DRIVING USA: BONANZA COUNTRY AND LONG, LONG STRAIGHT ROADS...AND SOME HILLS

Today has been a really interesting day – and long. We’ve driven about 570km on often roads that were long and dead straight for at least 10-15miles, then through hills up to 7500feet and back down again only to do it over again and again and again!

Before we left Tahoe however we visited the concourse – which is the display of all the Ford cars that were here for the Early Ford V8 50^th anniversary gathering (which was why we were here). There were hundreds – and first thing in the a.m. the owners were out polishing their cars, rubbing off the pollen from the nearby trees. There were so many Woodies, Lincolns and cars from 30s upwards. Just lovely and of course very drool worthy.

However, we knew we had a long road (pun!! Ha ha)ahead of us and we headed off by 10.30 and drove up through Carson city, then onto Silver City and Virginia City – this is off the beaten track and was really a tourist place – but the buildings were original for the most part. The landscape is hilly, sort of tiered and the buildings were built into the hillsides. The footpath through the main street was the original boardwalk. It was very busy and lots of ‘characters’ around. A lovely donkey and guy who looked like one of the old miners – but he wanted to be paid of course for me to take his photo! The township was the center of silver mining area and you can see the remnants of mines now boarded up. Plus a couple of beautiful churches.

But on we went and back to the interstate 50 heading east and I must say that Madame B…ch did us proud! We haven’t got lost, but we don’t quite trust her either.

The lovely Denise Haerr who took me to Vikingsholm yesterday gave us a CD to play in the car, it is a narrative of the history of the I50 (also known as the Lincoln Highway and the Lonliest Highway in America) During the narrative the man mentioned that the Top Gun pilots were trained near Fallon - and hey presto three fighter jets flew overhead - a Tom Cruise moment LOL

This first picture below is in Virginia city - note the triangular flags - these denote fallen soldiers - note sure if they were local or perhaps native of Nevada - but they adorned up and down the street - so many!

In Virginia City - one of the old saloons still in use

The barren landscape

A small bit of water in a landscape bereft of it for the most part

That STRAIGHT ROAD !!

MORE STRAIGHT ROAD!S!!

The landscape is really quite different from being in the Sierra Nevadas. A bit like the Desert Road (kiwis will know this) and is flat and barren in parts, or has straggly plants, and the road is FLAT, LONG AND GOES ON AND ON, then we wind through a hilly area up to at least 75000 Feet, and down again AND UP AND DOWN AND UP AND DOWN – you get the idea.

After Virginia City the first town we really went through was Fallon – this was quite big and bustling, and modern, then we hit Austin – old and tired and small – Eureka- - they were quite a shock in some ways, very much small town America- lovely buildings, but nothing like what we see as America on TV – all the Macca and KFC stuff – none of that. Actually quite refreshing.

We were driving for hours – well Neil was- we got to Ely at 6pm – exactly the time Madame B..ch said we would LOL, got some dinner from the supermarket – chicken and salad and melon and that’s it. Pooped.

Ely has a vintage railway – it’s where two railways met - http://www.nnry.com/ and tomorrow we’re going to visit there before we head off.