Winnemucca, Nevada

We drove for many many hours into the night making our way from Utah to Nevada. As we entered Nevada before sundown we passed gas stations we could not photograph quick enough upon passing in the car, that all had signs that looked like the strip in Vegas. Signs resembling marques with flashing lights. We knew we were in Nevada then.

We stayed in Winnemucca (pronounced Winn-ah-muhcc-ah) Two hours north of Reno in the middle of the desert. We arrived at the campsite in the wee hours of the morning once again. We are never certain what each campsite will look like since we have never camped before. It is always a surprise to see and figure out how we will set up camp, whether it will be gravel, rock, dirt or weeds, in which to place the tent on and stake it down. We got the tent up in the dark hopefully without waking everyone else with the headlights and rustling. We suspected since we were the only tenters the rv's were more sound proof. We slept a short time and got up to shower, eat our fruit, prepare salads for lunch and wash clothes. That is the extra hours of the day I did not figure in to this journey of ours along with all the sightseeing we were squeezing into a 24 hour day. The sun came up and it was still cool for the first hour but then the desert heat kicked in and we changed clothes quick. We stayed at Hi-Desert RV park. The facilities were nice yet we had so many more hours to go to reach Oregon with a evening deadline to have our tent on site, we didn't get to enjoy it as long as we would have liked. The town of Winnemucca was hard to maneuver with the street layout but the grocery stores carried amazing (and I mean amazing for the location) organic and whole foods and some of the prepackaged snacks we eat occasionally. We bought more fruit and moved on.

The desert wildflowers were abundant and Tracy took pictures of many and placed them on her blog http://fancyfelina.blogspot.com

The Great Salt Lake

In trying to capture the memories for ourselves through this blog, the first 156 photos have been time consuming to go through. We aren't the best photographers so it is sorting through some not-so-good shots.

This is dusk after leaving the mountains and valleys of Salt Lake City and moving out into the far west. This the the famous Great Salt Lake. Learn about it at
http://utah.com/stateparks/great_salt_lake_facts.htm

We saw the Morton Salt Factory further west. See the salt logo from the circular box? The next factory had a huge salt pile. Some of us don't use Morton's any longer but I found it interesting to see how and where it all comes from. - Karen

"Lookout" - still more to see - Utah

We never take pictures of ourselves but we tried to remember to capture ourselves as much as the scenery. The horse and owner we saw from afar was so beautiful to see and it reminded us of the horses we miss at home. We decided to say hi. I didn't catch her name but she lives in Idaho and was traveling home from Indiana. She is a traveling nurse. She takes her cat and horse wherever she goes. My sister explained they take jobs where they are needed. She must be provided with housing, in whatever state she ends up in, to house a horse and cat. It sounded like a neat life.

The green hills are on the south side of the highway, opposite the trains and rocky hills from the last post. So enjoyable to see the green of spring and early summer in the desert. - Karen

Utah - entering rest stop and lookout

We saw such beautiful rocks at this lookout. We were so small in all its greatness. Brian snapped a lot of shots of this area for great ideas in creating landscape for his model railroad. The trains looked like models against the huge rocks. We found animals, (horses and cows) amongst the rocks and tracks. barely visible.

On the road

Well we are packed in. I am trying to blog but it wasn't successful for much of the trip due to lack of internet connection. Did we overpack? Yes probably brought twice what we used, except lacking warm enough clothes, it seems. Always surrounded with coolers of foods to snack on - we kept making cocoa, sunflower butter, raw honey fudge. Brian's listening to Harry Potter book on tape and Tracy started a sequel to Peter Pan but went back to check out the original book.

Remember "Where' Waldo" or Highlights magazine finding the items in the picture. I could set that game up for you looking at the picture of Tracy's book. Start by finding the dog - do you see him? He is so used to traveling in the car almost daily and days on end he finds his spot and spreads out until he starts to own the whole seat - per Tracy. Windmills were put up since we were last here. - Karen

Heading out of Wyoming

Coming out of Wyoming, just looking at the magnitude of the rocks reminds us how wonderfully vast and huge our beautiful universe is and we were again wanting to capture the beauty. The tunnels - Gregg loves - are on the way out and into Utah. Alot of this area we have photographed over and over and filled the "my pictures" file on the computer with due to the 10 or more trips driving out to Salt Lake City, Utah for a week trip or a month long with Gregg's job. Wonderful memories and yet the beauty is still breathtaking in person each time. The weather seemed grandeur in the mountains so we captured alot of storm clouds. - Karen

We finally found "The Mine"

Is this The Mine? For many many years, while traveling with Gregg to Utah for work, we searched for this mine. We would head off the highway hoping to get close to it, but not quite finding it or not being able to see much. The antelope always would stop to stare wondering why we were venturing into their area.

Brian loves mines and open pit mines best of all. Well here it was, right on the highway. Is it the one - only our friend Cameron could tell us for sure, since he travels here for Caterpillar to check on the big rigs. We saw the sign and the large (so much larger up close of course) dump trucks as they came around the corner and then disappeared into the earth. The sign had the coolest description. Explosions in Use: Blast warning at 5 minutes before blast. A wail siren will be sounded for 10 seconds. At 2 minutes before detonation a 2 tone siren will be sounded. At 30 seconds before the blast a yelp siren will be sounded. After the blast the area will be cleared by mine personnel to assure the area is safe to reenter. We didn't get to experience all that excitement. Wow, would it have been cool.

If you click on the pictures and enlarge them they aren't as blurry looking. Again the photos don't capture the awe we experienced. The last photo is difficult to see but it is the huge boom to pick up rock (Ursa Major or Ursa Minor) and the one on the right is the drill to place the explosives in the ground - per Gregg. We felt like kids straining our necks to see what all the big people get to see, bummer.... Cool stuff anyway. Brings us back to the movies Brian watched when he was little "I dig dirt" and all the huge rigs. - Karen