Road Trip — Minden, Nevada
(22 photos)
ROAD TRIP!! I’m going to meet some friends in Las Vegas next week, so what better way to get there than the long way through Nevada. So this afternoon, I head east towards the border. Just as I cross the California/Nevada border, the police have the highway stopped for… get this… a cattle crossing! Yep, with cowboys on horses and everything–we have left the city folks. I took a rest break in the little historic town of Minden, Nevada and walked around Minden Park; a nice little park in the center of town, complete with a bandstand. A bit further down the road, I stopped at an overview of Topaz Lake and enjoyed my dinner while watching the sunset. Topaz Lake is on the border, so I’m back in California now and head towards Bishop to spend the night.
Road Trip — Diana’s Punch Bowl and Belmont, Nevada
(Click photo for all 90 photos)
We woke up to a fresh snowfall (brrrr) and Paul thankfully got the fire going quickly! We had breakfast, broke camp and headed south on a dirt road through Monitor Valley. We passed the one lone ranch that could be seen for miles and headed towards Diana’s Punch Bowl, a large travertine mound with a large cylindrical opening and hot hot water in it. After checking out the area, we continued on down the dirt road towards Belmont, identified as a ghost town on the map. Shortly before we came to Belmont proper, we encountered abandoned mine buildings and checked out the area. Belmont seemed to be a thriving “ghost” town. They have built a replica of the old church and there seems to be as many new buildings as there are old abandoned buildings. Moving on, we make the last dash across the open desert, going through Tonapah and heading back to California. As we crossed the last mountain range and came upon Mono Lake, we knew we were back in California. Rather than camp in the snow and cold again, we found a motel at Mammoth for the night… no cold toes for me!
Road Trip — Toquima Caves, Nevada
(Click photo for all 71 photos)
I joined Paul for a roadtrip through Nevada. Paul has traveled this road before, but this was my first trip into Nevada beyond the slot machines of Reno and Las Vegas and it is still the wild west out there! We traveled east on Highway 50. First we came to Sand Mountain, an off-road vehicle park where people were having fun despite the rain. We continued east till we came to the town of Austin, a small little town right about smack-dab in the middle of Nevada. In Austin, we checked out Stokes Castle, a stone tower that overlooks the valley. It was built in the 1890s and the family actually ended up only living it in for 2 months. Leaving Austin, we started leaving the paved road and headed for Pete’s Summit in the Toquima Mountain Range. We stopped to check out Spencer Hot Springs, decided it was way too cold to even think about enjoying them and then continued on to Toquima Caves. We reach the Toquima Caves campgrounds (elevation 7,880 feet) and had our pick of spots since nobody else was around. We quickly set up camp and then headed down the path to the caves before it got dark. There were lots of pretty little flowers along the path. The cave entrance is fenced off to protect the petroglyphs inside. These are American Indian drawings that date from approximately 1000 BC to AD 1500. The whole area is a very pretty red volcanic rock.
