June 7, 2009

The Loneliest Road

We left our surprisingly nice casino RV camp spot about 8:00am and headed west.  We had filled up the night before just before parking so we were good to go.  A word of advice, NEVER leave Ely with less than a full tank of gas.  Both east and west it is a long way to the next services.  If you are headed east on US-50 from the Reno area, fill up in Fallon.  US-50 across Nevada has been called “The Loneliest Road in the Country”.  Life magazine once did an article on it and told its’ readers to be very sure of their survival skills prior to traveling on this road.  The residents of Delta, UT (about 60 miles east of Nevada/Utah border) say they live on the eastern edge of nowhere.  In some ways they are right.  With the exception of Ely which is a decent sized town with many services, there are few people and no services between Delta, UT and Fallon, NV.  Because of this there is not much traffic on the road.  Truckers use the interstates and there just is not much for locals to travel to.  It may be lonely but it is not boring.  The road goes around and over a series of small mountain ranges.  They may be small but they are not short.  We went over several summits higher than Donner Summit.  There are also a lot of them.  We lost count of the number of marked summits but there were at least eight or nine.  The scenery is outstanding.  Mountains and valleys, mountains and valleys.  Long straight stretches of road mixed with curvy parts as you go over passes.  Right now every thing is green although we have done this road in late summer and it still was pretty.  The day was partly cloudy which added shadows to the views.  With a full tank of gas and time to enjoy it I would definitely recommend US-50.

We got to Reno about 3:00pm.  We had thought we would stop in Truckee to spend the night with friends.  But, home was less than 100 miles away and we had lots of day left.  We pulled up in front of our house before 5:00pm.  I do not know yet how many miles we traveled in our eight plus weeks but I do know that the stretch of road between the California/Nevada state line and Colfax is far and away the worst we were ever on.  Parts of it are being refurbished but I doubt it will ever be as good as some of the roads we traveled which also have heavy traffic and extreme weather.

We have several things to do while we are home but not much of note so blogs will be somewhat sporadic over the next few weeks.  We will work on pictures and add a few to previous blogs so you might want to review them from time to time if anyone cares.