TRIP TO TONOPAH, NV

I will start this at the end of the trip, seeing how I posted the pictures backwards and don't want to change them. We left Reno with temperatures in the high 30s and headed south. I checked the weather and the road conditions before making the decision to leave. I thought, we're heading south it ought to be a lot nicer. Silly me, I am new at this "elevation thing". We left Reno at 4500 feet above sea level and spent the night at 6100 feet. Need I say it was pretty chilly up there. There is Passport America in Tonopah and we had driven our 250 miles so we pulled in. The price was $10.00 for full hookup, not bad. Now we no why it was so cheap. They advertised wifi and cable. We could neither to work so I called the manager to inquire about them. Well the cable company went out of business and we were to far away to get wifi. They have 3 lots down this REALLY depressed road and all the back in sites were in lot 3. Guess which lot has wifi..... lot 1 of coarse. We were going to spend a couple of nights there to look around, but the weather and no phone or internet, we decided to head downhill. Now for drive here.
Tonopah (Ta NO pa) is typical of the little mining towns in this area. The town is pretty close to the original mine, built right along side the road and not far on either side, on a twisty stretch of road between hills or mountain tops. The road on either side of these towns is pretty straight.

Our site was pretty too, if you kept your eyes up! This place is not for the timid. There are other rv parks in town, so don't bypass Tonopah on that account. We stayed in but there seemed to be plenty to occupy you for at least one day.

We passed the very pretty Walker Lake

When we got up to about 5500 feet my worst fears for traveling were realized. The snow was falling. I slowed way down and hoped that I didn't have to stop in a hurry.

We drove through snow squalls, light rain showers, and one big ice deluge.

I'm getting more nervous by the minute. The ever optimistic Louise say we will drive out of it. She was right. We didn't go very far when it all stopped, THANK GOODNESS.
We drove through most of the threatening weather in the morning. In the afternoon the sky was overcast, but increasingly showed patches of blue.

The terrain we drove through was high desert, and the road most of the time dead straight, but we weren't bored. The landscape changed constantly--here flat with low bushy plants like sage and grasses, then sudden upthrusts of gravel hillocks, next flat with fewer bushes and large bare white areas almost like dried up ponds. We passed miles of Joshua Trees. Mountains were close, then receded to the far distance. Suddenly they were back with dramatic banded or swirled striations.

We took a lot of pix and had a terrible time deciding which ones to post. These are just a very few that poorly represent the drive from Reno to Tonopah on Nevada 95. We passed at least a hundred rvs of every type, and big trucks too. As usual we seemed to be going the wrong direction! If you are in this area and want to make the Las Vegas/Reno connection either way, this is the only route but a good one.

I especially liked these dramatic cloud veils.

Our traveling companion for the beginning of the trip was the Truckee River. It originates in Lake Tahoe and flows alongside I80 winding and meandering among the foothills, disappearing and reappearing frequently, chuckling along its merry way until our cut toff on SR 50. There it flowed under the road somewhere and rolled on to its end in Pyramid Lake.

Because of the bad weather system moving through we didn't stop for lunch but snacked in the truck. In spite of that, the drive was for the most part pretty enjoyable.

Next--Tonopah to Beatty and more adventures!

Louise and Duane