Day 13

It was easier getting up in the morning with us being closer to our time zone. Actually we only had to go a short distance to enter the Pacific time zone just east of Wendover, Nevada. The schedule we kept in Wichita made it such that our internal clocks were still on Pacific time. By that I mean that, while in Wichita, we stayed up late and slept late according to clocks in Wichita. However, the times would be close to our normal California schedule.

There is a place on I-80 that I always enjoy seeing. It is a valley that we come to before getting to Wells, Nevada. The valley appears to be covered with a green carpet when we first see it in the distance as we come down a mountain incline. Even though this valley is located in a high-desert environment, it has always been green this time of year.

The valley ahead appears as if it is covered with a green carpet

Another scene that appears as we approach Wells is the snow capped Ruby Mountains. This is another seemingly paradoxical view;.cool looking, snow capped mountains in the heat of the high-desert. I find it refreshing, as I drive along in the heat of the day, to have the cool mountains within my field of vision.

It seems strange to be in a hot desert with snow-capped mountains

As I mentioned in an earlier page, as I've driven on several of the Interstate routes, I've seen where the Interstate has replaced sections of the old U.S. Highway System. Up in Wyoming I could see remnants of the old U'S. 30 Highway and down here in Nevada there are places where I can see old pieces of the old U.S. 40 running parallel to our direction of travel.

In some cases the old highway surface is maintained to accommodate people living and working next to the old highways. On the other end of the scale, I seen places where the highway is being overtaken by grass and weeds, some of which can be seen growing up through a crack in the center of the roadway.

A section of the old U.S. 40 Highway runs parallel to the I-80 freeway

I pulled into a rest area to stretch my legs a bit. Across the highway from where we were parked was a field of burned grass. We see such sights fairly often during our travels. This was a large burned area, so I thought I would take the opportunity to take a few pictures. Then I noticed several hot spots where smoke was swirling up in what looked like miniature tornados. When we returned to the highway driving along the burned area, I spotted a fire truck parked on the edge of the field with two firefighters heading toward a hot spot with a hose. I'm guessing that the fire was somewhat recent.

A large area showed the results of a range fire

A recent fire left several hot spots where smoke rose as a funnel shaped clouds

When we were getting close to Winnemucca, I saw an oversized load approaching on the other side of the freeway. The load was identical to one I had seen in Wyoming the day before. The wide load was a very large dump truck bed — the type used on trucks in big strip mines — being hauled on a flatbed semi-trailer. The bright yellow load was so wide that it spanned both lanes of the freeway. Fortunately, there wasn't much eastbound traffic to be held up by this slow moving obstruction. In Wyoming the same type of load blocked the highway causing a long, slow procession to follow at about 30 miles per hour. I was glad that the load was not in front of our motorhome.

A very wide load that travels very slow

When we reached Winnemucca it was time for lunch. So, I decided to drive up to the Burger King on the hill as we've done on previous trips. Without thinking about it I drove right into the parking lot. Whoops, the parking lot was much smaller than I remembered. I noticed that the vacant lot, where big rigs parked, was not vacant anymore. Then Kay reminded me that this was the first time we had come this way in our larger motorhome.

Maybe the bigger size of our motorhome added to the feeling that the parking lot was smaller. It was decided that I should get out of there before we ended up trapped by incoming traffic. It had been a few years since we passed this way and it seemed as if it was much more crowded now. We decided to continue toward our destination with the idea we would have a late lunch somewhere down the road.

Somewhere between Winnemucca and Reno we came across road construction crews. Most of the states we visited on this trip had road reconstruction going on. Even though every state had short sections of rough road, they all were doing a good job of rebuilding their highways. Unlike California where the roads are allowed to deteriorate to a shameful level before work begins to fix the roads. I could go on and on, but I better get off the subject for now.

Even though it slows us down, it is good to see roads being improved

A road paving crew and machine at work

We planned to stop for the night at a place that has become very familiar to us, Boomtown. When we arrived at around 6 pm, we decided to get a campsite in the Boomtown RV Park. Before leaving California, we had received an offer in the mail for one night in the hotel or campground for "free." We get these offers occasionally to entice us to come over the mountains to visit the casino. We've done our part to keep Nevada green.

Unfortunately, I had left the offer letter at home. In the letter it clearly states that we must present the letter and the envelope to get the free offer. Since we would be staying in the campground anyway, I figured I would ask about the "one night free" offer to see if I could talk them into giving us a free campsite without the letter. Surprise, they said "Sure, it will be right here in the computer" and sure enough it was. Computers are wonderful machines ... when they work.

Once again we would be spending time in Boomtown

Here we were at the place we spent the first night on the road to Wichita. With great anticipation, we headed for the casino to get something to eat at the buffet after which we would play the slots. I say with great anticipation because we left here the last time with $154 more than we arrived with. Well, as it turned out, our good luck did not continue where we left off. We gave back all that we had won the first visit and then some. Oh well, we did get a "free" night in the campground.

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