Across Nevada

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After saying our goodbyes to Rich's mom and dad, we headed out to Tonopah. It's a small mining town, and like all Nevada towns, it has gambling. here is what the billboard for the Ramada Inn says, "Roll Dice for Free Room". We got groceries and drove by the high school sign, "Home of the Muckers".
Out of town we saw bands of wild horses and groups of free-ranging cattle. We passed the turn-off to the Extraterrestrial Highway and Area 51.
The bare bones of the earth are exposed here. On the flanks of volcanoes that erupted 10,000 years ago, you can still see the black lava flows with hardly any vegetation. we saw black cinder cones and red ones. You could see the upthrusts of mountain ranges caused by long-ago earthquakes with their layered rock still flat, but tilted up. We passed through Railroad Valley that had lots of oil pumpers and tanks throughout the valley. The pumpers, or donkey engines, look like a bird slowly pecking the ground for food. the oil plant was not very busy, but several oil tanker trucks did pass us going toward the plant. The whole valley smelled like oil.
We saw two coyotes and we saw two herds of deer. The only crop along the way was alfalfa.
U.S. Highway 50 through Nevada has been dubbed the loneliest road in America. We thought U.S. Highway 6 was pretty lonely. Nancy kept a tally for fifty miles. On average, a car passed us going west every three minutes. Sometimes, there would be three in a group. Sometimes ten minutes would pass without any vehicles. We didn't see any police cars at all for 167 miles!
As we approached Ely there was a huge mountain with two rows of rounded rocks about halfway up. Rich said they looked like giant teeth for giants!
We went on to the Great Basin National Park to spend the night. We set up the trailer and Rich went fishing and Nancy took Daisy for a walk.

Aha! A last chance for defeating the wily trout until spring. Elevation 7500 ft and cool. Leaves changing and beauty abounds. Wonderful. Somehow, in the pursuit of the tiny fry, the big ones having all been caught earlier, I became momentarily confused by the H's, Head and Heels. As I crossed the creek, I put one in the air and you guessed it, the wrong one. I realized that my face was entering the water, so I managed to bounce it off a couple of rocks before finding a large rock with the center of my forehead. Quickly realizing that my mouth was not meant to be underwater when breathing, I plunged my arm downward and raised my head just in time to meet the backpack with my oxygen on it's way down. I called for Nancy, but she couldn't hear me above the murmur of the stream. Reluctantly, I decided that the best course of action would be to remove my head from under the water and crawl to shore under my own power. I then staggered back to the camper, meeting Nancy and Daisy halfway. She politely returned to the camper and procured some more oxygen for me and assisted me in the return to warmth, sanity (?) and questionable health. Seems like I severely stretched my hamstring and rearranged my facial features in the name of rural beautification. See Pictures. Nancy offered to buy rich a shirt with an arrow and words that said, "This End Up" to help him out next time. She has no sense of appropriate humor. Time for bed and a fresh start on another day. I had all the fishing one man could stand.
We fell asleep to the sounds of that murmuring mountain stream.

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Photos

Rich's new face
Remember which end is up!

Comments

[T]

Decorations
By the time you guys reach Thanksgiving celebration, Rich's forhead should be lovely shades of autumn and greatly contribute to the holiday decor. Thoughtful of you, Rich! Really, please take care! Love you. T

[anonymous]

that does seem like u all r havin a blast.Altho I think Rich had to much fun.He wanted to swim with those fishes.