April 27 – Sunday
Today was a ‘get ready to leave tomorrow’ day. Glen washed the van windows and put away some of the outdoor stuff and I vacuumed and dusted inside. Later in the afternoon we gathered some wood and sat around a nice fire, the first since we started our journey. After it got dark we went in and watched a few shows on our tapes, all shows that we had already seen several times. We are sure looking forward to getting Emily’s tapes. We have had a whole week of no phone and no tv. We are wondering if they have found Saddam yet.
April 28 – Monday
We headed out around 8 am. We stopped in Baker one last time to do a walk through and then headed west on ‘The loneliest road in America’. Hwy 50 is lonely but I wouldn’t call it the loneliest. Hwy 6 across Utah was certainly lonelier! Hwy 50 runs east and west from border to border and is made up of high mountain summits and low desert floors. We passed over summit after summit of over 7,000 feet in elevation. Each one was slow going but we always made it to the top.
We stopped for lunch at D&J’s Diner in Eureka. It was a fun place, all decorated in a 50’s theme with red and white gingham curtains, red and black tables and chairs and black booths. Each booth table was covered with hot rod pictures and then thickly coated with polyurethane clear coat. Glen ordered a double bacon cheeseburger and I had a BLT. The fries were home made and they were so yummy. We bought gas in Eureka for $1.84. We were hoping the larger towns (larger than Baker) would be less expensive but we found we were wrong. We felt revived after lunch so we headed on west.
The next town was Austin. It was a little touristy town that had a very old west feel. There was a little house that was an original Pony Express stop and several rock shops and Indian jewelry shops. We were going to stay at the rv park there but it was a very awful looking place so we decided to drive on to Fallon. We stopped for gas at the only gas station and nearly had another cow! The gas was $2.20. It cost $54 for a half a tank. We were sure getting worried about things to come.
We stopped and checked out a few places as we made our way across Nevada. There was a little house made out of rock that was about to fall down. The roof was made of wood and it was just about rotted away. There were several places scattered out across the desert where people made their homes back in the late 1800’s. There was a lot of mining going on then and there were several historic markers telling about the boom towns and busts through out that time. Towns would grow to over 2000 people with post offices, churches and schools and then in just a few years there would be no one left and the town would just decay and gradually disappear. One place we stopped had the walls of a telegraph office and stop over for the Wells Fargo Stage. All that was left was about two feet of the rock foundation of the rooms that made up the buildings. It was all enclosed in chain link fence, we supposed because of vandalism.
Another interesting stop along the way was Sand Mountain. It was a really weird mountain made of sand just out in the middle of nowhere. It is now a BLM recreation area and it is used by ATV enthusiasts. There were several people in rvs and tents and kids were riding their four-wheelers all over the place the day we were there. The tiny white spot at the bottom left of the mountain is a large fifth wheel.
We drove into Fallon about 6 pm. It was so wonderful to see nice green lawns and leaves on trees. Fallon is about the size of Weatherford so it had most everything in the way of stores and restaurants. The most prominent thing you notice first, though, is the casinos. There are casinos/restaurants on nearly every corner.
We found an rv park on the west side of town. It just about killed me to pay $41 for two nights there. I was so disappointed that they didn’t have internet access. I should have called ahead to find out but we haven’t stayed at an rv park in so long that hasn’t had internet that I just expected all of them too. I wanted to email an update to everybody. What a pain!
We unhooked and set up the trailer and then just kind of conked out the rest of the night. We had cable so we caught up on the news and weather and watched King of the Hill. While we were in Ft. Collins we got into the habit of watching it everyday so it was quite a treat to see it again.
We finally had good phone service so we checked in on the girls. They were doing great and it was wonderful to hear their voices. Emily had some disturbing news, though. She had had to run Crystal to the airport Saturday morning as they learned that Crystal’s mom had a rare disease (I don’t recall the name) that they had thought was pneumonia but she kept getting worse so she had to be hospitalized and then Crystal’s dad called late Friday night and said Crystal should come down to Houston because they didn’t expect to her live. Emily said they still didn’t know anything different and they were giving her a 50/50 chance to pull out of it. Crystal’s mom is only 45 and usually very healthy so a very hard thing to imagine that could happen. When I talked to Em she was still in intensive care and on a ventilator. Emily is babysitting Hannah, Crystal’s kitty till she gets back home.
April 29 – Tuesday
After we got up and around we headed to town to run all our errands. We went to the laundry mat first and got that out of the way. Then we went to Ace Hardware and picked up a stopper for the bottom of Glen’s cane (the old one broke off) and then we went to a place called The Stockade for lunch. Glen and I both had the taco salad and it was really yummy. I had five quarters so I played the slot machines in the casino part of the restaurant. I hit the stampede and won 14 quarters but of course I put them all back in and walked away $1.25 poorer. I am such a cheapskate!
After lunch Glen and I went to get our hair cut. The hair place was pretty interesting. It doubled as a costume shop and there were costumes hanging all over the walls. A husband and wife owned the place and they both did hair and nails. A very unique couple.
Next we headed for the lumberyard. Glen needed a board to make a wagon like dolly thing for the generator to sit on. When it is raining and we can’t have our awning out we thought this would be a good way to slide the generator under the trailer to keep it out of the rain. Glen had already bought the wheels, he just needed the board. While Glen was buying the board, I talked to the girls a few minutes on the phone. Em said that there still wasn’t any change in Crystal’s mom except that they had bumped up the ventilator a notch which I guess is a good thing. She didn’t know when Crystal might be coming back home.
Steffy was her usual bubbly self. While I talked to her Glen drove over to the post office and then he talked to her while I ran in and picked up the package that she had sent over a week before. It is so fun to get mail every once in a while.
Last but not least we headed to Walmart and then to Safeway to pick up supplies and food for the week. I was pretty flabbergasted at the prices in Safeway. A half gallon of milk was $2.38. We have been so spoiled from buying our groceries at the Super Wal-Mart in Ft. Collins. The last time we bought milk we only paid $1.29. They don’t have Super Wal-Marts in California and Oregon so I guess we are just going to have to tough it!
April 30 – Wednesday
As soon as we got up we started packing up the trailer. We headed out of Fallon around 10:00. We started out on hwy 50 and then met up with I-80 at Fernley. We drove west on I-80 and at Reno we headed north up hwy 395. About 20 miles north of Reno we saw the ‘Welcome to California’ sign. We took a picture and headed on down the road. A few miles into California we had to stop at an inspection station. The fellow manning the station asked us where we had come from. We were totally confused by the question and Glen and I looked at each other and we started saying Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado.. we didn’t know where we came! The guy wasn’t very patient and just asked if we had any plants with us. Then we were really confused and said no and he waved us on. We figured they must be really particular in California about bugs and diseases. It was a pretty interesting moment. I think they should be more worried about the bugs we have on and in our trailer than on any plants. We take bugs with us wherever we go. We are still finding bugs that we think we brought with us from Montana.
We drove for a little bit and then decided to stop for a lunch break. We came to a small town named Doyle. It was a little stop in the road really with just one grocery store. We parked beside the road in a parking area and made a sandwich. We only saw two people while we were eating, a man and a little girl on bicycles.
We drove into Susanville after about an hour. Susanville is a really neat town. It has a downtown that is down in the valley and kind of dry desert area and then as you drive up main street you find that you are in Uptown and you are up on a mountain and there are pine trees and a lot of hilly areas. We drove around a bit and then filled up with gas. We were so happy to buy gas for $1.89. (I can’t believe I think gas for $1.89 is good!!!) I asked the girl who worked in the gas station if she knew about the road conditions and she said she would call and ask. She was so nice! She called and said they roads were clear. We were a little concerned because we had heard that there was an unusual system working off the coast that was bringing more snow than usual to the mountains so we wanted to check before we headed that way.
We started out at about 5000 feet elevation and went up and down several summits but were always going down. It didn’t seem like it at the time because as we would go up there would be several feet of snow but then we would go down and it would get hot.
After we left Susanville, we were in beautiful pine forests. There were lots of small lakes and you could tell that there had been a lot of precipitation because all the fields were wet and marshy looking. We drove up and down and up and down for about two hours until we finally came to a little community named Shingletown. We stopped for a break to stretch our legs at a grocery store and hardware store combination. We saw that they sold propane so we decided to fill our tanks there. The people we talked to there were really nice. The young man that helped us with the propane was one of the friendliest people that we had talked to in a long time. People just didn’t seem very friendly in Nevada.
We finally drove over the last pass and as we drove down into the valley I was amazed at how much the landscape reminded me of Texas. There were oak trees, bluebonnets and rolling fields of green grass everywhere!!! It was so beautiful.
We drove into Redding and I couldn’t help but oooh and aaah at the gorgeous flowers along the freeway. We hit I-5 north of Redding and there were flowers everywhere. I am going to have to find a book about tropical plants. I have a feeling I am going to see more of these as we get closer to the coast. Redding is just under 1000 feet in elevation and must not get a frost or a very slight one because we saw our first palm tree of the journey. It reminded me of Houston. I wonder if it gets as humid.
We drove on up to the Shasta Dam on the south side of Lake Shasta. I had called Shasta Forest Service and asked about a campground and the fellow I talked to told me about Shasta Campground. We followed the instructions in my campground book. We ended up at the Dam and no campground in sight. A Dam employee told us that the road across the Dam had been closed since 911 and it was the only road to the campground. I was so confused. Why had that fellow told me about that particular campground? I think I will call the office and see what I can find out.
The Dam employee gave us a map of the lake area and we headed up to a campground that was in my book and that we located on the map. We found Antler Campground with no trouble and pulled in to site #54. It was late so we set up the trailer before it got too dark. We were really tired but were so happy to find such a nice campground. The only trailer that we saw was in the campground host site but the host was nowhere to be seen. The fee was $16 per night. That was the highest fee that I have seen for a National Forest. It was only $7 at Bull River in Montana. The fees seem to run higher if they are maintained by a concessionaire and not the forest service employees. The parks here are run by Shasta Recreation Area people.
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