Soth Lake Tahoe?

Day 15 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Glenbrook, NV to Round Hill, NV (Basically from where we are staying to 4 miles down the road to the store 🙂 ) and back. A hundred yards further up the road from where we are staying is a half mile drive up a hill to parking for the Cave Rock Trail where we went this afternoon for a hike and a little geocaching.

We were 4 for 4 for caches along the 1/2 mile long one-way trail and picked up a fifth by driving through the very exclusive neighborhood with fabulous views of the lake that was further uphill from the trail parking lot. With the two caches that were a bit off the trail, I bet we covered a couple miles of walking and being 6000′ higher than where we live, we got a pretty good work out doing it.

When I added the above photo on Instagram I didn’t crop it square like I normally do, so I decided to at some text at the top explaining where it was taken. It wasn’t until later when Donna saw the Instagram post that she noticed I missed a letter in the first word…

Made It

Day 14 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Sparks, NV to Glenbrook, NV (AKA South Lake Tahoe.) This was our shortest driving day, less than 60 miles and that was taking the scenic route, so we had a lot of time to kill before we could check-in at the Airbnb. First was we chilled in the hotel room all the way until 9:30 AM instead of 7:30, then we did some geocaching in Virginia City, followed by more geocaching in the state capital, Carson City. We found three in each place.

The ones in Virginia City were a bit more entertaining because just walking around town was a chore. It is a mining town situated on the top of a mountain, 6,150 feet up a windy road, where three blocks in one direction was a gain/drop of 10 feet in elevation, three blocks perpendicular was a gain/drop of 150 feet! In the middle of the 1800s when silver was found in the surrounding hills the town’s peak population was 25,000, now it has under a thousand people living there. If NV341, the city’s main street were unpaved and you squinted your eyes a bit, you could almost pretend it was still 1860, the sidewalks are still wood…

When we came down the mountain we ended up in Nevada’s capital city, without even realizing it. That is how our east coast bias is, I think we just assumed it was Las Vegas. The caches here were the usual magnetic micros and we normally don’t care for them, but it was Sunday and there was very little going on. After a leisurely lunch we drove up another big hill to get to Lake Tahoe.

We got to the place we are renting for the week at 2:00 PM, which was 2 hours earlier than the stated check-in time. We looked in the window and it looked clean, there was nobody about, so we opened the door and started moving our stuff in. By the time we supposed to be able to officially check-in, 4:00 PM, we had already unloaded the car, been to the grocery store, put everything away and had settled in front of the TV.

23 Million Raindrops

Day 13 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Wendover, UT to Sparks, NV. Zero geocaches today, zero Instagram posts and one crummy cell phone picture out the 8th floor window of our room at the Holiday Inn Reno-Sparks. It rained practically the whole 394 miles of I-80. Still it was not a total loss as what we did see, in between bursts of rain, of this part of the state of Nevada, was very pretty.

Tonight we went shopping to replace my old Merrell hiking boots. When taking them off after hiking in the Monahan Sandhills State Park I noticed that the uppers were separating frome the soles. I’ve had them for almost eight years and they have served me well. I did a little research the other day and decided that I wouldn’t get the Moab Mid Gore-Tex again, but just get the Outmost Mid Ventilator which suits my light hiking needs, is 7oz lighter and 30 bucks cheaper. It turned out to be cheaper still, as a local Scheels had them on sale for $72 instead of $120.

23,000 Rain Drops

Day 12 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Green River, UT. to Wendover, UT. Three geocaches today, one at the start near the hotel, one somewhere in the middle of nowhere Utah and one at the end of the day that is just into the state of Nevada. In between those three spots it was raining, somewhere from drizzle up to pouring down. Most of the time the rain wasn’t a problem until we were on I-80 West going 80 MPH among the 18 wheelers and over-sized loads.

Even though the rain pummeling the front of car while doing 80 miles an hour washed almost all the Texas, New Mexico & Arizona bugs off, the rest of the car needed washing, especially the flat back, so we went to a self-service car wash and tried to clean it up. A serviceable job for now, maybe while in Lake Tahoe I can get a chance to do it right.

Somewhere close to the burgeoning ghost town of Eureka, Utah the Lady Bug crossed over the 23,000 mile mark. When we got to the Bonneville Salt Flats I was going to see about celebrating by trying to see how fast I could her up to on the 2 mile raceway, but because of the rain, the salt was still wet. You are not supposed to drive on it then.

Arches National Park Second Visit

Day 11 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Kayenta, AZ. to Green River, UT. We started the morning early with a pre-sunrise drive a few miles north of Kayenta to see if the rumors were true that the Milky Way still exists, and sure enough, it does. After a gourmet breakfast at the McDonald’s across the street from the hotel we packed up and headed back north to drive through Monument Valley as the sun was just coming up. It was an awesome idea, but it faltered in its execution. While there were a few decent photo opportunities, the direction the road runs through the valley there, would have been better lighting available if it was nearing sunset not sunrise. It also didn’t help that when the road crossed into Utah it turned more east than north putting the early morning low sun right in our faces for about an hour and a half.

I planned a short driving day, just 205 miles, so that we could revisit Arches National Park. The first visit back in 2009 we only covered about a third of the park and we wanted to go further in this time. I mentioned back then that it would take a couple days to see the park and I was wrong, we are going to need at least a third visit. The first time we took in Balance Rock, Park Avenue and took the hike to the North and South Windows. This time we covered another 1/3 of the park by taking the hike to Delicate Arch visiting the Fiery Furnace. The Delicate Arch walk was the big time sink. The trail is 1.5 miles long and all up hill to the viewpoint. It gains almost 500′ in elevation along regular trails, bare rock and a couple of narrow ledges, but well worth the effort.

Canyon de Chelly

Day 10 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Albuquerque, NM to Kayenta, AZ. No geocaching today. The first half of our trip was on I-40, and although I had selected a few to look for we didn’t feel like it. The second half of the trip was through Indian Reservations and they do not allow the placement of caches on their lands.

The highlight of the today’s drive was a stop at the Canyon de Chelly National Monument. This place wasn’t on our radar and we wouldn’t have even driven by it (I had a different route planned) except for a random conversation with another traveling couple at lunch yesterday in Madrid. The woman running the Jezebel Soda Fountain said that if we had a chance while out this way we should visit the canyon.

Last night in the hotel room we looked up where it was and there it was, right on the other side of the Arizona border. So instead of cutting diagonally north west across New Mexico to get to Kayenta, we headed due west into Arizona and then north, which was only slightly longer and brought us right by Canyon de Chelly. All we had time for was a drive along one of the rims, we picked the south drive because it had more overlooks and were not disappointed.

Once again we have found a spot in the western part of the country that deserves a longer or second visit. Another one of those places is Arches National Park just north of Moab, UT. Guess where we are going to be driving right by tomorrow? Tomorrows route was specifically planed to be 100 miles less than the usual just so we can venture further into Arches than we did back in 2009.

Cattle Abduction

Day 9 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Albuquerque, NM to Albuquerque, NM. Lots of geocaching today. We drove a few miles north of the city center to the Alameda Open Space Parking Area to walk a loop around both sides of the Rio Grande River on the Paseo del Bosque Trail. We walked 4-1/3 miles, found a dozen caches and DNF’d just two.

After that we headed back to the east side of town to drive NM14 north back to Madrid for lunch. When we were in the Jezebel Soda Fountain yesterday eating some ice cream the discussion turned to gelato and burritos. They sounded so tempting that we vowed to come back for a breakfast burrito that they serve all day. It is so large that is easily splitable, but because this was going to be our lunch & dinner meal for the day, we each got our own. Mine with the green chilies and Donna’s without. There are a few places to eat in this funky little town and this is the only one we have eaten at, but so far we see no need to try another.

On the way up to Madrid Donna asked, “Did you see that cattle crossing sign? It had a UFO on it above the cow silhouette.” “Nope,” I replied, then I asked, “Go back?” “Yes,” she said. The picture above is evidence that they do exist. Click on the big photo and get a close-up of the sign. Not only is there a little UFO silhouette on above the cow, but there is a small doll eye glued where a cow would have an eye. As we continued on, it seemed like all the cattle crossing signs had been modified. Most all of the signs were pairs back to back on a post, so a sign faced both directions, but only the sign that was facing northbound traffic had been doctored. Funny we never noticed them yesterday…

On the way back to the hotel I took a second pass at the musical road on NM333/Rte66 between Tijeras and Albuquerque. This time, unlike yesterday, I actually got a couple of seconds worth of recognizable music.