Saturday (Oct 28)
After my initial distaste, I really had a pretty good time here. The remarkably good phone reception helped, but also … the psychological difference between absolutely nobody for miles and a camper or two around the corner is really big for me. Did my tai chi and a few awkward yoga stretches and generally acted like a dork in ways I might’ve been inhibited from if there were others around.
The ten miles of dusty road downhill and out of here were a lot easier than they were coming up last night. I rejoin the highway right at the outskirts of the town of Milford. It appears to have two restaurants: The first one is a beat-up cinderblock building with no windows next to the railroad tracks. I parked and gave it a thought, but my stronger thought was that this place looks really unappealing, almost sketchy. This is a small town, so the other choice can’t be too far away. Let’s check that out. I did and I liked the look of it much better. It was the very last building at the far end of town before the wide open spaces too up again. Some optimist had build a motel with a restaurant. They had wifi, a rock and roll theme (think poor man’s Mel’s) and pleasant but really spacey servers. My sausage and eggs was … acceptable.
A little before the Nevada border was this odd lake I remember from last time. Pruess Lake it’s called – still there, still very odd. The ranger says it’s a reservoir. The road runs beside it for a long time and it’s completely undeveloped. Just this long, skinny body of water with nothing around it … weird.
Then the tiny town of Baker, gateway to Great Basin National Park, as useless as ever. There are two restaurants, right across the street from each other, and they always seem to be closed … as they are today.
Sooo, turn left for the Park, and straight up, up, up to the Visitor’s Center, hoping for a relief map and to ask about campgrounds. Now that it’s over, I remember I have done exactly this at least once and maybe two times before. This is the tired old, un-cool Visitor’s Center. Nowadays it’s mostly just a place to collect tickets for the Lehman Cave tour. The cool new Visitor’s Center with the bitchin’ relief map is back in Baker, and it is closed for the season after today. I am pretty sure EXACTLY this has happened to me before, namely that I am in the wrong Vis Cen today, and the other Vis Cen is open today but won’t be won’t be open tomorrow.
As long as I was there I unfortunately let the nice ranger lady talk me into driving four miles of gravel road to try out Baker Creek Campground instead of the nice and easy, on the paved road Upper and Lower Lehman campgrounds I regretted it, so visiting the Visitor’s Center was a FAIL from start to finish.
WHUFU page for: Baker Creek Campground
Never been here because it involves three miles of gravel road while the others are off paved road. My verdict: not worth it. Nice little creek, but very dusty, and sites are NOT level.
It’s a nice enough campground I guess, with cheerful little Baker Creek running down the side, but I spent 20 minutes, doing two circuits of the campground pulling into to least eight different campsites trying to find a vaguely level spot. If a level parking spot exists here it is occupied by someone ele already, because I could not find one. Tonight will be a little bit of an adventure.
Sunday
I totally re-arranged the “bedroom” so my head was in the back (uphill end), and slept pretty well.
Down the gravel road to the main road and onward straight down Baker in search of coffee. Both restaurants were closed of course but there is a coffee truck in the empty lot at the corner. On Sunday morning it was the community meeting place!
Now I am ready for the very pretty hour or so drive to Ely. The route is shaped like a sideways “S”. North a little to join US 50 and US 6 to loop over the top of the Wheeler Mountains (where I was last night), south through the valley to loop under the Schell Creek Mountains, then north up the next valley to Ely, where US 6 splits off to head south to the Warm Springs junction where I was two weeks ago!
Sunday in the fall, NFL football is happening! None of the restaurants in Ely are particularly appealing in themselves(*), so I might as well try out the sports bar and catch a little Niners. So here I am at The Rack, which looked really unpromising from the street, but has a nice little courtyard and was quite pleasant in the back. The Niners were being pummeled again, down by a lot in the third quarter. I stopped paying attention almost immediately. I drink a $6.50 Torpedo (yikes!!!!), chow down my new favorite non-breakfast – a mushroom Swiss burger. Order a roast beef sando to go, and I’m ready to hit the lonely road again.
(*) I used to always eat liver and onions in the claustrophobic confines of the Hotel Nevada restaurant with all the kitchy stuffed animals, but the quality of the experience had declined badly last time, and sure enough, signage tell me that Denny’s has taken over operation. I’ll pass on that.
I always pass through Eureka without spending any time there, and it looks like an interesting place. But tonight will not be the night either. I couldn’t find a good price point at the local RV park, and it’s still pretty early in the day, so I will press on to old reliable:
WHUFU page for: Hickison Petroglyph Campground
Very handy, right off US 50 on a really long, really boring road with the only other option being roadside pull-offs. Far enough off the road to be very quiet.
The short petroglyph trail takes you to a west facing view over a the Big Smokey Valley, and a nice sunset.
tonight:
Very handy again. Almost full moon meant I could hike the Petroglyph Trail by moonlight!
I really had a nice evening. At sunset I did the petroglyph hike to the top of the ridge, Then hung out at various spots until I could see my moon shadow! It’s warm tonight by the standards of this trip, so I sat in the ole lawn chair sipping scotch on the rocks(*!) well into the night.
(*!)My new refrigerator has a functioning freezer, and I had made a couple of ice cubes in leftover condiment containers :))
Approaching Hickison from the east, US 50 goes straight as an arrow for 18-odd miles. I knew it was coming today and actually measured it. There are a couple of low hills, so only the last seven miles are visible from the campground. I mention this because when one is sitting in one’s lawn chair looking out over the endless mesquite plain, one sees a headlight in the distance and it moves with roughly the speed of a satellite in the sky, taking eight minutes or so to finally go past.
Monday
Last night’s warmth notwithstanding, it was 29° at dawn this morning. I got going around noon and did that thing again where I turn off of US 50 onto Nev 376 a few hundred yards to the long, straight gravel road out to Spence Hot Springs. I think about the drive and the soak and then the drive again for a while then I punt and head on to Austin. I think it’s the empty stomach that destroys my resolve. If I got it together to have oatmeal and coffee at Hickison before I started I might actually make it. Didn’t happen today though.
Austin has two meal options and they are both not good. The International Hotel trades on it’s history and quaintness, but they have a giant Trump poster out front, so they are dead to me forever. Also their food and service were awful last time. That leaves the Toiyabe Cafe, which is your basic small-town greasy spoon. Everybody knows everybody. This is where the highway crews come for lunch. They were pleasant and sincere and the food was best forgotten quickly.
A little west of Austin, I chose to turn left on “Old US 50”, aka Nevada 522. It’s about 60 miles of truly lonely road. According to Maps, it’s about 20 minutes longer that staying on the new, improved US 50, but so much more fun to drive. I encountered exactly two vehicles in those 60 miles. For the first half you drive pretty far south to skirt a playa on the right, with the majestic Toiyabe Mountains to the left. It seems like you’re going way too far south, but if you look at the map, the other route, new 50 also has to go south, it just does so in a boring stretch of desert.
So you can zig then zag, or zag then zig, and this is way more interesting.The extra twenty minutes happens when old 50 (722) gets winding and narrow going over the next mountain range (Nevada has something like 108 distinct mountain ranges!), the Shoshone Mountains. I got another excellent dose of the bright yellow cottonwoods in the canyons that I love so much.
I planned to stay at Lahontan Reservoir tonight, but driving 25 mph through downtown Fallon I started getting the urge to power on through to home tonight. Really, I think I woulda stayed – waxing gibbous moon after all! – except the Warriors are playing the Clippers tonight and I would be fun to see my first regular season game.
After Fallon, the key decision: the usual Fernley to I-80 west with the setting sun in my face, or stay on 50. I of course do the latter, which takes me past Lahontan, to check out where I would’ve stayed tonight. Maps tells me to take 50 all the way to Carson. but I am in scenic mode, so I pick my way through the mean streets of Dayton to Six Mile Road up the canyon, beautiful cottonwoods in perfect foliage, to Virginia City. Then down the hill, up Virginia Avenue to my usual route home.