Traveling the West, Part Two: Nevada

It takes a long time to drive across Nevada, and we did it twice on this trip -- endless stretches of highway through huge valleys surrounded by mountains you never quite seem to reach.  Rich took full advantage of that 70 mph speed limit.  I've always thought of motorhomes as large lumbering, slow-moving beasts, holding up traffic and annoying other motorists.  Not necessarily so!

Miles and miles of sagebrush and sand... there are virtually no developed rest stops, but that's what you get on the road less traveled.  We avoid crowds and highly regulated areas, anyway, so it's no matter to us.  A gravel pile is one of the best places to stop with a motorhome and two big dogs who need to run.  We spent quite a little while here.

Lots of open space to explore.  You really have to get out there and walk through it, sit a spell, look around.

Back on the road again... after driving a good deal more, we finally reached those elusive mountains and the little town of Austin.  Interesting.  Mining was its bread and butter, but it appears times have changed.  We gassed up the RV here and wandered around.  I took quite a few pictures of different areas, but have chosen only a few to share here.

The view is amazing!

There were lots of stone walls like this... perhaps retaining walls or old mines closed up.  I'm just guessing.

Desert wildflowers in August.  You know I had to photograph them.

It was a short trip through the mountains, then back to the valley.

We drove the Extraterrestrial Highway (near Area 51).  You'd think there would be more roadside attractions and businesses capitalizing on the theme, but this is the only thing we came across.

There were Joshua Trees at this elevation.

You can see quite a few of them in the background.

A little further down the road we found our rest stop for the night.  I took a photo and documented each place we stayed and it became a quest to try to get the one photo that made the place look good no matter what the real story was.  The photo below doesn't look too bad for the middle of the desert.  In fact it was just a big gravel lot behind a combo store/grill/gas station, but we felt lucky to find it.  We were the only ones there, so Wally and LuLu had the run of the place.  Full hook ups.  The owners were very friendly and we got a darn good hamburger for dinner that night.

One of the last places we stopped before we left Nevada was the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge.  There were actually quite a few of these managed marshes in the Nevada desert.  Who knew?  They're a sight for sore eyes, especially if you're a thirsty antelope or migrating bird.

I'm going to stop here because after this we headed into Arizona down Route 66 and then into Grand Canyon National Park.  That's a whole other bunch of pictures and quite a change of scenery.  Some of the most awesome stuff is ahead.  Thanks for coming along so far!