Virginia City

Virginia City is about a 30 minute drive from our campground in Carson City.  We packed our little soft-sided cooler with a couple cokes and a few snacks and fully intended to be home for a late lunch.  That didn’t happen.  We made a day of it in this old west town.

Number 1 mine at Silver City

I liked the drive up there almost as much as the town itself.  We drove through Silver City and Gold Hill passing what remains of the old mines.  In Gold Hill, we found the Gold Hill Hotel, the first hotel in the Comstock area.  There had been plenty of boarding or rooming houses, but this was the first real “hotel”.  It is a restaurant now.  Silver City is still a community with a post office, much to our surprise.

At the top of the mountain is Virginia City and underneath Virginia City was the Comstock Lode, the first major silver mine in the United States.  The Comstock Lode, discovered in the late 1850s eventually yielded $400 million in silver and gold.  Virginia City sprang up overnight after the discovery of silver in the area and almost vanished when the mine played out.  Today, there are about a 1,000 residents in Virginia City and we probably saw nearly all of them today as waiters and bartenders in the restaurants, clerks in the stores, or as locals dressed in period attire giving the streets of Virginia City a look of the past.

There are actually two sections in Virginia City, though without a practiced eye you wouldn’t notice.  There is the southern portion of the town which survived the great fire of 1875 and the northern end of town that was rebuilt in 1876 having been burned to the ground.  The main street consists of these old buildings which are maintained and offer the tourists almost anything they may want.  There are the saloons, of course, and this is still Nevada so there is gambling.  The shops sell everything from cheap trinkets to hand-crafted jewelry.  There are western wear shops selling mass manufactured denim to Stetson hats.  You may prefer a custom-made felt hat.   It was fun to step into a few shops just to finger the merchandise.  And if you’re into old building architecture, Virginia City has plenty of that.

One of the things we enjoy is peaking inside churches.  We noticed a sign outside the First Presbyterian which invited visitors to come on in.  We did.  We were sitting on the back pew enjoying the stained glassed windows, when a gentlemen wearing a T-shirt and shorts approached asking if we had any questions.  Gene had some question of another which the kind man answered, then he went into a discussion regarding the organs.  There were two, one in front and one in back.  Come to find out, this guy was the organist for the church and volunteered to play a little for us.  It was fantastic—our own little concert.  This gentleman (I have forgotten his name) was doing some work on the outside of the building and had gotten a splinter in his hand.  He came inside to take care of that injury when he found us there.  What a blessing he was to us and he is to his congregation.

We’ll be back on the trail tomorrow in the South Lake Tahoe area.

Spooner Lake Trail

With a little effort we got ourselves ready and out the door this morning about 8:30.  It is a glorious day in northern Nevada—a great day for a hike.

The trail was through pines and aspen

US 50 is a mere half mile from our campground and US 50 leads to Lake Tahoe about 25 miles from here.  We were looking for a trail to hike.  After about 10 miles, we noticed a rather large parking lot which, on the side of a major road in a National Forest, usually means a trailhead is nearby.  It turned out to be a junction with the Tahoe Rim Trail, a 165-mile trail which encircles Lake Tahoe.  Also at this junction was an access trail which led down to Spooner Lake and the 2.1 mile trail which encircles that lake.  We could see snow on the higher peaks, but none at this elevation (7146 ft).  This would do nicely for our hike today.

View from our break spot

We started out along the Tahoe Rim Trail and intended to walk for about an hour or until we ran into snow.  The trail was a wide, sandy footpath through pine and aspen.  We had a couple glimpses of Spooner Lake, but none of Lake Tahoe.  (We were still several miles east of Lake Tahoe when we came to our parking lot along US 50.)  About 45 minutes into our walk, we came to a signpost marked “vista”.  We took the short side trail to see what the vista had to offer.  It was such a great place we took our break there and made it our turning around spot.

View from Tahoe Rim Trail

After our return trip along the Tahoe Rim Trail, we took the access trail down to Spooner Lake.  In the mid 1850s, this area had been a meadow.  Mr. Spooner, a Lake Tahoe pioneer, had settled in the area and established a lumber company to supply lumber to shore up the shafts of the numerous gold and silver mines in the area.  His business turned out to be quite successful.  To help supply demand for lumber, Mr. Spooner put in a flume to send the timber downhill.  He built a dam to create this small lake at the base of the flume.  As the mines played out so did Mr. Spooner’s business and the land, along with the lake, changed hands several times over the years until the state of Nevada purchased it in the 1970s.
Spooner is a pristine lake, cold and clear, fed primarily by snow melt.  The trail around the perimeter is close enough for great views, but far enough away to keep visitors from disturbing the water fowl.  Today we saw a fairly large flock of Canada geese and a couple mallards.

Another look at Spooner Lake

We really like it here.  We like it so well, we have decided to stay.  Gene has already reserved our spot for a month and cancelled all the other reservations we had west of here, including the Montana Owners Rally in Oregon.  There are several things to do around here—Reno is only 30 miles away, the junction of US 50 and NV 28 is only 10 miles from here and from there you can go left to South Tahoe or right to North Tahoe Lake.  Bishop, California is about 100 miles south on US 395.  There is a Borders Books across the street and one of our favorite things to do is sip coffee at a bookstore.  Of course, there are the hundreds of miles of trail to be hiked.  We’ll be back to the Tahoe Rim Trail, although much of that will still be under snow even when we leave here.

Gene liked the looks of this pine cone

I think the reason we like it so much is because of the trees.  When we got up to 6000 feet today, there were trees everywhere.  There are even trees in our campground.  We have seen nothing but brown for so long, the first tree we came to we had to stop and give it a big hug.  How pitiful is that?  Anyway, we want to do some hiking in the high mountains of Oregon and we have to wait for some of the snow to melt.  We might as well do some of our waiting here.

Our trail ended on the boardwalk through the Aspen

One other thing may have had an influence on our decision to stay—rest for weary travelers.  We have been trotting along at a pretty fast pace since we left Nashville at the end of December.  This is really not our style.  We much prefer to stay at least 3 weeks in an area.  I think we were just ready to give the road a rest when we saw those gorgeous tree covered mountains.

Tomorrow, we are planning to drive over to Virginia City.  That should be fun.

Carson City, Nevada

Oh, what a wonderful difference a few hundred miles and a few thousand feet in elevation make in the outside temperature.  We are enjoying a very pleasant, sunny day with temperatures in the low 70s.  No AC today.

We got our errands done this morning which included trips to the grocery, bank, pharmacy, post office and gas station.  With those things out of the way and a quick lunch under our belts, we went downtown Carson City to tour the Nevada Capitol Complex.

Kit Carson

Supreme Court building

The Washoe Indians were the first residents of this area until the Europeans came in the 1840s.  Carson City is named for Kit Carson in a round about way.  The explorer, Fremont, named the river Carson after his trusted scout Kit Carson.  Several years later, the settlement at Eagle Station Ranch, located on the river and a stopover for travelers on the California Trail, was renamed Carson City.  Like many places in Nevada and California, the discovery of gold and silver resulted in a population boom for Carson City.  Nevada became a state in 1864 and Carson City was named the capitol.  Those were the good times for the area.  Population began to decline when the Southern Pacific Railroad bypassed Carson City.  It took until the 1960s for the population to finally surpass what it had been in the 1880s.

Legislature building

Back side of the capitol

The current capitol building is the original built in 1871.  A major renovation in the late 1970s and an addition in 1905 of the octagonal building directly behind the main Capitol building give us what we see today.  The state legislature is not located in the Capitol building but next door.  With the State Supreme Court building located between and behind the Capitol and Legislative buildings, the Capitol Complex forms a triangle.

US Mint

Down the street a few blocks is the old Carson City US Mint Building.  The output from the gold and silver mines in the area plus the high cost of transporting bullion to San Francisco warranted a mint in Nevada.  It was in operation from 1870 to 1893.

We walked along Carson Street (US 395) for a few blocks in each direction from the Capitol building.  It is truly a small town with very little traffic, no highrise buildings, and no parking meters (parking is free and easy to find).  What a delight!

On our tour, we also stopped in at the Forest Service Office to inquire about hiking trails.  There are plenty of trails about, but most seem to be covered in snow at the moment.  We are going to drive over to Lake Tahoe tomorrow to see if we can find a trail low enough not to be buried in the white stuff.  If no hiking is available, then we’ll just walk along the lake shore.

From Vegas to Carson City

We pulled away from our campsite in Las Vegas about 8:45 AM on Tuesday morning.  This afternoon, about 450 miles later, we are settled between the trees, tucked under the snow-capped mountains in Carson City.  It wasn’t a bad drive, really, even though it was long.  We jumped on US 95 heading north, taking that road all the way to Fallon where we hung a left onto US 50 (the Loneliest Road) and rolled right on into Carson City.

Abandoned Silver mine

Tuesday was just a ride down the road without much in the way of interesting sights to look out.  The landscape continued to be what we have seen since we arrived in the Rio Grande Valley and what we’ve dubbed “stinking desert”.  The only thing of any interest at all was the “world’s largest firecracker” outside Alamo Fireworks.  We would have missed it if we hadn’t pulled off the road for a break in their huge parking lot.  We made the picture, but had our doubts as to the accuracy of the statement “world’s largest”.  It just didn’t seem quite big enough.  Maybe at one time it was the “world’s largest” and they just haven’t gotten around to changing the sign to “world’s second largest”.  Of course, we could be wrong and it could be the “world’s largest firecracker”.

Columbus Salt Marsh

Old Motel in Tonopah

Gene takes me to the finest places.  I know this because he mentions it from time to time.  Most recently, he reminded me of his propensity to take me to the finest places yesterday as we pulled into our campground in Tonopah about mid afternoon.  On our little scale of rating the campgrounds we stay in, Joy-Land Campground falls in that category at the bottom of the scale—don’t ever go there again.  It is hard to describe Joy-Land.  It is just a mile from US 95, so was conveniently located on a little road that ran downhill for about a half mile till there was no road left.  Being on such a downhill slant, we were quite surprise to find our campsite pretty level.  Joy-land has three sections, each with about 6 sites.  We wanted a pull-thru so we were sent to the last section at the end of the road next to the landfill.  Well, it really wasn’t the landfill, it was someone’s front yard, but it looked like a landfill.  Everything was gravel; there were no interior roads, just large gravel lots.  Hookups were installed around the perimeter and you drove around in the middle.  Of course, for the pull-thru spaces, (there were 4 of them) there was a large area for driving at the back.  This was a Passport America park and for $10/night you got full hookups and cable TV; not that the Cable worked, but it was included.  I will have to admit that the shower house and laundry facility were first rate and spotless.  I will also have to admit that Joy-Land (though rated poorly in all campground directories was rated better than the only other campground in town).

Walker Lake near Hawthorne

Tonopah has fallen on hard times.  In the early 1900s it was a booming gold and silver mining community.  Today, the abandoned mines can be seen dotting the hillside.  Of the 2000 or so residents of Tonopah work at the nearby Nellis Air Force Testing Range.  My favorite thing about Tonopah was its elevation.  At a little over 6000 feet, we were out of the heat.

World's largest firecracker

More Vegas to Remember

After dinner last night we drove down to see the lights.  We didn’t even get out of the truck.  We just drove from our campground all the way through to the other end of the strip and back again.  Traffic was heavy; apparently other folks had the same idea.  It is only 5 miles from our campground, but that took over 2 hours of driving time. We were certainly going slow enough to get a good look around.

This morning we were out early trying to beat the worst of the heat.  They are having record highs this week—98 today.  It is incredibly hot walking along the street with the sun beating down, car exhaust permeating the air, and the mass of humanity crowded along the sidewalk.  Again, we parked at the Bellagio, but today we walked south from there to the MGM Grand.  It seems like the MGM is always mentioned in any conversation about Las Vegas, but we were not so impressed.  I wanted to see the live lions, but they must have had the day off; they were nowhere to be found.

From there, we made our way across the street to New York, New York.  This is a massive structure resembling the New York skyline.  There was even a roller coaster, I guess representing Coney Island.  Yes, there were people riding.

Continuing south down Las Vegas Blvd, we stopped at the Excalibur and Luxor. I think we were getting tired by then and/or we had reached our enjoyment peak; we just wanted out.  It was lunch time anyway and a nice break sounded appealing.

Gene had investigated the numerous buffets on the internet earlier and we had decided on lunch at the Paris Hotel.  The buffet there featured foods from the regions of France—Alsace, Provence, Burgundy, and Normandy.  This is not the usual fare at the local buffets in Nashville, or even in Las Vegas.  We made our way back to the Bellagio where we had started from and crossed the street to the Paris Hotel.  It was a good choice for lunch.  We started out with peel and eat shrimp, skipped the variety of soups and salad, sampled many of the main dishes (our favorite may have been the coq au vin), and finished with crapes and crème brulee for dessert.

We finished off our visit to Las Vegas by touring the Paris Hotel then one last trip through the Bellagio to our truck.  With our trip back down to the strip last night to see the neon and with today’s excursion, we have had as much of Las Vegas as we can enjoy.  We never got far enough along the strip to closely investigate Circus, Circus, Treasure Island, or the Flamingo—all big names in this city.  We’ll have to save those for our next visit.

I haven’t really been able to gather my thoughts on how I feel about this town.  We are not gamblers or shoppers; we came to see the lights and glitz.  We do enjoy seeing hotel lobbies, especially historic hotels.  The hotels we went in were remarkable—almost like little cities themselves.  Some even took on an amusement park atmosphere.  The Bellagio may have been the most elegant and the Excalibur more on the amusement park end of the scale.  We marveled at the shops in Caesar’s Palace—Armani, Gucci, Cartier, Tiffany’s, and somehow the Gap made it there.  Incredible.

Many folks come for the shows.  We are only familiar with prices for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, but somehow the big name shows seem expensive here.  Personally, if I’m going to pay a high price to see Phantom, I’d rather see it on Broadway.

 The heat had some bearing on our overall enjoyment, but the crowds on the sidewalks and in every building and the heavy traffic pushed us over the edge.  It was very reminiscent of New York City.  At least in New York there are art galleries and museums and many other things to see and do.  I could stay in New York an extended period of time; I’m ready to leave Las Vegas.

And leave we are!  In the morning we will be heading to Carson City.  It is too far to make it in one day so we’ll stop somewhere along the way.  I’ll definitely be glad to get out of this heat.

Vegas, Baby!

This afternoon we drove the 5 miles from our campground to “the Strip” of Las Vegas.  It was pretty remarkable, to say the least.  We were going to spend the afternoon walking along the strip and ducking into a few of the hotels to see the sights.  We are not gamblers, so we weren’t interested in the gaming rooms for their intended purpose.  They were interesting to walk through, however.

The Bellagio

Bellagio fountain with Caesar's Palace in background.

We parked the truck at the Bellagio and started from there.  It was so immense that we were already tired by the time we walked out onto the street to the next hotel—Caesar’s Palace.  Caesar’s we found to be gigantic.  We twisted and turned so much, we were almost lost.  By the time we had seen Caesar’s, the afternoon was gone and we were exhausted.

Here are a few photos from these two hotels.  We are going back tonight, to get the full experience of the neon city after dark.

Las Vegas, Nevada

We are actually in Las Vegas; another place which has been on Gene’s list for a long time.  I was here 20 years ago, but I would not recognize anything from that first visit.  I’m lucky to even remember that visit.

Our drive from Williams was really uneventful in the scheme of things.  I-40 from Williams to Kingman was very rough in a lot of areas.  What took us most by surprise were the dark patches of what looked to be new asphalt.  After we hit the first one, we knew to avoid the rest if possible.  They were rougher than the old concrete surface.

We stopped at the Flying-J in Kingman for a break and one last torque of the tires.  That was when Gene discovered our new license plate, which he just put on yesterday, was hanging by a thread.  He was able to buy new bolts or screws or whatever he needed at Flying-J and make the repair.  I was inside fixing us a sandwich when I heard a gentleman ask if he was switching plates.  I wonder if he reported us as thieves to the authorities.  Perhaps that was why they searched our rig at the checkpoint before going over Hoover Dam.

We got off I-40 in Kingman and onto US 93.  Gene had called yesterday to be sure we would be allowed to tow our trailer over the dam.  US 93 was a much better drive than I-40, with a better road surface and much less traffic.  The view out the window was pretty bleak, however.  I know, there are those who can see the beauty in this rugged landscape.  I, however, failed to see it and once more was missing the spring growth of the east.

Within 20 miles or so of Hoover Dam, we ran into road construction which lasted until we reached Nevada.  In a couple of years, when this project is finished, it will be a fine new road.  Today, however, the concrete barricades were a little to close on this stretch of winding road to make for a relaxing drive.

I made a few photos out the window as we drove over the Dam.  This is Saturday, of course, so there were many, many visitors and traffic was bumper to bumper.  The road isn’t straight, the dam isn’t even straight.  With all the people milling about and cars pulling in and out of parking lots, Gene was totally focused on getting from one side to the other without hitting a person, a car, or a concrete barricade.  He commented that it reminded him of that time he pulled the Montana through the garden department at Wal-Mart on his very first day of towing.

We did not stop at the Dam.  We have both been there and done the tour so it is not a priority on our list for this visit.  For anyone who hasn’t been there, I would strongly encourage a visit.  It is definitely well worth a trip.

Once in Las Vegas, we got into the traffic jam on I-15.  It must have taken us an hour to get to our exit.  One of our new neighbors who pulled in right behind us could not understand our dismay with the traffic on I-15.  To him, it was normal.  To us, not having seen that many cars since January, were a bit overwhelmed.

We’re in the process of getting settled in now; but may go down to the strip later this evening.