Great Basin, and Great Scenery

2019-10-06 (Sunday)

We woke up to blue skies again, and another cold morning. But after getting ourselves all ready to leave Great Basin National Park, we went on a walk first. And that changed our whole perspective of the park! I was just about to take a photo of our truly beautifully located campsite (inconvenient though it was to get into last night), when Joe and Cassie noticed a small herd of deer in the site next to us. They slowly came into sight behind us, and until Cassie barked, they were just going about their business. That was a nice scene.

There's a deer to the right of the big tree

 

Then Joey pointed out the pinyon pine nuts on the trees growing next to us. The park's newspaper specifically says that these nuts can be gathered during their season. Well, it seems this is the season! I gathered two pocketsful of nuts--they will have to be shelled, but still, we got them fresh on the ground right under the tree. There were zillions--the park allows 25 lbs per family per year. I guess there must be millions going to waste, but we will take some home.

Then we followed the sound of a rushing brook, and it was lovely too! Really, it's an inconvenient campground in some ways, but the location is absolutely gorgeous. On our way out, the view of the valley ahead of us was fantastic also.

Valley view

 I was feeling fine, and able to drive the RV down the mountain to the visitor center, while Joe drove the Jeep. We were aggravated to find the center was closed until Wednesday, so we couldn't look at the displays, or pick up my pin! However, Joe discovered a small item which needed repair on one of the RV wheels, so he took care of that. We then got some gas, and headed for Utah-- we were only about 10 miles from the border.

The Loneliest Highway continues into Utah--but the mountains come sooner, and are very cool. I have to save my greatest superlatives for later in the day, but I didn't remember that, so I took some photos of the mountains as we went through them. Joe said, "Didn't we drive this road before? I remember this scenery!" And then I remembered, we did-- we drove this same route in 2007!

Western Utah, US-50

Remembering that helped when US 50 finally merged with I-70 in Salina, Utah. The stretch from there to Green River, a bit over 100 miles, has no services at all-- but it is the most spectacular road I've ever driven. I didn't even try to take many photos, because I remembered I took dozens with my good camera in 2007. So I am going to revisit those for this  blog and save time, LOL!  We even stopped at the same scenic pullout, and took some of the same exact photos (I couldn't resist, after all.) There was an Indian woman with her jewelry and pottery spread out at the pullout, as well, and I bought myself a necklace. It will make me think of that location when I wear it!

  Suffice to say that the road was beyond exquisite-- there are not enough superlatives to describe the incredible rock formations and colors that you pass in those 100 miles. Not to mention all the steep climbs and scary descents you have to drive down!

Teaser: Moon over the Rafael Swell on I-70, Utah

 I drove the last hour of the trip, as Joe finally admitted to being a bit weary (no wonder! He'd been the only driver for the past two days, on some pretty difficult mountain roads.) We were headed for Green River, where we stopped over in 2007. But this time, we decided to go to the Green River State Park. As usual lately, we got here a bit later than planned, and it was dark. We were very happy to see there was a ranger in the welcome booth, who could send us to the only empty site in the park--a group site. As such, it had plenty of room for us, although we did unhook the Jeep to back in.

Heading Out on the “Loneliest Highway”

View along US 50

2019-10-05 (Saturday)

I woke up today feeling a lot better. I think the chiropractor really helped. I was being careful of how I moved my body, and seemed to be okay. So Joe worked hard to get us all hooked up to leave, when all of a sudden, I got that sharp pain again! Luckily, I lay down and it eased up. I refused to be helpless this time, and put two ice packs on my lower back (where the pain was concentrated this time), and made my way gingerly into the co-pilot seat. We finally left the campground after dumping the tanks, stopped for gas, and hit the road.

And that pretty much describes the day, actually. As I think I already wrote, Highway 50 east of Fallon, Nevada is known as the “Loneliest Highway in America,” for it’s barren appearance and lack of amenities, towns, or even traffic. It certainly lives up to that reputation! We drove and drove, and although it is beautiful in a stark and barren way, there is a lot of NOTHING there! I did take some photos to illustrate it.

And that’s how the day went. We were trying to make it to Great Basin National Park for the night, and after stopping briefly in the town of Ely to get some more water, we drove the last hour knowing that the sun was sinking fast. By the time we got to the visitor’s center, we knew it would be closed—but it was too dark to even read anything without our heavy flashlight. I looked at the map in the kiosk so I knew the general direction, and we drove up a pitch-black road for about 6 miles until we came to the gate of the park. Then we drove carefully, watching for the turnoff to the campground. The turnoff road was 3 miles long and unpaved... it was PITCH BLACK and unpaved and we were driving about 10 miles/hour.

The road ahead-- US 50. It goes on forever.

Then the campground... again, pitch black. I used the lantern to read the payment instructions and look at the campground map, and we tried the one loop with pull-through. I know it was Saturday night, but I was still surprised that every single campsite was taken. In a last ditch effort, we tried the loop which had no large sites— and miraculously, found one where we could simply pull alongside it, along the road. So that is what we did. The RV was very uneven, but it was too late to try to level it. So we just bagged the whole thing, ate a very quick dinner, and are going to bed. We are both quite wiped out.

BTW: We drove this same road in 2007. Here is a link to my description back then.

The view gets prettier and less barren in eastern Nevada

Leaving Lassen (posted out of order)

Mount Lassen, seen from scenic overlook

2019-10-03 (Thursday) (This blog should come before “Ow!”, Friday’s blog)

Our day started very early, as Joe and I awoke hearing a strange clicking noise. He immediately identified it as our gas furnace attempting to turn on; the clicking meant that the battery in the RV was dead. I thought we could manage another hour--it was warm in our sleeping bag--but he is a bit obsessive about taking care of the batteries, which is of course a good thing. But poor Joe, it meant he got dressed and went outside and had to jump the RV battery from the Jeep, and then we had to run the RV engine for about an hour to juice up the batteries again. I felt terrible for the others in the park whose quiet early morning was possibly disturbed, but I suppose they would have understood if they knew we had no heat.

Anyway, the furnace went back on, the engine was turned off, and I think we both dozed off again around 7 a.m., until a little after 8. At which point we heard another odd sound which woke us up. It turned out to be a noise from the radio (which was on?) coming through the speakers over our heads in the bed. That was the final straw, and we decided the RV wanted us to get up. So we did.

Since we were leaving the park this morning (waaahh!!!), we had to hook up the Jeep. We drove a short way to the boat launch near the campground, which was flat and long and almost deserted, so we weren’t in anyone’s way. The hook-up went smoothly. Then I noticed it was about 10 minutes before 11:00. I suggested to Joey that we drive to the Visitor Center (a quarter-mile or so away) and watch the park film which is shown every 30 minutes. I figured we have 45 hours of driving time to get back to New Jersey, so how much difference is 30 minutes more going to make?

We parked and ran into the Visitor Center, getting there JUST in time for the movie. It was very interesting, and gave us a great overview of a lot of the places we’d visited yesterday, plus historical photos and videos of the volcano erupting in 1915. In some ways, I think I got more out of the video seeing it after I’d toured the park, rather than before! Afterwards, I took some time to look at the museum exhibits I’d hardly noticed yesterday morning when I’d stopped in.

Alas, by noon it was really time to stop postponing our departure, and so we headed out. We made a brief stop at the same store we’d bought gas at two days ago, to pick up a couple of cans of propane (our small propane heater was no use this morning, since it too ran out of fuel during the night.) Then we headed toward the town of Susanville. Almost immediately, we saw a sign for the Hat Creek Scenic Overlook, and we took it.

Wow!!!  The view was incredible. We had about a 180-degree view of the valley around us, with Mount Lassen in clear view, and Mount Shasta faintly visible in the distance. There were a number of panels identifying the different mountains we were seeing, and pointing out three distinct areas which had suffered from forest fires. The outlines were very clear. But mostly I found that I was having the most elated feeling being up there! I simply felt ecstatic--it was fairly warm (I was only wearing one long sleeved shirt, and the sun was shining), there was a slight but warm breeze, and the air was so clean and revitalizing. Every time I turned toward Lassen Peak, I got another rush!! It is so hard to describe.... I could have stayed up there for hours. As it was, I stood out there for at least 20 minutes, just drinking it in, and staring. Joe also agreed that the landscape was simply extraordinary. I felt so energized and thrilled just standing there. It was so very hard to leave!

Sadly, we continued south-east to Susanville, which turned out to be a cute historical town on the side of the mountain, with a main street sloping down the hill rapidly (a bit like Butte, Montana, actually.) We only could catch glimpses of it, because there was no good place to pull over on such a steep slope. So we went through, and picked up US-295 toward Reno, Nevada. We passed a number of beautiful hills at first, but then the road seemed to become more drab. We stopped to fill the RV’s propane tank, and when I walked Cassie, what looked like grass turned out to be sticker plants low to the ground. The poor thing immediately got stickers in her paws, and we had to dig them out with her. It seemed like a metaphor for leaving such a glorious location behind us.

Soon enough, we crossed into Nevada. It seems that US-295 is also not worthy of a “Welcome to” sign. That’s TWO welcome signs I got cheated out of-- California and Nevada! But even without the sign, we are here. Our sadness at “turning left” to drive eastward was compounded by finding ourselves in a 3-lane each way traffic jam! It was rush hour, of course, and we were stuck in it for a short time before all the traffic thinned out. But it could not have been more the antithesis of our glorious Mount Lassen and Lassen National Forest. Frankly, it was horrible.

Once we were past the main city area, traffic was not bad, and the scenery along I-80 was beautiful rocks again. After we arrived in Fernley, we luckily could leave I-80, since we decided we couldn’t stand to just come home on the Interstate after such a wonderful western experience. Every road has been beautiful since before the end of September! So we are taking US-50, “the Loneliest Road in America”, as it is dubbed, straight through Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Unless, of course, the weather stops us.

As it is, it was actually gorgeous weather today, warm and sunny and almost mild. We stopped for the night in Fallon, the last “big” town before the Loneliest Road really gets going (there’s nothing for another 100 miles, or more). We’re at the Fallon County Fairgrounds, where we were able to park for $15, including water and electricty. We are in a lot of company, because currently there’s a shooting competition going on here! The guy in the next RV over said he’s not a shooter, he is selling western wear clothing at a booth. We spoke to a guy dressed like Matt Dillon or some other 19th century western denizen of Dodge City, who told us he was in one of the competitions today, and placed 10th out of 48 entries. We are hoping that the event opens again tomorrow before we leave, since that would be quite an unusual event for us to attend! But if so, it will delay our arrival at our next destination, Great Basin National Park. So we will see how the morning goes.

I should add that I do have great photos from today, and fabulous ones from yesterday, but the internet here is not working so well. It is allowing me to update the blog, but not upload photos (or download them, for that matter, into my computer.) So I do hope I’ll have a chance to do that soon. Some of the photos I took yesterday should really be postcards, and the ones of Mount Lassen from lunchtime today are just beautiful. But I’m pessimistic about my connectivity for the next few days, so we will have to see how it goes.