Long ride to a great place

The long straight road

September 8 – On the road again…around 9:30.  First stop, Love’s truck stop to hook the car up.  The campground had too many dips to do it there.  Then it was 137 miles to the tiny town of Baker, NV.  The drive was long, flat and straight for the most part.  We crossed 3 mountain ranges to get here with elevations of over 6,000 feet each.  Other than that, the road was totally flat and maybe 20 vehicles passed us along the way.  One car went around us as we were approaching one of the mountains, as I’m sure he didn’t want to get stuck behind an RV out in the middle of no where!

One of the mountains at the pass

The mountains were lovely, but most of the plains were plain!  There were numerous cattle crossing signs (all with bullet holes) along the way but we didn’t see a single cow until we got close to Baker.  We did see the skin of one and the bones of a cow and a deer.  That was pretty much it for livestock and wildlife along the way

We didn’t realize that we were gaining another hour once we hit Nevada, but that was fine.  We’ll give it back in a couple of days!

The Whispering Elm Campground is the only one in town.  Not anything special to be sure

Column in front, the rest mostly
stalagtites

but pretty level with a few trees scattered.  We ended up in a back in, which was OK since we were unhooking anyway.  It’s only a few miles to Great Basin National Park, which is the only reason to be here.

Once we set up Bill emptied the tanks and we had lunch.  I stewed up a chicken breast to make pot pie or chicken and dumplings for dinner.  Bill read and talked to his brother.  It was windy when we arrived and stayed so until much later in the day.

Bill had an emergency
phone call

Our cave tour reservation was for the 3:00 tour. We left the RV about 2 and headed to the visitor center where we watched the movie and a couple of video shorts.  The tour guide was excellent, rather animated and quick witted.  She was very knowledgeable about the formations, what they are made up, reason for certain coloring and more.  We’ve been in other caves that I think were prettier but this one has a huge number of columns as big around as trees.  That is a bit unusual and takes thousands of years to form.  It’s too bad the previous owners allowed meetings, dances, and all kinds of events in the caves and causing tons of damage to the formations.  I don’t think I did very well with my pictures but will see.

One of the mule deer thru the
car window

After the tour we drove the main road to the end at the top at Wheeler Peak.  The views are spectacular and we even saw some wildlife.  There were 2 pair of Mule deer, a family of wild turkeys, and 2 jack rabbits.  At the top are the Bristlecone Pines that are 2,000 to 3,000 years old.  They

What a view!

grow very slowly due to the high elevations and growing out of rocks.  Even the dead ones that are older are still standing.  The clouds were hanging low and covering the top of some of the mountains.

We checked out 2 of the campgrounds and one was newly blacktopped and looked nice but they have no hookups at all.  You are self contained and can get water from several fill stations.  Not really for us!

There are 2 couples in the campground across from us that are from Florida.  When we got back I cam in to get my chicken pot pie in the oven and Bill went over and “chatted” forever.  I had the pot pie done when he came in and a peach cobbler in the oven for dessert.  Both were good and really hit the spot!  The best part is there’s enough of both for another meal!