Friday, August 31, 2012

Yellowstone Road Trip - Day 02

“Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance you've got to keep moving.” ~Albert Einstein

Well, the two old buzzards did not fall off their tandem bike today.  We kept moving from early morning until well after 5:00 this evening, logging more miles on Wilma than we probably will on any other day on our trip.

Our alarm in Carson City, Nevada went off at 6:30. We were at Grandma Hattie's at 7:15 and after a stop for Wilma's breakfast (gas for $3.819) we were on our way to Silver City and Virginia City. We were again on Highway 50 until the turnoff onto 342 for the two old mining towns.

There's a lot of abandoned mining structures and equipment in Silver City and some open pit mining going on. We saw present-day signs both for and against mining in both little towns.  Virginia City has some well-preserved structures and a really cute downtown that is both historical and cutsey/touristy. While in Virginia we pulled up to look at the Senior Center and were immediately entertained by the sign on the door that sternly gave notice of “NO FIREARMS ALLOWED”. In smaller letters below it said “Except by Peace Officers”. Sort of makes you wonder what happened in the past to make the sign necessary . . . some of us old folks do get pretty grouchy at times . . .

We retraced our route (on 342) and just outside Silver City we saw a bride and groom made out of various metal parts. The bride had a delicate lace-like “gown” that did little to conceal her girlish figure. They were a fun pair to see and photograph and quite an unusual decoration to be found in someone's long front driveway.

Back on Highway 50 we went through Dayton which has been arguing with Genoa for over 150 years about which one was Nevada's first settlement. Dayton was first called Chinatown.

Outside Dayton John spotted a huge cactus beside the now defunct Oasis Bar. We just had to get a photo of it to show you. Someone, long ago obviously worked hard to construct such an attention-getting cactus and it is still in amazingly good shape when compared to the deteriorated Oasis Bar.
Next was Fallon where we saw signs all over town about the Hearts of Gold Festival that starts tomorrow. Can anyone guess what fruit or vegetable the Festival celebrates? We will let you know who comes up with the first correct answer.

We noticed signs in Fallon saying “Welcome Burners”. Linda thought Burners sounds like a funny name for a high school mascot while John's conjecture is that Fallon is on the way to the Burning Man Festival.
Wilma's mission in Fallon was to help us find Starbuck's, using her GPS. After she said “Destination ahead on the left” we searched in vain on the left and right before giving up and going to McDonald's for coffee and iced tea. McD's actually makes a pretty good non-fat, no-whip mocha. The grass outside looked like a nice place to walk Fannie Mae but as she got back into Wilma we noticed that she had collected several nasty burrs into her leg fur. She wasn't too happy about letting John hold her down while Linda picked them out before that went deeper into her fur. It seems like it's desert like places that have the most vicious stickers.

After leaving Fallon we were soon on what looked a lot like a very large beach. There just wasn't any water. The sand was very light in color. Then all at once we noticed that words were spelled out in dark colored rocks, mostly black, for about a mile along both sides of the road.  They were mostly names. (Spanky, Alma, Rose, Amber,etc) declarations of love (Sam heart shape Darlene) names of schools (NSU) and words like peace, love, joy. It was quite a site to see though somewhat hard to capture in photos.

The clouds were fantastic. Lots of white puffy ones and many shades of grays and blues. Just after we went through Cold Springs we had the first in a series of showers. They were cooling and a pleasant change, making the outside temperature around 72 for miles and miles.

As it was getting longer and longer past lunchtime, the rest area Linda found on her map was sounding better and better. When we finally got to it at 1:20 John had a rice cake spread with peanut butter. Linda had some Raw Bits Twang Twang since she didn't get to have them for breakfast. She also had a boiled egg and some cherry tomatoes from the Buzzard's garden.

We changed drivers for about an hour and a half and then John drove the rest of the way to Baker, Nevada where we arrived at Silver Jack Motel at around 5:15.

After getting settled in our room we went to dinner in their restaurant promptly at 6:00 since they close at 7:30. John had an angus burger with a Mediterranean side salad and a diet Coke. Linda had a Greek salad and a pear cider. As we waited for our orders we soon learned why the cafe is called The Lectrolux. The original owner was inspired to mount a witch onto an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. After that people started bring him old Electroluxes and he built things from them too. So the name of the cafe was changed to The Lectrolux. It is quite funky and eclectic.

Speaking of eclectic, there are 49 photos in today's photo gallery. Quite an eclectic grouping of subjects. You can view the photo gallery by clicking here.

Below is a short video of our drive to Baker.



So that was our trip across Nevada from west to east, all in one day. Thanks for coming along.

1 comment:

  1. I was bummed after reading today's post & viewing the photos. No photo of the World's Largest Thermometer? Really? You were in Baker. LOL! It's on the road oft-traveled (the Interstate) so you guys were no where near it. I'll snap a shot for you next week. Have fun and keep on blogging.

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