th of a tank, we would drop the trailer and continue without it to get gas and then return to the trailer. Liz had spotted a campground icon on the map that seemed suitable.  That probably would have worked well if we hadn't hit a spot of road construction with a pilot car.  The bottom line was that we were at a lot less than 1/8th of a tank when we hit the rest area (which appeared to allow overnight camping).  Of course, we had not had cell service for some time.

Liz stayed with the trailer, while Helen and I headed down the highway for the last 25 miles to Tonopah.  I was now averaging 23 mpg, but the gauge was very low, and about 5 miles outside of Tonopah the empty fuel gauge warning light came on.  It was on E but on a downhill portion of yet another pass, the light went off, so there was clearly enough gas to slosh around still.  We had just seen signs of the far outskirts of Tonopah when the warning light again appeared, but despite this we made it at last to a Shell station and re-filled.  It took 20.12 gallons, more than I had ever put in before.

We reversed course to return for Liz and the trailer, and in this direction there WAS a sign that said no services for 169 miles.  They need to put one on the other end, too.

We were worried about Liz all alone at a remote rest stop in the middle of the Nevada desert, so I went as fast as I could back to where we had left her.  She was fine--reported that no cars but two had gone by in the hour we had been gone.  One, a trucker, had stopped and used the rest area.  Another, an elderly lady who could barely walk, had stopped and said she was nearly out of gas and she was praying she could make Tonopah.  Liz had told her our story, and why she couldn't help. We didn't see her car along the side of the highway later, so she must have made it.

We were so tired that we camped in the Tonopah Ramada Casino RV "park"--full hookups behind the casino/hotel.  Not too pretty, a little noisy, but good enough. Quite an experience.  This morning we headed to Carson City across some pretty dry and desolate desert.  Tomorrow we will tour Virginia City; at least that is the plan.

Zion's Emerald Pool

Zion has a lovely trail to a series of pools known as the Emerald Pools, where maidenhair ferns and other unusual plants for a desert inhabit this wet  niche.  Unfortunately, the middle pool trail was closed due to a rock slide, but the trail to the lower pool was easy and along the Virgin River for awhile, before heading up a small side canyon.  I managed to capture the small waterfall, which was a refreshing cascade about 50-75 feet high.

After shopping in the visitor center, we headed back to Cedar City, stopping at the Walmart for the promised memory foam for Helen.  Her bed is now another four inches taller.

Tomorrow, we head westward to Nevada as far as we can travel, although we are stopping along the way at Cathedral Gorge.

No bighorn sheep again today in either Zolob or Zion Canyons.  We did see more pronghorn antelope as we crossed from Nevada into Utah yesterday, but otherwise no large wildlife have shown themselves.  This morning, after breakfasting on bacon and blueberry pancakes courtesy of Lizzie, we drove south toward Zion National Park, first stopping at the Zolob Canyon entrance, where the red rock canyons were dazzling.  The pictures do not do justice to the colors--especially the rich red hues, yellow streaks, and black rivulets of moisture cascading down through the red chasm sides.

At Zion, we decided to use the shuttle system, although during the winter/spring period you can get a permit to drive into the canyon in your private vehicle.  The shuttle came every 4 minutes today (Sunday) with 19 buses running up and down the canyon.  The parking lots were full and getting a parking space was a challenge, but we managed, and had our crackers-and-cheese lunch then boarded the shuttle to go all the way to the end of the road for walking along the Riverwalk trail.   This trail is slightly up through the Virgin River canyon, and is paved, suitable for wheelchairs and strollers.  At the end of the trail begins the Narrows trail, which is currently inaccessible due to high flows of the Virgin River.  You then reverse and walk the mile back out.

This is a popular and easy 2 mile walk, and there were plenty of tourists in addition to ourselves. Pictured below are Helen and Liz as they lean over the river to get a shot of the narrowing canyon walls:

We then boarded the shuttle to drop down the canyon to the Weeping Rock site.  Helen was tired and my knee was bothering me a bit, so Lizzie took the short 0.5 mile uphill walk (roundtrip) to the weeping rocks while we waited below and watched other tourists.  We then boarded the shuttle to return to the Visitor Center, only Helen somehow boarded the back compartment, and we lost her until we reached the visitor center, when we hoped dearly we would find her again.  We did.

A landslide has closed the highway to Bryce Canyon, so we are going to have to re-think this portion of our journey.  We probably will turn back into Nevada and go to Cathedral Rock State Park to see what is there.

Copper Mine

I should mention that the morning we left Ely had become stormy, but we still swung by the operating copper mine west of town--the mine is huge, and these monstrous loaders sidecast the mining tailings over the side of an enormous pile of debris.  The colors of the various sidecasting rivulets (which avalanche all the way to the bottom after being sidecast) are remarkable:

 The size of the loaders make sawmill Laterno's look small.  These gigantic haulers take the material that is no longer needed and haul it up steep earthen roads to the top of the earthen pile to release over the side.  The picture below is the open pit from which the soil is removed.

Ghostly Visions

The people are few and far between in this country.  Entertainment is often wryly humorous, like the cowboy legs emerging from the rocky soil, or a odds-and-ends sculpture of an extraterrestrial, or even a spooky skeleton in a wheel chair:

At the campground above Baker we encountered some RVers who had a large white dog, larger than Tillie, but about the same shape.  Then, in Baker, there appeared to be a group of these large white dogs at a house in the town.  Perhaps they are a local breed.

After leaving Baker, we headed south toward Utah and Cedar City.  Long stretches of open range with cattle crossing the highway and pronghorn antelope darting away fill the vastness, with an occasional remote house way back from the road.   

We frequently pull over to use the trailer facilities--our own portable rest-stop--just slowing and stopping on a wide section of road.  At one stop, with open range all around, I was walking back to unlock the trailer when I spotted a large whitish dog in the distance about 1/4 mile away, standing on the road and peering toward me.  I climbed in to the trailer and used the facilities and by the time I climbed back out, the dog was at the trailer door, slowly wagging his tail and looking woebegone.  His coat was longer than Tillie's, shaggy, and perhaps he was a sheep dog.  

I wasd going to give him a piece of leftover toast with marmalade that Helen had squirreled away in her purse, but she couldn't find it, and the dog slowly wandered away, then disappeared suddenly.  As wwe continued driving down the road, we encountered another dog--same color and shape--on the road, this time dragging a short broken off rope.  He watched us go by, looking just as sorrowful as the first.

These ghostly dogs must be working sheep, we decided, as there seemed to be a sheep flock in the far distance by the base of the hills.  

Reverse Viewing

One day it was very cold--we were exploring the snowy areas of the Great Basin National Park, and when we would exit the car, we had to push mightily against the wind to get the car door open.  Still, we really wanted to see mountain goats, and so we walked out to each overlook and tried to see them.  One overlook had a viewer, and Lizzie was trying to use it to search the distant mountainside, but gave up quickly.  I started to take her place, and she said, "That only seems to make things smaller."  It was then we discovered she had been looking through it from the wrong end, so we swung it around...

After all of this, we still didn't see any mountain goats.