We had planned on visiting the Redwood National Park, but at
the last minute changed our plans and spent a little extra time in
Monterey. Pretty sure the Redwoods will
hang around another year or so for us to visit.
100 Miles of Fruit Trees |
We took Route 156/152 across country to catch I 5. Along the way we saw some strange
cows….turned and looked a little closer and discovered they were elk standing
beside the road and apparently counting cars.
Speaking of cows… Mona observed that cows seldom run. She asked if I knew why. “No…do you?”
“Of course I do,” she said, “It’s because they run so funny and everyone
laughs when they do.” Can’t argue with
that!
At Lake Tahoe |
We soon entered the Joaquin Valley….this is home to huge
farms and orchards. There is mile after
mile of blooming trees of different shades of pinks and whites. I've never seen so many fruit trees. At a rest area we learned that this area
provides 25% of America’s produce....amazing!
A few hours later we were in Lake Tahoe. Beautiful aqua blue lake surrounded by
mountains and snow. There seemed to be
thousands of skiers in the area…most walking along the road. Not sure where their skis went! After Tahoe
we cruised through Reno for a while and grabbed a bite before tackling the rest
of Nevada.
Nevada's I 80 |
Nevada goes a long long long way on I 80 with basically the
same scenery: mountains, snow, scrub and the same things again. The nice thing is the speed limit is 75. The bad thing was we had a stalker….in a blue
Dodge pickup. He’d pull up alongside us,
cruise there for a few miles….then back off a few miles. A little while later he’d zoom back up and
pull up beside us. That cycle repeated
for over 150 miles. Made me wish we had
brought a little more firepower than a walking stick. Finally, he pulled off the highway about 100
miles before our turnoff. Big Relief!!!
Did you know that on I 80 in Nevada there is a town named
Oreana? And just a ways further down the
road is Argenta. Did not know that till
this drive.
Mona and I were talking about the sights in Nevada…she said,
“They were far and few between.”
Profound! (You get a little loopy
on I 80 so everything seems funny….too bad we didn’t see any cows running!)
Driving across a portion of The Great Salt Lake |
At last, we reached the Bonneville Flats and then the Great
Salt Lake. Finally, different
scenery! Then after Salt Lake City we
turned into the mountains. Saw two bald
eagles almost immediately and soon after started seeing elk, wild horses, antelope and
deer. Hundreds of antelope and deer!
Landed in Rawlins, Wyoming for the night. Did a little geocaching and found two very
unusual cemetery caches. The first was
at an old prison cemetery. Here are the
graves of the “Unclaimed”, prisoners whose families didn’t claim them. All that is there are some simple stones with
just names on them and a board outside showing their birthdays and the date
they died or were executed.
If you look closely you can see the deer deck. |
While heading to the second cache we startled eight deer in
the cemetery. They crossed the street in
front of us and went to a yard where three of them got up on the house’s
deck. Too funny!
The second cache took you to two gravestones and asked you how
these people came to be here. We read
the stones and found that both had been killed while pursuing train robbers on
August 19, 1978. From this cache we
learned about Big Nose George Parrot, the Outlaw Who Grew to Be A Shoe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Nose_George)
It’s amazing what you see/learn from geocaching!
More driving tomorrow…..can’t wait to see what’s on the road
ahead!
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