Across Nevada and finally home (for a while)

By nightfall Saturday at the Hi Desert RV Park in Winnemucca, the RV park's 137 spots were almost all taken. A few folks were living there long-term -- you can always tell by the skirting around the bottom of the RVs which helps keep the cold out.  Some folks skirt with wood, others use insulation, others use whatever.  Some, like us, of course, were at the Hi Desert because Winnemucca is on I-80, and if you are traveling the 400-mile I-80  stretch that crosses Nevada, your main choices for a campground with electricity and water are Reno, Fernley, Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, Wells and West Wendover. Winnemucca fit in our milage plans, so Winnemucca it was. We only stayed one night. 

Sunday morning, guys in full camo gear with guns were driving out of the park on ATVs.  Seems like that weekend was the opening of chukar season.  A chukar is a game bird.  Per http://www.winnemucca.nv.us, Winnemucca is the "Chukar Capital of the Country."  The web site goes on to says that's because of a long chukar hunting season and liberal bag limits, plus the area duplicates "the original chukar habitat of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the birds’ native countries.  Only here will you find the steep, rugged canyons with talus slopes and rocky outcrops that provide a perfect hideout for the birds. When it comes to chukar hunting -- real men’s chukar hunting -- no place does it up better than Winnemucca."

I read that last sentence to Jim and he said "C'mom, it's a little bird and you've got a gun."

A chukar (on the right) courtesy of Wikipedia. Too cute to shoot, I think.

Our next one-night stop was Wells, NV. Again, we stopped in Wells because it's on the way to Salt Lake and the mileage was right.  And again, we didn't see much of Wells because we just wanted to stop, relax, go to bed, get up and get going. Wells was originally a stop on the California Trail and later became a railroad town thanks to the Transcontinental Railroad. Only about 1,300 people live there.

Our Wells one-nighter was at the New Angel Lake RV Park.  It had welcoming managers, clean bathrooms, etc. etc., so it was a decent place for a stop and go. We watched TV, read, slept, and tried to recover a bit from colds we've both picked up.

This morning we left Wells for home and got here about 2 p.m.  We pulled into a parking lot near Holladay City Hall (Holladay is the name of the SLC suburb we live in) and unhooked the tow car from the rig.  I told Jim I'd follow him home in the tow car.  After about a half a mile, he stopped and motioned me -- his usually-right-beside-him navigator -- to drive up to the rig. "I made a wrong turn," he said.   We drove nearly 7,000 miles this leg, and his only wrong turn happened a half mile from our house.

Somewhere in eastern Nevada we finally got near the mountains that previously were in the distance.  In the foreground is sage in bloom. In the mountains are yellow-leafed aspens.   

The salt flats of western Utah.  That stuff on the ground is salt -- not snow -- although I'm sure many a driver has thought the bright white salt was snow. And that weird thing in the lower middle is called the "Tree of Life."  It's an 87-foot sculpture about 25 miles east of Wendover created by a Swedish artist who had a vision while driving across the salt flats. That's the story, anyway. 

Our first glimpse of Salt Lake in nearly four months. 

As soon as we got home we unloaded the rig and started some laundry.  Looks like Jim is carrying in at least one six-pack of IPA.

Now we're with my daughter, SIL and these two characters.  I'm not sure how often I'll post while we're home, but I will be posting -- so check back.