Last post on my trip

I had a couple more pictures to post so here they are. The rocky one is of Lippencott road in one of the rough areas. Slow going, needless to say.

If you look closely in this picture you'll see my truck. As you can see, there weren't that many people camping there this week, which is the way I like it. Funny thing is, I was sitting in the Wizard pool with some other people while I was there this time and we started comparing notes and all of us liked to drive in and not see a lot of people. I know some people like to come out and be sociable and don't mind the crowds. Can't say I'm one of them though.

More on my trip..

I had a whirl wind trip on Saturday. After leaving Vegas and going down Titus Canyon, I headed out to the Racetrack. Of course, I had to get a picture of the one well known way point along the way. All the teapots get in the way of the sign.

After camping at the top of the Lippencott mine road I started down it the next day. I know I have been reading about how the road has been graded and improved over the years since the last time I was here, some 25 years ago, but it was, if anything, a little worse than I remembered it. I made lots of stops on the way down and really took my time. I did run into another guy who was coming up. Luckily we met at an opportune spot, there were many stretches that just didn't have much room for meeting another vehicle. I stopped and said hi to him and he described the road as "brutal," but going down wasn't all that bad. I kept thinking all the way down that I really wouldn't want to drive up from the bottom. It's totally doable, but there are some spots that might be a little challenging and would require some careful maneuvering.


These pictures were obviously taken on some of the better parts of the road. My previous trips down this road so long ago were in a college van, which I did twice, and my old Subaru Brat all packed with kids and camping gear. I don't remember having any trouble on any of those trips, but I wouldn't want to drive any of those vehicles down it now.


The rest of my trip that day got me to the hot springs and I spent the week there. Ya gotta love it!!

Trippin' down South!!

Took a little drive to the south.. well, not a "little" drive, round trip was 2100 miles. I wanted to go visit my brother and his family down in Tucson Arizona and get out of the cold weather up here. At least that was my plan. Unfortunately the cold weather came with me, or I should say it went ahead of me and met me there. I had some snowy roads to contend with between Carson City and Bishop but traffic was light and soon I was out of that.

I camped the first night just east of Death Valley National Park and when I got up in the morning my thermometer said 18°. Now I was prepared for cold weather camping so night wasn't too bad on me but when I went to make coffee in the morning I ran into an interesting problem. Due to the freezing point of water being what it is, very little of my water supply remained in a liquid condition. On top of that, I found that a bowl of cereal covered with milk has a way of changing forms if you leave it sitting out too long. Oh well, ya gotta love camping in cold weather.

After spending 2 nights with my brother I headed back up north and camped for the night at a place called Burro Creek. They have a really nice BLM campground there but I didn't want to pay $10 for a place to park my truck so I found a little spot near that campground. Needless to say, I had a fire that night. What a difference that made! I found that some of the desert cacti that are dead have quite a bit of resin in them and burn quite well, as you can see.

The next day I had to drive over Hoover Dam so I did the touristy thing and stopped and took pictures. I had to say that I was surprised that the dam was so small. Somehow I had envisioned a much larger structure. It was easy to see why they chose that place for the dam.

Next it was off to visit my old high school friend who lives in Vegas. I stayed with Paul for 2 nights and and then it was off to Death Valley for a week. OK, Saline Valley to be correct.

Picnic Weather

Holey Cow Batman!! 2 nice days in a row. I'm all a tingling after today's little jaunt. I decided to take a walk up into the Susanville Ranch Park trail system. It was pretty cold and snowy on the trail going up the canyon on the north side so I decided to climb out of the canyon and get on a high spot. That I did. I actually almost broke a sweat going up through the rocks... OK, I admit it, I got a good sweat going doing that. It felt great to push my winter muscles a bit considering all the flat hiking I have been doing.
The second picture is the view I had as I was eating my lunch. See my feet? The weather man is saying that these nice temperatures are going to change drastically in the next few days where the highs for the day will be in the 20's. THat makes me even more happy that I am heading for Tucson on Saturday. I can't wait to get down in the desert. Funny thing is that I was reading that Las Vegas might be having some hard frost on Friday and Saturday night. I'm staying in Tecopa the first night so it's good that I am prepared for cold weather, but not what I want to see when I go down there. Oh well, what can you say? Ya gotta love it!!

Quite Nice!

I went out for a walk today... big surprise, huh? I went up to what has become my favorite lunch spot. It is a small flat ledge on the rimrock. The sun was out, it was fairly warm, temperature in the low 40's I guess but really nice especially if you were walking along. There was hardly any wind which is why it felt so comfortable. Anyway, it was the thing to do, no doubt.

I listened to most of a John Prine album here which really went well with the scenery.


I always love seeing this view on my way back to town which may account for all the pictures I have taken from this spot in all the seasons. I could do with a little less ice and a little more green but hey, it's winter and days like this make up for some of the bad days. Ya gotta love it!!

Day in the Valley

This is a local hot spring that has had no access for years. Now the railroad has abandoned their line and pulled up their tracks, effectively creating a road. Might be my next project, but I saw other folks looking at it today too. This picture was taken last year but it looked the same today.

There is some potential here and I'm just the one to take advantage of it.

Cold Day

In my goal of covering the excruciating minutia of events that compromise my life, I'll add to this blog on a regular basis as long as I'm home.

I went for a long walk today up the Bizz Johnson trail. The temperature never got past the mid 30's but the sun was out and combined with a brisk walking pace, I was not cold at all. There was a little skiff of snow on the ground in places but it wasn't over the soles of my tennis shoes. Sure looks like a winter scene, huh? I can't wait to get out of town and head to the desert... something I will be doing very soon. I can totally do without the snow and ice, not to mention the cold weather but I live in an area that has that kind of winter.

Now I have been hearing all this shit about how warm it is this winter. Well, not here. I'm happy it's warm somewhere, even if it isn't supposed to be, but we have had more than our share of colder than average temperatures here this season. My theory is that it all evens out somewhere. It's warmer back east, and colder out west, it's all evening out. Anyway, had a nice walk and all I can say is "ya gotta love it."