On the Lonliest Road in America...Highway 50 Nevada

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You guessed it the fine sunny weather continued today.We have been so fortunate with the weather considering hurricanes and rain in the south and east over the past 3 weeks.Just hope that as we come to the end of the western section of our trip that the weather doesnt perform as well as we head east on Saturday.
We had a "homemade"breakfast and Gretchen thought it would be nice to have it in bed watching GMA doing 50 states in 50 days( a bit like us !!)
We headed off to try and find the railway station to see if the steam engine that works the Ghost Railway in Ely was out in the open although it wasnt due to operate today.Well we searched but couldnt find the station in this town of 4ooo odd people so headed off on the Lincoln Highway otherwise known as the Lonliest Road in America.
Highway 50 was the first road that ran from coast to coast in the early 1900's and where it uns thru Nevada basically followed the Pony Express.
The first 70 miles to Eureka was up and down a couple of passes.The road runs basically east to west sand as the mountain ranges run north to south it meant that the road was a bit like a roller coaster except that the valleys we crossed were 30 to 40 or more miles wide.
Initially there was a little bit of truck traffic although where it had come from so early in the morning was a bit of a puzzler.
The land was basically covered in hort trees that supposedly thousands of years old and sge bushes with few animals or inhabitation visible s cruised along at 65mph.The condition of the road like almost all we have travelled was excellent nd you dont generally have to dodge potholes in the USA.
The Dodge continues to purr along and has been faily economical on the gas,which varies considerably in price sometimes between gas stations a hundred feet apart the difference can be 10 to 15c a gallon.
We rolled into Eureka an old silver mining town that had had several building from 1880 restored including the magnigicent Opera House where they still hold performances 10 to 12 times a year.Not bad for a town of about 1000 people and nothing else for 70 od miles both sides of the town.What Tauranga could have done had it saved its grand theatre instead of pulling it down all those years ago.
Had a stroll up and down the main street and took in the history before it was back on the road with the next stop for lunch t a pulloff where there were petroglypgs(spelt right?)or rock drawings that no one seems to know how or when they were made.
We are making good progress thru our larder supplies as we need to be back to a suitcase and backpack by Sat morning for the flight from SanFran.
There was very little traffic or so it seemed.It may hve been that the road was so straight for miles that just because there wasnt a car in view it gave the feeling that there was no traffic when really a car did pop up every so often.
Next was Austin another silver mining town although this time the restored buildings were not so obvious and the locals were not putting the same effort in to attract the tourists driving the road to stop and spend time to look at the towns history.There was a very impressive Catholic church on the hill which we walked up to but found it boarded up and obviously in a bad state of repair and not open.
The temerature was warm and the high eighties and with the altitude that we continue to be at of aroud 6000 ft above sea level one doesnt want to exert oneself in walking.It has also left us feeling more exhausted at the end of the day than we would be at sea level.
Back on the road again and past the Pony Express station of Cold Springs.There is basically nothing to see of the stations on the road and it is necessary to venture off the road to find what remains of any structures.
We came upon one of the few proper trees on the side of the road between Austin and Fallon(our overnight stay) where people over the years have hurled shoes tied together up into the tree to be caught on brances.The tree was pretty big and some of the shoes ha reaced the height of a least 30 feet which must have been a great hurl by someone.There were literally hundreds of hoes in the tree.The signifigance we are unaware of so perhaps we shall have to Google or Wikipedia to find out.
Next was Snd Mountain an enormous mound of snd blown up gainst a mountain rage thousands of years ago.The "mountain" is 600 feet high and 2 miles long so it mde a very impressive sight.
Navy jets buzzed overhead which alerted us that we were close to the end of the road to day for us as we neared Fallon Navy air base,the home of Top Gun !!
Fallon then came into view and our resting place for the night.Gretchen felt it was time we had some real meat so it dinner out at Jerrys with unlimited soft drink refills.Gretchen got the ribs she had been waiting for.
Along the way today we had got our I survived the Lonliest Road card stamped and we have 2 more to get tomorrow before we send it away to get our official certificate in the mail.
All in all its been a journey on 50 we are glad we took and can now tick that of the things to do before...........................

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