Reno, NV

Fun trip is over and we had a great time.  Got an early start this morning from Las Vegas and had beautiful weather all the way home.  Not much traffic and clear blue skies. 

Tom III said he had not gotten the photos from Death Valley, so I resent them.  If anyone else did not receive them, let me know and I'll resend them.  Also a good way to see if you are really reading this blog or looking at the pictures :-).

Stay tuned for the next exciting trip!

St Patrick's Day

Well, all good things must come to an end, so in the morning, we leave for home.  It's been a great trip and we finished up the day today with a round of golf at Nellis AFB.  Sunrise Vista played well - we neither waited nor held anyone up - always a good thing!

The Thunderbirds were out of town, so we had to be satisfied with F-16's taking off for the gunnery ranges.  Still kind of cool watching them take-off even after all these years!

The golf course was in pretty good shape and we really like the markings.  Front nine was Eagle and back nine was Falcon.  Used to be three nine-hole courses, but they closed the Raptor course down and concentrated and keeping the other two in good shape.  The tee makers (blue, white, gold and red) were in the shape of a Thunderbird formation over an outline of Mt Charleston (near Las Vegas).

The town is really crazy.  Not only is it St Patrick's Day, but it's also the start of the NCAA basketball tournament.  According to the news reports, people were lined up before 5:30 a.m. to place their bets!  There are plenty of green outfits around, some more revealing than others.  Fun watching all the celebrators.  As the evening goes on, they are even more fun to watch!

We're heading home on Friday and will close out the blog when we arrive safely!

Las Vegas

Not much to report today.  Took a drive around Las Vegas and checked out a golf course up by Sun City (it's a Del Webb village in Summerlyn).  Nice facilities, but we have definitely decided not to move to Las Vegas - too much traffic and too much heat in the summer (not that we ever gave that much consideration.  Below is the view from the golf course/fitness center parking lot.  It's on the far western reach of Las Vegas.

 

Later we took a drive around 215 and were amazed at how much the northern and western parts of Las Vegas have grown.  There are new plans for huge subdivisions - one in the north and one in the south.  Looks like the housing recession is over down here.

Ended up at Nellis AFB and checked out the facilities - then drove over to Sam's Town.  Back to the hotel for a light dinner at Paris.  Thought you might like to see the view from our floor.

Looks like this city is going to go crazy this weekend with the NCAA tournament starting up.  Glad we're leaving on Friday!

Death Valley, CA

I'm going to take a little poetic license here.  We are actually in Las Vegas, having arrived right in the midst of traffic hour!  Not good planning on our part.  However, I really would like to talk more about our trip from Tonopah through Death Valley today, hence the subject of this post.

We left Tonopah this morning with the temperature at 33 degrees and the altitude at more than 6000 feet.  Three hours later, we were in Death Valley at an altitude just below sea level and the temperature at 75 degrees.  As I have mentioned below, it is amazing that the lowest point in the US (minus 262 feet) is less than two or three hours from Mt Whitney - the highest point in the continental United States.  As we crested the Tonopah summit just south of the town, there is an awesome view encompassing miles of Nevada desert with the Sierra Nevada in California to our west.  You can literally see a hundred miles (and I might add that there ain't a heck of a lot to be seen in all that expanse - except desert and mountains). 

Stopped in Beatty, NV for refueling (breakfast for us and gas for the Jeep).  Beatty is billed as the gateway to Death Valley and as the road to Scotty's Castle is now closed because of the October rainstorms, it is one of the few entrances from the East.  Those rainstorms were also the contributing factor in the Superbloom which is what brought us to Death Valley.  The flowers really lived up to their billing.  It's funny, because there are lots of places in the United States which have more beautiful and thicker displays of flowers (think of Skagit Valley Tulip Festival in Washington and the tulip fields north of San Diego).  The real beauty of the flowers in Death Valley is because of the stark contrast to what is normally there.  Normally, Death Valley conjures up visions of rocks, desert and dry, parched land. 

This year because of the aforementioned rainstorms in October, the dormant seeds germinated and four months after the rain storm, are now blooming in vast perfusion across the area.  You probably have seen news reports of the Superbloom just because it is so unusual.  The last one was in 2005 and the one before that was in 1998.  Amazing how Mother Nature can come to life so quickly (and then just as quickly, fade away). 

We'll post some pictures on my One Drive so you all can get some idea of the floral display.  We had been through Death Valley just two short months ago when we went down to Laughlin.  Today there were two major differences - the flowers and the crowds of people.  It was difficult finding a parking spot at places of interest - judging from the license plates and languages being spoken, people were here from all over the nation and the world.

Tourists were not the only hindrance we encountered on the roads.  Caltrans decided that now was a good time to repair roads damaged by the storms.  At one of the traffic stops, there was a coyote standing by the side of the road, probably looking for a handout.  He didn't seem too fazed by the traffic, and after a little while, he ambled off across the desert - probably looking for a rabbit to dine on. 

We left Death Valley after taking a quick tour of the Visitor Center  and the site of the old Borax plant - more crowds and parking problems!  Traveling over to Pahrump, we saw more fields of golden flowers waving in the breeze.  Very impressive!

We'll keep you posted on our travels, although I fear the rest of our week will be much more mundane.

Take care.

Tonopah, NV

Well, here we are - back in the land of the Muckers!  How would you like to have that as your high school mascot?  I guess if you live in the mining country, you go with the mining terms.

Started out from Reno this morning with a slight delay because the Jeep had a stuck thermostat, so I had to take it down to A-1 Radiator to get it fixed.  Wasn't a total loss because it gave Vi a chance to get organized and catch a few extra Z's.  Didn't think it was a good idea to take a chance on the Jeep overheating.  There isn't anything worse than being in the middle of the Nevada back country waiting for AAA .

Beautiful drive through Nevada - because of the recent rains, the hills were tinged with green and the Truckee was flowing full.  On the way to Tonopah, I wanted to take a side trip to Silver Peak, an old mining town.  Actually, it has an active gold mine and lithium mine, but there were a lot of old deserted buildings from the boom periods back in the early 1900's.  Normally, there is a route south of US 6 which goes to Silver Peak and then another road east over to 95 and back to Tonopah.  However, this year they are doing some road construction on the east route and we had to back track back to US 6/95.  Hate to do that, but my driver didn't want to take a chance on the "Closed Road" sign being inaccurate!

We did talk to a woman who has lived in Silver Peak (population 107) for twenty-six years.  She was a fount of information and interesting to talk to.  Guess if you live in Silver Peak for twenty-six years, you take advantage of any opportunity to talk to outsiders :-).  Took some pictures of the old buildings and historical signs which we'll include in a separate One Drive post.  Fun side trip, but didn't see any place we wanted to move to.

We're staying in town at the Tonopah Station where you get to roll the dice for a free room.  Guess who didn't  have any luck there, so it must be building up for Las Vegas.  Yeah right!  Had a drink at the Mizpah Hotel - great old hotel from 1907 which has recently been renovated and reopened.  Then went to dinner at the Tonopah Brewery which has gone through a few changes since Tim & Kathy were there with Vi and I.  Good brew and dinner.  Talked with the bartender who moved from near Pensacola to Las Vegas and then over to Tonopah.  He told us that the Tonopah Brewery is owned by the same people as the Mizpah and they are planning on opening a casino just north of the Mizpah in May.  We'll have to come back and check it out then.

Tomorrow we hope to get an early start and have breakfast in Beatty and then head into Death Valley.  Looking forward to seeing the Superbloom - hope we don't get disappointed.

Enough for now.  Take care and stay tuned.

Superbloom - plagiarism

Vi and I decided to take advantage of the Superbloom occurring in Death Valley, so we are leaving Monday for Tonopah, Death Valley and Las Vegas.  Coincidentally, this morning's Reno Gazette Journal had an article about the Superbloom.  Plagiarism is such an ugly term; however, I thought this would be a good recap of what we plan to see.  With credit to RGJ, below is a great description of the Superbloom:

"Here are some things to know about the once-in-a-decade “superbloom” in Death Valley National Park: What’s so special about wildflowers in Death Valley? Death Valley National Park holds a world record for the hottest temperature ever recorded: 134 degrees Fahrenheit (57 degrees Celsius) on July 10, 1913. It’s also home to the lowest elevation in North America, a place that’s 282 feet below sea level, called Badwater Basin.

Every spring, some wildflowers bloom before it gets scorching hot, but the abundance of flowers this year is extremely unusual and happens about once every 10 years.

The last time there was a bloom of this magnitude was in 2005, and the time before that was in 1998.

Why are so many wildflowers blooming?

Death Valley’s average annual rainfall is 2 inches a year, and sometimes, it gets no rain at all.

This season, the park got three very rare storms in the first two weeks of October that dropped more than 3 inches of rain in some parts of the valley. That was enough to trigger the growth of millions of wildflower seeds that have been dormant, awaiting significant rainfall.

No one knows how long seeds can wait for rain, but some flowers blossomed in 2005 that had never been seen in the park — indicating their seeds had been dormant for many years.

What kinds of flowers can I see? The most abundant and eye-catching wildflower is the aptly named desert gold, a large, bright yellow bloom that looks like a daisy.

The stems this year are growing to waist height, and the flowers cover entire hillsides and vast areas of the valley floor in the southern section of the park. These flowers are easily enjoyed from the car.

Patient sightseers who get out of their cars can see many more species. More than 20 species of wildflower bloom in the park at various elevations.

Some of the other more common flowers include the deep purple phacelia; the desert five-spot, a delicate pink flower with five burgundy spots around its center; the gravel ghost, a delicate white flower that appears to be floating above ground like a ghost because its stem is so thin it’s almost invisible; and various types of desert primrose.

Where is the bloom looking the best? Now, the best flower show is at the south end of Death Valley National Park along Badwater Road, south of Furnace Creek. As the temperature rises, those flowers will fade, and the bloom will move north and to higher elevations.

The National Park Service updates information on the best spots to see flowers throughout the bloom. For updates, visit www.dvnha.org or www.nps.gov/deva.

How long will the wildflowers bloom? The show won’t last forever. Most of the flowers will wither in the next few weeks as temperatures start to rise."

Stay tuned for the next post tomorrow.