Driving across Nevada & Utah

Wednesday, 8/29

Spent the morning finishing packing and getting the house ready for AirBNB guests. We were on our way around 1:30 p.m. Traffic was mostly okay and we made Carson City, NV by 8:15 p.m.

Thursday, 8/30

Jeff’s goal yesterday was to get into Nevada which we did. We didn’t have a specific goal today but still trying to work our way east and make progress toward our first destination (Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado). There are a couple of highways we could take but all along Jeff has wanted to take The Loneliest Highway in America (Highway 50). We topped off on gas before leaving Carson City and headed out.

Since we have no specific goal we made a couple of stops along the way.

Grimes Point for petroglyphs (also a few fighter jets taking off and landing from the nearby Fallon Naval Air Station (a Naval station in the desert?) and more petroglyphs at a campground called Hickison.

Somewhere along the way we got a signal from an oncoming car to watch and almost immediately we spotted a small herd of Desert Big Horn Sheep alongside the road.

Eureka wasn’t much of a town and it was still early so we pressed on to Ely, NV. The visitor center gave us advice about local campgrounds and quite a lot of other things to see and do in this area.

Valley View RV campground was inexpensive, clean, and quiet. And the real reason we’re camping rather than boondocking is for showers (clean is nice!). We enjoyed dinner outside while listening to a pair of owls calling back and forth and got some nice pictures too.

Friday, 8/31

Only a one hour drive to Baker, NV which is at the entrance to Great Basin National Park. Our first priority was to get booked into one of the first-come first-served campsites. After lunch at our campsite we got back on the road.

The high slopes of Mt. Wheeler, which seems to be the centerpiece of the national park, are home to Bristlecone Pines*. We drove up to 10,000’ elevation, parked, and did a 2.8 mile hike to see these very special trees. The hike wasn’t actually hard but 600’ of elevation gain from a starting point of 10K required a bit of adjustment for us sea-level-living folks.

*Bristlecone Pines are the oldest living things on the planet. They routinely live to 4000-5000 years. They grow in very harsh areas with little competition from other trees. Because of the poor growing conditions they grow very slowly and therefore have very dense wood. This helps them stay alive and even after death they do not rot.

We finished the hike early enough to get to the visitor center before closing then retired to our camp for dinner. Overall, it has been very pleasant weather so far. High temp has generally been around 83. The camper is cozy when we go to sleep with the windows open and cold in the morning (but it warms again quickly).

Saturday, 9/1

We passed 1000 miles of our trip today.

Took a little walk from our campground to the next and met a family who introduced us to the edibility of chokecherries and rose hips. Baker and Great Basin NP are minutes from the border so today we continued on Highway 50 and drove about 75% of the way across Utah. It was very boring up until about the last hour but that last hour was fantastic. We got a place with a shower again in Green River, UT. Tomorrow we have a three hour drive to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.

Grimes Point Petroglyphs

Hickison Petroglyphs

Desert Bighorn Sheep

Serena stood in the middle of Highway 50 for this photo.

Someone at the campground said that females are larger than males in owls. If that is correct then this is the male of the pair we saw.

Living and dead Bristlecone Pines.

Great Basin National Park

Utah is starting to look interesting.

Ghost Rock along Highway 50/70.

Sunset in Green River, UT