Just a few miles west after the Bonneville Salt Flats is Nevada. We exited I-80 to go into the town of West Wendover for a bit and Rhonda missed getting a picture of the "Welcome To Nevada" sign which was at that exact intersection and it was a dead end off the ramp into a concrete wall with the exit sign on top of the wall?? Never seen anything quite like that. When we finished up in town, we tried backtracking to a previous exit so we could get the sign the second time through, but that got confusing and a little difficult - remember we have an extra 20,000 pounds and 43 feet following us around. Wherever we go, it has to go! We finally gave up and went to the next available entrance ramp back on to I-80. So, I had to borrow from the internet again. Nevada has two welcome signs, a very colorful one and a dull and boring one. The one we missed was the dull and boring version. I even found one that was about the same angle as the real thing as we looked up at it on top of that concrete wall!
I can show you about 2 or 3 pictures and you have then seen most of northern Nevada along I-80. Long highways that sometimes disappear into the horizon or mountains.........
.........dry grassland with sagebrush scattered throughout and occasional mountain peaks and ranges to the side. This one is specifically named Pilot's Peak.
Duplicate the above for about 400 miles and there you have it - Northern Nevada. Hey, I'm glad we didn't cross on Highway 50 in mid-Arizona. It is basically the old Pony Express route and is nicknamed "The Loneliest Road in America." But there are a few variables now and then on Interstate 80. We believe this to be a wildlife overpass crossing like we saw in Montana.
There were three or four others under construction. I'm telling you, this is about as exciting as it gets!
Then we arrived at our first overnight stop in Nevada, the town of Wells, and things picked up quite a bit. We saw our first brothels - "Donna's Ranch" and "Bella's." I'm only showing you "Donna's Ranch" since the advertising on "Bella's" was a little risque' for this blog. And I'm only showing you the back of "Donna's Ranch" for the same reason but I can tell you that "it has been open 24 hours a day since 1869." (I guess I've heard Trump say "I can tell you" so many times that I'm saying it now).
They don't make it easy to get to these brothels and in the process of navigating several dirt roads to find them, we encountered a field full of jack rabbits! They are a little skittish but we managed to zoom in on a couple and get a good picture. Now that's a set of ears.
On the other end of the spectrum from brothels, we found an actual Southern Baptist Church, and attended the Wells Baptist Church service the next morning. We have noted previously that most of the churches we have been able to find on this trip have been mission efforts with very small congregations. This one averages about 20 people each week, not counting their Spanish outreach program on Saturdays.
More of the same type of scenery enroute to our next stop at Winnemucca.
Yes, the name is Winnemucca. We wondered about the name too. Turns out Sarah Winnemucca was the first Native American author. Her family pursued friendly relationships with arriving settlers. Later, war between her tribe and the settlers broke out. Sarah and some of her family traveled to San Francisco to escape the fighting. Sadly, her mother was killed by the U.S. cavalry. After that, Winnemucca became an advocate for Native Americans and traveled across the country to tell of the plight of her people. We're jumping ahead a little here but there is a statue of Sarah in the State Capitol building in Carson City recognizing her efforts and influence on the state.
The excitement in Winnemucca was tires. It's not uncommon for veteran RVers (the men at least) to walk up to your RV just as you are getting settled at a new RV Park and check out out your tires. They all use the same line - "What kind of tires you got on that thing?" Being still relatively new at this, I appreciate any good information fellow RVers want to share. Here's the short version and I have heard it over and over again - most manufacturers put the minimum legal set of tires on RVs to carry the factory weight, usually 10-ply tires, and most RVs are operating on the highway overloaded or at least close to maxing out. Ours is the same way and I have just not been happy with the tires on our RV. We have already had one to shred way back in Mitchell, SD, doing some damage to the RV, but fortunately we were able to make repairs and continue the trip. We changed out another one with the spare and two others were not wearing correctly. And the problem is that when they need changing, you are at the mercy of whatever dealer you can find and what they carry in stock, in most cases, inferior 10-ply Chinese brands. All the experts keep telling me nothing will fix the problem except Goodyear 614 tires, a 14-ply tire with other structural stuff that I don't understand. I'm not a tire guy.
I decided it was time in Winnemucca, found a great Goodyear dealer in town, and started making up the "We Will Work For RV Tires" signs to be able to afford them! I also decided to call our manufacturer, Grand Design, and chewed on them a bit for putting minimum rubber on an RV that they advertise to be a high quality product. The guy actually immediately agreed with me and said they stock all of their products now with 14 ply tires (but still a Chinese brand, Westlakes) realizing that the 10-ply tires just don't cut it. He offered to pay half of whatever we wanted to put on the RV so we decided the temporary job would not be necessary and bought the Goodyear 614s. The dealer said these babies are the same tires used on vehicles like busses and car haulers. I definitely feel better about our tires now and am really looking forward to one of those veteran RVers walking up and asking me, "What kind of tires you got on that thing?"
We left Winnemucca with our Goodyear 614s and headed for Reno and Carson City. We decided to stop for lunch at Lovelock, NV - they have capitalized on their name and built a city park where lovers can place a lock in the park symbolizing their love for each other. We've seen similar deals like this in a couple of cities (Nashville comes to mind) but most of the locks are attached to chain link fences on pedestrian bridges over rivers. Here's Lovelock's version and they have several of them. (We did not have a lock so we did not get to "lock our love in Lovelock." But after 40 plus years we are on pretty solid footing without a gimmicky lock on a chain in Nevada!)
Did I mention that every little town in Nevada has one thing in common going for them (besides brothels of course) - CASINOS! It's really beyond our imagination at how many we see because it takes lots of people pouring lots of money into them to keep them in business. We just don't get it. Some areas also have winter ski resorts but casinos are everywhere in this state (and we haven't even gotten to Vegas yet)!
We chose Carson City as our next stop for its proximity to good motorcycle rides, Lake Tahoe, Bonanza stuff like Virginia City, and it's the state capitol.
Reno and Carson City highways and bridges have lots and lots of cool graphics and statues. Note the eagle in the picture above and its size in reference to the cars passing by on the highway. Here's a closeup below. This thing was yuge (Trump again).
The next morning, I finally got my bike out again for the first time in a while and headed for the #2 motorcyle ride in Nevada - Lake Tahoe, into the ski slope hills from there above Incline Village, up Geiger Grade Road over to Virginia City, and back to Carson. Below, Lake Tahoe from the south and overlooking Incline Village.
Some of our church friends back home were here last weekend and said the water is 99.9% clean. I'd say that's pretty accurate.
This is Emerald Bay on the California side.
Oh, I forgot the "Welcome To California" sign.
More Emerald Bay.
And one more of Tahoe from the west side looking east.
I left on my bike ride pretty early to take advantage of the cool temperatures (57 degrees at 7 AM), so Rhonda and I still had time to head out after lunch to check out Virginia City and Tahoe together. Here's a brief history and update on this area as regards the popular TV series, Bonanza. Most of the series was actually filmed in Incline Village and up until 2004 you could tour some of the actual set. As best I can determine, much of that is still standing today, but is no longer accessible to the public after purchase by a developer who claims "the real estate values had gotten too high to keep Bonanza memorabilia the priority." (Obviously he did not grow up watching Hoss and Little Joe.)
Virginia City is about 25 miles away and still retains a real old west feel about it. The city was populated around a huge silver find called the Comstock Lode (named after a prospector who originally owned the land but sold it before the silver find and missed out on all the wealth. He sold it to an ancester of the Hearst family, publishing mogul who obviously did capitalize on the wealth). It sprung up almost immediately around the time of the Civil War as a very prosperous mining town, the value of which in today's market was estimated to be around a billion dollars. One of Nevada's sayings is "Battle Born" and is in reference to the major support the Union received from the monies from the mines that went toward the war effort. To this day, there is confusion about the state motto between "Battle Born," "The Silver State," and "All For Country" (the actual motto). I stopped in at Carson City Harley Davidson and every one of their t-shirts had "Battle Born" on them. Here's the phrase on an emblem at the state capitol building in Carson City.
Downtown Virginia City.
Here's a view of the town from the cemetery (No - Hoss, Adam, Little Joe, Paw, or Hop Sing are not buried here). Note the yellow colored mounds are all remnants from the mining process. The Comstock Lode was about 90% silver and 10% gold but most of the value from the mines was from the gold because of its much greater value.
There are three towns that make up "Gold Canyon" - Virginia City, Silver City, and Gold Hill. Some of the original mining equipment is still in place such as the "head frame" (mid right below).
A close -up of another one on the east side of Virginia City.
There were some scenes from Bonanza filmed at Virginia City. You probably remember "The Silver Dollar Saloon."
Rhonda and I headed west out of Virginia City down Geiger Grade Road for some pictures - more of the "high desert" landscape that is common here and much of the western states.
Look closely and you can see Reno in the distance.
And I'll close with a little more on the capital of Nevada, Carson City. This is the original capitol building and the "feel" of Carson City is not what you'd expect. It has a small town feel about it. You can just walk in the front door of the capitol building, some guards ask if you are visiting or on business, and you can wander around the first 2 floors on your own, no body scanners, no anything.
We walked right up to the offices of folks like The Secretary Of State, and even the Governor (nameplate above the door)..
And here's the Governor's mansion a few blocks away in the middle of a lot of old historic homes.
So, Nevada was fun and we'll be returning to the state later when we head back east through Las Vegas. In the meantime we have lots of territory to cover in California. We covered 275 miles today westbound from Reno, across the Sierra Nevada Mountains, through Sacramento, north through some of Napa Valley, and at this writing we are at an RV Park in Nice, CA on the north side of Clear Lake, largest lake in CA. Tomorrow we'll be in the redwoods of CA at one location for a week, about 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The owners of the RV park say there is no TV, very little WIFI or phone coverage, and the closest grocery store is 50 miles away, so we'll see how that goes. But the scenery is beautiful, the Pacific Coast Highway and the #1 and #4 motorcycle rides for CA are close by, and we need a little time to rest up anyway. Later!
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