Eventually we got to the town of Beatty. You go through little towns on 2 lane highways. And boy did we go through little towns. Some looked like ghost towns..but back to Beatty. It's called the "Gateaway to Death Valley". Several motels, RV parks, a giant candy store, and of course, a casino. And random burros walking through town. Lol lol. I laughed for 5 minutes after seeing the burro strolling down the street. I'm not in the Great Lakes anymore! During the course of the trip we encountered burro crossing signs, cattle crossing, deer crossing, horse crossing and elk crossing(!). Open ranges. Anyway. When we left Beatty town limits, we saw fields of burros. The highway had the contraptions called cattle guards. I think they are there to prevent the cattle from crossing the highway.
After more desert and rally cars, we get to Tonopah. Not quite what I expected. It's an old mining town. We head out and more desert. And more sad little towns. We eventually see bunkers. For as far as we could see. We were in Hawthorne, the location of Hawthorne Army Depot, a US Army storage depot. It is the largest ammo storage facility in the world. So I just looked it up..we saw bunkers, but nowhere near the 2400+ (!) bunkers that are there. Now you know Brian is a smart guy. He was able to explain to me what an Army Depot base was and what the bunkers are for...storage.
Just past Hawthorne and adjacent to the base was a very large lake, Walker Lake. But the lake looked...off. Big, huge lake. Hot summer desert day. No one on the lake. No wild life on or near the lake. Not even birds. It looked as if the area had been a resort town at one time. But not now. We looked it up. Abusive irrigation practices had dropped the lake by over 180 feet. And a because of the lower levels, the solids in the lake are more concentrated....which is lethal to the wildlife. The last fish was caught in 2011. No fish for birds. Basically an almost poison lake. The good news is that there is a reclamation effort. And. Walker Lake was not the only lake we encountered with this problem. So much for fresh mountain lakes. Humans are killing them. I sound like a tree hugger. {Shrug}.
At this point there is a slight change in scenery. More green, but still a lot of desert. But more homes. And yes, the rally cars are still passing us. Lol. And still a wretched 2 lane highway.
We finally get near Carson City. We are in some town and we finally leave US 95... We make a left turn. And we see more horse crossing signs. And sure enough as we make that left turn, a horse trots across the road we just left....heading straight to the casino. Lol lol lol. Again, I laughed for about 5 minutes. Why did the horse cross the road? To go to the casino, of course!! Yes. There were casinos in the most tiniest of towns. Anyway. We getting nearer to civilization, but still the horse crossing signs. We pass 4 horses strolling down the side of the highway...with a sheriff escort. :-D We were about 30 miles from Carson City. Lol.
We finally make it to Carsn City about 8 hours after we left Las Vegas. We stayed at the Wyndham..it was a cute little casino. Oh. There was also a Big Bear restaurant there. Breakfast was included. I didn't realize that when I made the reservations. A Big Bear breakfast is huge!! Anyway. Had dinner there. Went to bed..got up had breakfast and we were off for thr last leg of the trip. Carson City was pretty nice. Worth a longer visit along with Lake Tahoe.
On the dialysis front....I got nothing! No dialysis until the next night when we arrive in Oregon. That's it for today. We're getting back to life here and believe it or not we're still settling into the house. Have good weekend. Still hot here...but it's all in perspective!
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