And, away they go! From June 22nd

 

There really wasn't much discussion.  When I mentioned it to Jimmy, he said, "sign me up!"  We figured out the logistics and decided it was doable, so I said, "yes" to Sharon.  We originally met Sharon and Randy on our Galapagos trip in April 2018.  Randy volunteer/works two weeks every summer on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad.  Sharon will join him after his stint (they live in Atlanta), and this year Jimmy and I will join them!  We've been talking about riding the train for years and we're happy that, a) we'll see our friends, and b) we'll be riding the train this year!

We filled Tergel with all the necessaries and gave her a once over on mechanics.  Since we'll be traveling in summer, not something we normally do, I made reservations at campgrounds and went into sticker shock at the prices we'll be paying.  But the temps along the way will be too hot for us to dry camp or stay at Harvest Host locations (no hookups).  We'll need A/C!

Highway 50, that ol' lonesome road, is the most direct route to get to Chama, New Mexico, and so we set off on Mon, June 22nd.  Across Nevada and Utah we endured the heat.  Unfortunately, the cab A/C didn't want to work, so I lost some weight from sweating () Once we're set up, the coach A/C is fine.

Above and below photos, we passed by the Ruth Copper Mine (Ruth, NV) with its monstrous mountains of tailings.  We wondered aloud if the piles had grown larger since the last time we blew through town.

Our first night out we stopped in Fallon NV, which was HOT but okay.  Spent the next night in Ely, NV at a KOA, which has nice shade trees, but still HOT.  On Wednesday we stayed at a Love's RV park in Salina, Utah.  In itself the place was good, but smoke from the Cottonwood fire stained the sky (below) and forced us inside.

Tergel and Smartie.

Out of Salina, we enjoyed the panoramic views on I-70 through Utah.  In fact, we pulled in at a couple of viewpoints, like the ones in these pics.  Since leaving home I believe we've cruised along in Tergel always at elevations in the 4000-6000 ft range, topping passes over 7,000'.

Raven photo-bomber.

Looks like Utah, doesn't it?

So many different shapes and sizes and colors and cliffs and mountains and ranges, sharp or undulating or rounded or heaped, that's Utah scenery.

We continued from Salina to Monticello Utah, first on I-70 and then turning south on Hwy 191, past Arches National Park and Moab and into Monticello, where we're spending two nights at Mountain View RV Park.  Two nights here gives us a bit of a rest from driving.  We'll leave Saturday morning for Rio Chama RV Park, over a thousand miles from home.  If you look at a map, you'll see we're not killing ourselves by driving 400 or 500 miles per day.

Hwy 191 is amazing, as well as somewhat tortuous for its long climbs, but the scenery is what makes it.  Well, most of the way.

Approaching Wilson's Arch (at 60 mph).

Fast catch on Wilson's Arch (at 60 mph).

We call these two the alligator or turtle,

and in the background is church rock.

We had a plastic dish with some over-the-hill senile grapes.  A horse lives next door to the RV Park in Monticello, so we thought the horse might like a treat.  Oh yes, you betcha.  We only gave her a few, one at a time, and she was very gentle taking each grape from our hand.

* * * * *

We asked at Monticello's Visitor Center for hikes in the area.  A helpful lady suggested we walk around the old Monticello Uranium Mill site, giving us directions.  This is a pretty small town, only about 1800 people, but the uranium/vanadium mill wrought havoc on everyone.  Construction on the mill began in 1940.  After the mill closed in 1960, the guv'mint stepped in for remediation and cleanup (boy, it needed it!) from 1989 to 2004.  If you're interested, read up on it.  Initally, the townsfolk welcomed the mill for economic and patriotic reasons, but later faced pollution, health concerns, and economic decline after its closure.  You can imagine the health concerns.  (More photo-bombing Ravens!)

Posies on the trail, L-R, top:  Palmer's Penstamon and Crownleaf Evening Primrose.  Bottom L-R: Scarlet Globemallow and Lupine.  Lots of Penstamon and Lupines here at this elevation.

Today we enjoyed an innocuous enough mile-plus hike along the site.

Quiet.  Peaceful.

After that, we found Lloyd's Lake, a lovely turquoise dammed lake west of town.  The water level looked down.  For the most part, the 2.3-mile loop hiking path around the lake is in full sun, so we elected to simply go till we wanted to turn around.  No problem.  Lovely, lovely day, with a brisk breeze keeping us cool.  The lake looks small in the pic above, but it isn't.

Jimmy starts out.

The Abajo Mountains in the distance added to the overall beauty.

Fuzzy grass provides the light color near the lake.  We watched a lady mule deer come to the water's edge (red x) for a drink, before ambling up through the fuzzy grass and into the scrub oaks.

Here she is.

Upon leaving the lake area, we wound our way up into Manti-LaSal National Forest, up and up and up.  We topped out at 8850' before turning around.  Into the Firs, Spruces and Aspens, beautiful.  Drove through Dalton's Campground, shooing deer and turkey out of our way, a fine place to stay, but not for us.

At 7,000' the days are fine and the nights are cool.  Wind turbines are nearby, so you know it's windy!  That's our week so far!

Worst and Best: Home, 11/7/23

 

Leaving Beatty, Nevada and heading north, it was apparent that we needed to spend one more night in Nevada because it was raining in NorCal and probably snowing on the high pass we'd have to travel.  NorCal's weather would clear enough the next day for us to get home without getting snowed in or on.  Hopefully.  With that caveat, we aimed for Fort Churchill, located a bit south of Reno, a site we tried to get to on a previous trip, but missed 'cause I turned right instead of left.

We spied so many wild burros on our way north.  This guy/gal danced in circles when we stopped Tergel to watch it, like it wanted us to come to the fence ... or move on already!

Goldfield:  "Living Ghost Town Ahead"  Nevada has plenty of towns that have figuratively "dried up and blown away" mainly due to mines playing out and residents moving elsewhere.  But their dilapidated houses persist and the junk in the yards doesn't rust and disappear.  It'd be fun to take a metal detector around, see what would you could find, except for:  snakes.

Dramatic skies unfolded as we rolled along.  Wind really kicked up and things got scary around Hawthorne.  If we could've found a spot to hunker down, we would have.  Tergel is a real "high profile vehicle," and being broadside to fierce winds is not funny, not fun at all.  Obviously we survived, but we sighed with relief when we got to our campground.

When we saw the sign:  Camping 1/2 mile, we turned in, and, yup, this was the Fort Churchill campground.  Nobody else around.  No hookups, but all the space you could ever want.  We backed up to the Carson River, and proceeded to hit the trail alongside the river.  Venerable Cottonwoods, golden in the waning sun, shaded the path.  Nights and mornings have been chilly since we left Louisiana, and the forecast is for more of the same.

Carson River was moving fast, and full.

Autumn leaves littered the trail.  We only went a mile-and-a-half; we didn't want to be caught out when it got dark.  It was a lovely, peaceful walk, notwithstanding cows that had used the trail earlier that day, leaving their distinctive calling card:  The juicy cow patty.  We minded our steps.

We buttoned up Tergel after dinner, pulled in the slides and turned on the catalytic propane heater early.  But I was still mighty surprised the next morning when I saw the outside temp at 23.5 degrees.  That's cold!  Cold enough to turn on the furnace, too!  Wasn't much to do to leave the campground.  We pulled out 9am/ish, and a half mile up the highway, pulled into Ft Churchill State Historic Site, parked, and began a walking tour.

Ft Churchill is a state park preserving the remains of a US Army fort and a way-station on the Pony Express and Central Overland Routes dating back to the 1860's. Built to provide protection for early settlers and the mail route along the Pony Express, the fort became an important supply depot for the Union Army during the American Civil War; it was abandoned in 1869. Most of the original adobe structures have melted into the Nevada ground, and those that do remain are in various states of ruin or arrested decay.

With the warming sun, being Out and About was quite pleasant.

Again, we were all by ourselves.

Officers quarters: one-and-a-half story buildings made of adobe walls 20" thick.  Of course, officers lived in relative comfort compared to enlisted men. 

Few people are buried in the cemetery.

A lonely place to spend "eternal rest."

Back in Tergel, it was time to head home, after gassing up in Ferley NV for less expensive gas than California's.  We had our fingers crossed for good weather.

Those golden Cottonwoods alongside the Truckee River were so striking!  You know I'm always happy to see the welcome home sign!

We began seeing snow on the peaks and I-80 was wet.

By gum, despite our calculations, snow fell on us as we drove up to and over Donner Pass, and we were driving Tergel verrrry slow.  Snow, sleet, and rain hit us, but no ice coated the freeway.  Down, down, down, we drove and eventually broke out into sunshine.  We did it!

Home again, late afternoon on Tuesday, 11-07-23, after 5+ weeks away, including that fabulous trip to Belize.  I was thrilled to see autumn leaf color, delighted that I hadn't missed NorCal's superb leaf-peeping show.  That dratted bear (above, left) turned up the following afternoon (welcome home!); it'd demolished our bird feeders while we were gone, so I won't be feeding birds anytime soon. 😞

A couple of days later, we jumped in the Prius to go see Matt and Jen and Evie in Fair Oaks.  Uh-oh.  The Prius' dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree and it screamed and flashed "PROBLEM."  Well, the Prius went to the shop, not Fair Oaks, and we learned two days ago that after 19+ years, the major big battery rolled over and died.  Broke my heart  (the worst).  I loved that 2005 car -- brought it home Oct 2004.  She didn't show her age, either.  Sigh ....  but we knew she couldn't last much longer.

We also knew we needed a car more suited to driving in snow and ice:  I present you --

The new member of our family -- a red 2024 Subaru Crosstrek.

Picked it up this afternoon.  The Best.

Onward we go toward home -- November 2023

 

Still heading west, toward home.  Into Arizona from New Mexico, following secondary highways, two-lane, scenic routes along the border with old Mexico.  Skirting by Chiricahua National Monument, one of Arizona's wonderful sky islands (below).  Past Bisbee and the Queen Mine's seriously deep (at 435') copper pits!  And into Sierra Vista, AZ, which we thought had grown exponentially since the last time we were here.

Craggy Chiricahua.

I'd made a reservation at a Harvest Host site for the night at Marquis Ranch in Sierra Vista.  We stopped for groceries before finding the ranch nestled in low foothills, bracketed by higher ranges.  Harvest Hosts are marvelous places for a "sleep-over" as long as you're self-contained, which we are.  Our host, Mark, met us at the gate.  We backed Tergel into a comfy spot and then ventured out to see the farm.  

Mark took us around.  They raise and breed sheep.  There's also lots of chickens, and Great Pyrennes dogs to guard all the animals.  The sheep were low to the ground and cute.  The dogs were HUGE, especially Charlie, which you see above with Jimmy (and a younger dog).  And nine wee two-week-old puppies who couldn't walk yet and whose eyes weren't opened ... and they're already spoken for!  They mewed.  I bought a dozen eggs, too.

It was a fun afternoon. Mark and his wife, Margaret, were very congenial hosts.  We four sat around at happy-hour time and visited, told tales, and enjoyed each other's company.  The dogs do bark at night, especially when the coyotes start singing (or howling), so I wore earplugs to sleep.  We were up early the next morning, pleased with our overnight stop, but ready to hit the road. 

Arizona is cactus!  Gambel's quail.  A curve-billed thrasher.  And plenty of Cholla.

Into Tucson on I-10, and then another scenic route from Tucson to Phoenix, a route that took longer than we expected, past Phoenix and up toward Kingman, AZ.  Darkness was descending by the time we hit teeny-tiny Wikieup, and we were done and done-in!  Thankfully, we found a (ho-hum) RV park, but any port in the storm and all that. 

Next morning we crossed into Nevada via the Hoover Dam bridge.

Mountain scenery in these parts is fabulous.

A long curving road took us to the Hoover Dam bridge.

November 5th -- driving through Las Vegas -- sin city -- didn't take long.  Besides it was Sunday morning so I figured most folks were in church.  Right? 😀  Once away from the city, multi-colored mountains appeared.  Some of that involves mining, photo above.

Our goal for the night was Beatty, Nevada, which is on the Nevada side of California's Death Valley.  We figured we could find a place to park Tergel (no problem).  After setting up, we went out for an explore.  

Awwww, look what we found!  Burros.  Tamed burros.  Burros looking for a handout (not good), but c'mon how sweet is this?  (We were camped across the road, but Tergel's just out of the picture.)

Howdy, y'all!

Spied this elegant old clock near the RV park.

See a burro in the background?

Here are two more.

Don't they fit right in with the mural?

All aboard!

We walked and walked and walked.  The weather was ideal.  Felt good to be on our feet.  I told Jimmy I'd live in Beatty if I could see this magnificent mountain outside my windows every morning.  Bet there's a trail to the top ....

Think we could buy this place cheap?  Fixer-upper!

Tonight's sunset was brilliant.  Another great day, and tomorrow we'll move on again, north toward home.  We're watching a weather system approach and don't want to be caught in snow on 7239' Donner Pass as we go up and over.  to be continued ....