Busy Day

Day 19 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Glenbrook, NV to South Lake Tahoe, CA and back.

In the morning we went up to watch the women start their Stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California, in the afternoon we went to watch the men finish Stage 6 of the Tour of California and in the evening we went to a drop in for the wedding guests at the Stateline Brewery & Restaurant.

Oh Hail Yes

Day 17 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Glenbrook, NV to Round Hill, NV and back. For only the 3rd of 17 so far, we had a mostly wet day. This time with a twist, a couple of short bursts of pea sized hail. We did get out early to go get some breakfast at a local coffee joint, The Bean Bar, for some half-way decent bagels and a cup of joe. Then another stop at the Safeway for supplies. Tonight was dinner with big brother Jim, father of the bride, and wife Linda. Tomorrow is the expected arrival of our bunkhouse mates, little brother Scott, wife Beth, nephew James and the two nieces who aren’t getting married on Saturday, Susan and Maddie.

Noth Lake Tahoe?

Day 16 of our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip.

Glenbrook, NV to South Lake Tahoe, CA and back. No geocaching today, just a little light shopping down in the busy parts of town. We did walk down to the end of the street and then a quarter mile or so north to go to the small Cave Rock State Park. It has a boat launch, a couple of picnic tables, a small sand beach, a lot of parking spaces and a view of Cave Rock from lake level looking north. The above photo will be posted on Instagram like yesterday and I so much wanted to misspell North as Noth, like I butchered South, but I probably won’t.

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.