After a windy night in the park, we are off early this morning, with plans to jig and jag through Nevada until we get to Battle Mountain, Nevada where we will camp for the night.
Turning out of the park on to Hwy 160, we enjoy the beauty of the morning sun casting its light on the mountains we are driving towards. We are fresh and ready for the road. Joe turns on our favourite Sirius station and you won't believe the songs they are playing today !! How about "the letter that Johny Walker read" !! lol ! Then a few minutes down the road it was "Squaws on the warpath Tonight" ... and a few miles further it was "My Dark Skinned Phillipino" !! By gosh !! I am so glad western music has had a change of heart! These songs would never get published in today's market!
After awhile on Hwy 160, we turn on to Hwy 95 north travelling through the beautiful Amargosa Valley. Oh yes - we are still in Nevada so we have passed a few Brothels.. There was "Angels Ladies" and "Shady Lady B&B". Can you imagine a senior couple in all their innocence pulling in to Shady Lady and asking for a room !! Once again - my warped sense of humour shows itself !
As we roll down the highways of this beautiful, rugged land, I reminisce about what is important in life to me. My top 3 'Heart Sings Values" are :
The love of, and time spent with, family and dear friends.
My intense love of the animal kingdom. All creatures big and small - well, maybe not the roaches !
My love of desert lands on this continent. I feel a presence of a past-life whenever I am in the Arizona and Nevada deserts. They are still magical to me, even after visiting them for 40 years.
Last nights 3/4 moon is still a faint vision in the bluer than blue sky and up ahead, we can see some huge dines off to the left of the coach about 2 miles. The sign says "Big Dune" .
Drove through Beatty, Nevada. Another old mining-era town that looks so run down and broken up but people still live here and businesses still do business ! The highway traffic would help for sure.
Leaving Beatty, turning on to Hwy 6 East a ways, then north on to Hwy 376 north, and driving towards Austin, we run once again, into an area of Joshua Tree forest. (Did you know the Joshua Tree is part of the lily family? Neither did I !!) We have a 100 miles of driving right up the Great Basin which makes for a long, straight highway framed by the Silverpeak Range on the West and the Cactus Range of mountains on the East. Desert beauty at its finest. The mountain peaks are dusted with lots of fresh snow and look magnificent against the blue spring sky.
Somewhere along this route, we turn on to 50 West to get to Austin. That is one very long mountain pass UP and one very long and windy mountain pass down. Another few miles where my eyes were closed tight. I don't do well on the downwards parts that's for sure! We ran into lots of snow that must have fallen overnight or in the past day or so but luck was with us and the roads were dry. The summit was 7500 feet in the Toiyabe National Forest. Austin, Nevada is not Austin Texas in any way, shape or form ! I must share a couple of pictures I took of this shabby little mountain town with my dear friends in the Texas town. They will get a kick out of it for sure. By the way, on the edge of Austin town limits, the highway sign said "Highway 50 - The Lonliest Road in America". And we can attest for that. We stopped a short ways out of town to have lunch and in all the time we were pulled over, two vehicles passed us heading north. Very quiet road and nice to drive.
This Great Basin is full of vegetation. I see cows out on the range finding something to eat in it. Amongst have the sage-brush dominated slopes and valleys, and the creosote bushes, they manage to get some kind of nutrition.
We then turned on to Hwy 305 ( I told you we were jigging and jagging through Nevada today !) and about an hour later, we find ourselves at Battle Mountain, Nevada. We pulled into Clark Park which is a pristine little RV park in town and will provide us with our daily respite from the highway. My driver will have an afternoon snooze, the red wine will be poured before dinner, and the menu calls for Fajita's in UBe's Coach this evening.
One thing I know for sure. This is a very large State. We have been driving for two days and are still in Nevada. Tomorrow we will spend the night at Bruneau Dunes State Park in Idaho. Google it... it has an amazing, very large sand dune. We won't have is-fi so I will post tomorrow's adventure when we next have the Internet!
The photos below are all taken from inside the RV while we are driving.
Blessings to all ..
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