Heading Home

Driving south through Nevada after we left Ely. We passed through Las Vegas and went on down to Laughlin. We are staying at the Riverside Casino RV Park.

Outside Ely

Heading south

Las Vegas - Sin City

On the way to Laughlin

Steep grade down to the river

Laughlin

We are staying for a couple of days. We drove up to Davis Dam and across the river into Bullhead City, AZ. It is pretty hot here.

Davis Dam

Riverside Casino

Colorado Belle Casino

After leaving Laughlin, we drove across Arizona through Kingman and Wickenburg. We finally arrived  home in the afternoon. It will be nice to sit still for a while.

Riding the Rails

We went back into Ely to check out the train museum of the Nevada Northern Railway. It turns out that they operate a steam tourist train so we just had to get tickets to ride. It was a 1.5 hour ride up through a large copper mining area.

Amtrak Stop?????????

John being helpful

View between the buildings

Some lucky fellow got to be engineer for the morning

All Aboard !!!!!!!!!!

The tourist cars

View from the car

Into a very smoky and sooty tunnel

The surrounding desert

On the way back to Ely

After the ride we got a walking tour of the barn. It is a working museum where they are restoring to working condition several rare steam engines.

Their Motto

Awaiting restoration

Big axle

The Pit

Our engine returning to the barn

Dipping into the Great Basin

We decided to drive Rt 93 all the way down through Nevada. We are heading for Ely. This is the Great Basin. It is an unusual area known for valleys surrounded by mountains. It is a cold desert with the only water coming from snowmelt. All the water forms transient lakes in the valleys that have no outlet.

We hit the Jackpot when we entered NV

It was snowing as we drove south

They don't put curves in roads out west

Surrounded by mountains along Rt 93

I have found a national park that I had never heard of before now. Great Basin NP is about 60 miles east of Ely close to the Utah border. It is a beautiful and remote place. They are famous for their dark nights and claim to be one of the few spots in the US where you can still see the Milky Way. There was snow in the upper elevations the night before. Mt Wheeler is the main feature of the park. The drive to the top is steep and beautiful. There is even a campground at the top.

Navigating the park road

Overlooking the valley

Bristlecone Pines - oldest one found is 5000 yrs old

Overlook near the top

Getting close

Mt Wheeler over 13,000 ft.

Aspens are turning colour

Beautiful day

Below freezing and snow at the top

The road was steep

A really old Bristlecone Pine

The park is also noted for some beautiful caves, Lehman Caves. They are special for the amount of drapery type formations. They offer guided tours but I'm not much on caves so we bypassed them.

Twin Falls

Bailing out of West Yellowstone under low cold clouds, we drive through Idaho Falls and on to Twin Falls. I found out that there were two beautiful falls in the area so we drove out to see them. Shoshone Falls and Twin Falls are almost dry from lack of rain. At one time they were both magnificent but they have been dammed up and tamed.

Shoshone Falls

Shoshone Falls

Snake River below Shoshone Falls

Dam at Shoshone Falls

Twin Falls wild

Twin Falls today

Snake River below Twin Falls

This is the Snake River with very steep and narrow canyon walls. Evel Knievel jumped the Snake River Canyon between the two falls in 1969.

Yellowstone

We left Bozeman and drove a beautiful road to West Yellowstone.

 

On the road

A major winter storm is expected to begin Tuesday night, worsen through Wednesday night then continue snowing through Thursday. We have to shorten our stay and only have one day in Yellowstone. On that time schedule we decided to do the geyser basins. It started out nice in the morning, had turned grey by lunch time and by late afternoon the temps were in the low 40s and a cold rain.

Browsing elk

Norris Geyser Basin

Lower geyser basin

Steamboat Geyser

Paint pots

Ol' Faithful