Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Winnemucca, Tonopah, and the Griddle, Plus Gold

Winnemucca,NV is a long running personal desert mirage for us. We frequently drive from our home in Tacoma to the four corners area of New Mexico, and we usually choose different routes each time. However we go, there is usually a sign, often quite far away from the place, directing us to Winnemucca. Russ always says, "We could go to Winnemucca." Then we laugh. So this trip we decided to go to Winnemucca. I can see why so many of the area roads lead there, because there are no other large (or medium or small) cities for hundreds of miles around.

Russ points out that we are ready to leave Orovada.
We left Orovada this morning and got to Winnemucca by about 9:30 am. Too early for lunch, but we called it that, because I didn't want to just drive through when it has been at least 15 years of laughing about going some other direction. We ate breakfast for lunch at a place called the Griddle, which was a fantastic old school diner with fabulous food.



Russ tastes his breakfast burrito
After lunch it was just driving through the beautiful high deserts of Nevada. We passed the Round Mountain Gold Mine. Russ commented "that is one hell of a lot of extraction." I think the whole mountain is gone, turned into the tailing piles we saw... so many it looked like at least 20, and we couldn't see them all from the road. I'm sorry I don't have a picture. Seeing the result of mining in this way really reminds me that I don't want to contribute any more to making huge holes in the earth. I try to limit my purchases to only things I use that wear out, no upgrades allowed.

I drove the section from Battle Mountain to Austin.

Lovely Roads
We are camped tonight at the Tonopah Dispersed Camping Area. It is nothing special, but it is free and about the right distance for a day of driving. I am discovering that I really appreciate how self-contained we are in the R-Pod. It does make for some crummy gas mileage when we are towing it, but we have our bed, our kitchen, our bathroom and all the little comforts.

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