October 14-17

October 14-17

Monday 14

Nothing new on place, animals, and landscape. I went on a frustrated walk along the beach because the internet connection is so poor, I can’t even look for a campground to go to next. Late afternoon the Mazda guy calls to tell us the car is fixed. Off we go, but traffic is too slow to go pick it up today before closing time. We go to the Verizon store instead and buy a new MiFi.

Tuesday 15

In the morning Opa Henk drives to Provo/Orem to pick up the Mazda and give back the loaner. Meanwhile I pack up the RV. After lunch we’re off: south on rte 15, west on rte 80. I follow Opa in the Mazda. He pulls over pretty quickly – the rear legs didn’t retract up completely and the warning beep is driving him crazy. They’re up plenty far enough to drive with but the beeping mechanism doesn’t care! Henk spends some time on the phone on the manufacturer’s help line and they think up a quick fix: spray the legs with the same stuff that gets sprayed into the window edges to let those slide open and closed easier. It works.

With a 45 minute delay we’re back on rte 80 and drive past two salt factories. It says “Morton” on the first one and “Cargill” on the second one. I never stopped to think where Morton got the salt, but now I know… Next the road cuts through the Bonneville salt flats. The world famous race track is on the left. Nothing going on there. We stop at a rest stop (potty break!) near the western edge of the flats and look back – the salt is sparklingly brilliantly white in the sun, very strange. At the rest stop are a few people fussing over a handful XL white balloons, we wonder what’s up with those, it looks like highschoolers doing a science fair project to me. When we leave they haven’t let the balloons loose yet.

On the other side of the Bonneville flats are rolling mountains and Nevada. Soon we see many craggy peaks with snow on top, that always looks so lovely, why do we love snow-covered mountains, I wonder. And, I didn’t know there was anything else in Nevada than desert? Silly me. Just before a mountain pass I see a dead deer with a – no, that’s not a vulture; wow! it’s a golden eagle! Never thought I’d see one of those in the wild! I’m still grinning from ear to ear when I see more rugged snow-topped mountains to the south, which makes me grin even wider. Turns out to be the Ruby Mountain Range. We cruise down one mountainside, up another, until we get to Elko. A speck on the map but it turns out to be a real town. It’s getting late but instead of staying at the local WalMart overnight, Opa turns south into town, heading to a state park at the nearby reservoir. We eventually find the road, follow it, find the turn, follow it, find the little side road, follow it, … but don’t see a campground. We dead-end on a large parking lot. Oh well! We heat up yummy leftovers for dinner, put the slides out, and find good reception so Opa can catch up on work. Tomorrow morning we’ll look around and find that campground!

Wednesday 16

Frost on the car, fog on the lake – hmmm, the thermometer says, eh, NINETEEN degrees?! Brr. This requires extra coffee. We’re still on the parking lot when a ranger stops by around 10 A.M. Very nice woman. I explain, she tells me where the campround is, we can actually see it, I pay for two nights - $28 – and we’re all good. The campground even has a water supply, unlike Antelope Island, so I can do laundry. Yeay! We move the RV to a site with a lovely view of the reservoir and its water birds on our left, and the mountains in the distance on our right.

Opa works, while I browse the book with US Scenic Byways, and discover there’s one really close by: the Lamoille Valley road.  A two hour trip, so mid-afternoon we’re off. This valley is absolutely amazing. It looks like Switzerland, except the vegetation is a bit sparse. It’s a glacier valley, U-shaped, with side valleys and snow-capped mountain peaks. Awesome. 

Thursday 17

Time to move to the next State Park. We’re off early and make an extended stop at a rest stop for Opa Henk’s business meetings. He’s actually on the phone nearly all day today, but needed his computer for this one. I contemplate the landscape here in the Great Basin of Nevada: north-south ridges of rolling mountains with flatter areas in between, some are sand flats, mostly it’s all covered in sage brush and rabbit brush. Dry and drier as we get further west, but there’s a stream running along the road. Or v.v. ;) I see absolutely no (live) wild animals today. Yesterday’s ranger told me this was the route that the Donner party took – I want to re-read the book now – and I think of them pretty much every time after we cross a mountain ridge… I can’t imagine doing this in a covered wagon…

We arrive at Washoe Lake State Park, south of Reno, late afternoon. I’ll go exploring tomorrow when Opa works. If all goes well we’ll drive the USA Scenic Byway around Lake Tahoe on Saturday or Sunday.