Having Fun on our Way There
Odometer 67,599 miles
Salton Sea, California
We are heading to the Salton Sea- again! Here is our route for the next several days.
We had a pleasant journey from Susanville to Hawthorne, Nevada. We made our usual late start from Susanville, getting rolling at around 10:30, actually later than is customary even for us. I really messed up in Reno though. I missed the exit I wanted to take to get fuel on our way into Reno, and thought I'll have Joan keep an eye out for another station that looks promising. We spotted the multi-color soccer ball sign that Kroger uses for their fuel stations and took the exit. We immediately plunged into a massive road construction project that we couldn't have seen from the freeway. No problem we got to the Smith's store and the fuel pumps. The pumps were very busy and we only had two places we could get in for diesel- so I waited at the curb while Joan stood in line shooing away interlopers. When we finally got into place and started fueling we found there was a problem with the pump, the flow was substantially restricted for some reason and it took 15 minutes to get about 13 gallons. At this rate we'd be here another 45 minutes. Grrr! I hung up the nozzle and abandoned that plan. On our way back to the freeway we got caught up in the construction big time. It took us several miles to get back to an on-ramp. Now I was steaming! I only wanted to fuel up in Reno thinking it would be cheaper here than further out in the desert, but we had enough on board to make Hawthorne easily. The route we chose to get to US 95 south was to take Nevada 341 to Alt 95 and head toward Yerington. It's not shorter, just different, it probably cost us a few minutes, but we like to see different things when we can. We sailed down US 95 and made Hawthorne by mid afternoon.
We got set-up in Whiskey Flats RV Resort for a couple of nights.
We decided to stay a couple nights here because Joan is excited about seeing the ghost town of Bodie, California which is about 30 miles west of here, while I was hoping to see the Hawthorne Ordinance Museum. By the time we got the RV set-up it was 3:30 PM and I found out the museum closes at 4:00 PM. I won't get there today I guess.
A trip to Bodie over the back roads was only about 30 miles from here and the TV weather forecast brought the news that tomorrow would be sunny and warm. So we packed a lunch and headed out in the Tracker.
Some parts of the road had just been graded, so we were very lucky. Even with grading we seldom were able to go more than 25 mph- lots of boulder sized rock, shallow ruts, and some heavy mud. And did I mention DUST? Soft, floury, fine, fluffy, floating, airborne, churning, choking, cloud-forming- dust!
The scenery was spectacular, with the Aspens resplendent in the sun and the majestic high canyon walls of Bodie Creek. With out pushing it, it took about 2 hours to traverse the 30 some miles from Hawthorne to Bodie.
The trip was sure worth it! The buildings and grounds are incredible. The story is that one of the major landowners in the area hired caretakers to protect the buildings from being vandalized or looted during the 50s and early 60s, until California State Parks purchased the town in 1962.
The Parks Department does do patch and repair work on the structures to stabilize the building roof walls and foundations preserved in a state of "arrested decay"
The Standard Stamp Mill shown above was the most successful or the 30 some mining companies in the area. Renamed the Standard in 1877, they produced over 18 million in gold during 38 years of operations.
The Standard Mill was one of the first mines to have electricity delivered from a substantial ways away by using alternating current electricity. In 1893 Standard had a hydroelectric plant 13 miles away and used poles and wire, much like we do today. Before this most installations would have generators producing DC current and the generators would have been at the same site as the motor it drove.
Electricity ran 20 stamps, 4 concentrators, 8 pans, 3 settlers, and 1 agitator. A transformer at the mill provided 100-volt current to light the building’s interior and adjoining offices. It would be 17 more years before the small town of Bodie had electricity to its shops and residences in 1910.
Joan and I decided to take the "long way around" on good roads back to Hawthorne, just to see something new. 30 miles off-highway becomes 80 miles by highway!
Sunday, we continued our journey south from Hawthorne to Tonopah (actually easterly) we had a stiff cross wind, but the bus handled it pretty well. As we made the turn south at Tonopah we'd get a tailwind- yeah! We both remembered a McDonalds with good parking at the far (south) end of Tonopah and decided that it would save time and dishes if we stopped there for a salad. Well, we either remembered incorrectly or it was torn down, because there was no fast food at all where we remembered seeing it. We drove on to a chain-up area (no snow!) and pulled over and heated up soup and made sandwiches for lunch- better for us anyway.
The wind had died down a lot, but what there was, was on our tail. We have decided to stop in Pahrump for a couple of nights to let the wind settle down and to do some local exploring. I have skinned up one of our safety cables on the tow bar and I'll see if I can find a replacement in town. We find the Preferred RV Resort in Pahrump to be very nice and it accepts our Passport card for 1/2 price for two days!
Tuesday we are on the road again, this leg of the trip is to one of my favorite spots in the southwest- the Fountain of Youth RV Resort near Niland, CA in the hills above the Salton Sea.
There is very little of interest in the area here, but the resort itself is very intriguing. I have blogged about this before [ Click to see that blog (opens in new page)]
In essence what I like about the RV site is that it is terraced up the side of the hill so each level gets a view, there are several pools and hot spas, the people are friendly, it's super quiet, and the skies are alive with stars at night.
The warmest of the hot pools is called the Lobster Pot and when I want to warm up it takes some real heat! Those cool 100 degree pools just won't do it- I want 104° !
Tuesday afternoon when we arrived the weather was picture perfect- sunny and warm, clear skies. We took a long walk to un-cramp our legs and Joan made up a ravioli dinner, followed by a few episodes of Ice Pilots NWT on Amazon Prime TV. Around 9 PM we heard this loud rustling sound outside and opened the curtains to see the wind howling around us. We got ready for bed with the slide top awnings snapping and snarling in the wind, and the bus rocking under the force of many hard gusts of wind- coming one after the other. We finally decided to pull in the slide outs, which rolls up the slide top awnings and streamlines the motorhome. We slept fitfully as the wind rocked us on our jacks and screamed around the edges of the bus. Friday morning there was only a zephyr of a breeze blowing and the sun was rising to a clear blue sky. Some fellow RVrs had suffered damage to awnings and flags and loose items, but most of us came through with no damage at all. Time to head for the spa!
Next time we head out to San Diego for our niece's wedding- stay tuned.
Your Traveling Friends
Jeff and Joan
Salton Sea, California
We are heading to the Salton Sea- again! Here is our route for the next several days.
We had a pleasant journey from Susanville to Hawthorne, Nevada. We made our usual late start from Susanville, getting rolling at around 10:30, actually later than is customary even for us. I really messed up in Reno though. I missed the exit I wanted to take to get fuel on our way into Reno, and thought I'll have Joan keep an eye out for another station that looks promising. We spotted the multi-color soccer ball sign that Kroger uses for their fuel stations and took the exit. We immediately plunged into a massive road construction project that we couldn't have seen from the freeway. No problem we got to the Smith's store and the fuel pumps. The pumps were very busy and we only had two places we could get in for diesel- so I waited at the curb while Joan stood in line shooing away interlopers. When we finally got into place and started fueling we found there was a problem with the pump, the flow was substantially restricted for some reason and it took 15 minutes to get about 13 gallons. At this rate we'd be here another 45 minutes. Grrr! I hung up the nozzle and abandoned that plan. On our way back to the freeway we got caught up in the construction big time. It took us several miles to get back to an on-ramp. Now I was steaming! I only wanted to fuel up in Reno thinking it would be cheaper here than further out in the desert, but we had enough on board to make Hawthorne easily. The route we chose to get to US 95 south was to take Nevada 341 to Alt 95 and head toward Yerington. It's not shorter, just different, it probably cost us a few minutes, but we like to see different things when we can. We sailed down US 95 and made Hawthorne by mid afternoon.
We got set-up in Whiskey Flats RV Resort for a couple of nights.
We decided to stay a couple nights here because Joan is excited about seeing the ghost town of Bodie, California which is about 30 miles west of here, while I was hoping to see the Hawthorne Ordinance Museum. By the time we got the RV set-up it was 3:30 PM and I found out the museum closes at 4:00 PM. I won't get there today I guess.
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| Glowing Aspens in the creek bottom |
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| Back way into Bodie from Nevada side |
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| We ate some dust- you should see the inside! |
The scenery was spectacular, with the Aspens resplendent in the sun and the majestic high canyon walls of Bodie Creek. With out pushing it, it took about 2 hours to traverse the 30 some miles from Hawthorne to Bodie.
The trip was sure worth it! The buildings and grounds are incredible. The story is that one of the major landowners in the area hired caretakers to protect the buildings from being vandalized or looted during the 50s and early 60s, until California State Parks purchased the town in 1962.
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| The Standard Mill in Bodie, California as it was re-built in 1899 after a disastrous fire |
The Standard Mill was one of the first mines to have electricity delivered from a substantial ways away by using alternating current electricity. In 1893 Standard had a hydroelectric plant 13 miles away and used poles and wire, much like we do today. Before this most installations would have generators producing DC current and the generators would have been at the same site as the motor it drove.
Electricity ran 20 stamps, 4 concentrators, 8 pans, 3 settlers, and 1 agitator. A transformer at the mill provided 100-volt current to light the building’s interior and adjoining offices. It would be 17 more years before the small town of Bodie had electricity to its shops and residences in 1910.
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| Picture taken through the window of a dry goods store |
What a fun afternoon! This is the real deal, and it was fun to envision life in these parts so many years ago. More that 150 million dollars of gold has been extracted from this site over the years. By 1915 most of the gold had played out and the Bodie to Hawthorne railroad was abandoned. In 1942 the government stopped "non essential" gold mining in favor of copper for the war years. Most of the remaining residents moved away.
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| Our Return route from Bodie back to Hawthorne, NV |
The route back to Hawthorne takes us up to the top of Conway summit on US Hwy 395 at an elevation of 8138 feet. For us sea level dwellers, it gets hard to find any oxygen in the air up here. As we drop off the summit down towards Mono Lake, we stop to take in the view and admire this endorheic lake, a lake with no outlet. This beautiful lake was nearly drained by the thirsty citizens of LA. In 1941 the Los Angeles Dept of Water bought up the water rights to the tributaries of the lake and diverted them 350 miles south. Over the next 16 years the lake level dropped 45 feet before concerned citizens got a court order requiring LA to leave a little water in the streams to keep the lake level stable. The name Mono is a shortening of the Yokut Indian name for the lake- "Monachi".
Tonight an arctic wind is predicted to plunge the mercury from a balmy 70 down to the 30s.
Sunday, we continued our journey south from Hawthorne to Tonopah (actually easterly) we had a stiff cross wind, but the bus handled it pretty well. As we made the turn south at Tonopah we'd get a tailwind- yeah! We both remembered a McDonalds with good parking at the far (south) end of Tonopah and decided that it would save time and dishes if we stopped there for a salad. Well, we either remembered incorrectly or it was torn down, because there was no fast food at all where we remembered seeing it. We drove on to a chain-up area (no snow!) and pulled over and heated up soup and made sandwiches for lunch- better for us anyway.
The wind had died down a lot, but what there was, was on our tail. We have decided to stop in Pahrump for a couple of nights to let the wind settle down and to do some local exploring. I have skinned up one of our safety cables on the tow bar and I'll see if I can find a replacement in town. We find the Preferred RV Resort in Pahrump to be very nice and it accepts our Passport card for 1/2 price for two days!
Tuesday we are on the road again, this leg of the trip is to one of my favorite spots in the southwest- the Fountain of Youth RV Resort near Niland, CA in the hills above the Salton Sea.
There is very little of interest in the area here, but the resort itself is very intriguing. I have blogged about this before [ Click to see that blog (opens in new page)]
In essence what I like about the RV site is that it is terraced up the side of the hill so each level gets a view, there are several pools and hot spas, the people are friendly, it's super quiet, and the skies are alive with stars at night.
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| Call me a lobster! |
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| Just right- about 104 degrees! |
The warmest of the hot pools is called the Lobster Pot and when I want to warm up it takes some real heat! Those cool 100 degree pools just won't do it- I want 104° !
Tuesday afternoon when we arrived the weather was picture perfect- sunny and warm, clear skies. We took a long walk to un-cramp our legs and Joan made up a ravioli dinner, followed by a few episodes of Ice Pilots NWT on Amazon Prime TV. Around 9 PM we heard this loud rustling sound outside and opened the curtains to see the wind howling around us. We got ready for bed with the slide top awnings snapping and snarling in the wind, and the bus rocking under the force of many hard gusts of wind- coming one after the other. We finally decided to pull in the slide outs, which rolls up the slide top awnings and streamlines the motorhome. We slept fitfully as the wind rocked us on our jacks and screamed around the edges of the bus. Friday morning there was only a zephyr of a breeze blowing and the sun was rising to a clear blue sky. Some fellow RVrs had suffered damage to awnings and flags and loose items, but most of us came through with no damage at all. Time to head for the spa!
Next time we head out to San Diego for our niece's wedding- stay tuned.
Your Traveling Friends
Jeff and Joan
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| All set up with a view of the Chocolate Mountains |
Hi, I have been following your travels on the Goldwater Range and would like to discuss a few of the crashes you have visited. Would you email me at Rettzdad@live.com
ReplyDeleteThanks
Brad