Virginia City, Nevada to Port Kells, BC in two days…
November 23We left Virginia City at 7.30 in the morning with terribly high winds blowing on the mountaintop where we spent two great days. Advice from a resident was that the wind would not be on the side of the mountain that we were descending, down to Reno. He was right, although the wind was much above my comfort level.
The rest of the day was a series of adventures that just kept going. As we crossed over the Sierra Nevada Mountains heading to the coast, we went over The Donner Pass. The weather was overcast at the bottom but got progressively nasty as we went up. At the summit there was blowing snow and sleet. That soon dispersed as we started our steep, seemingly endless descent to the Sacramento Valley. There was, however, an endless stream of tractor-trailers that seemed to delight in screaming down the grades far exceeding the speed limit.
We made it to I-5, that infamous long boring Interstate that goes the length of the USA, around noon.
As we approached the north end of California, the rains started about the same time as we started to climb through the Siskiyou Mountains and the summit on the route. Then we hit fog about the same time as it got dark. Around six, we made it to the town that we had our selected as our campsite for the night. We could not find it at first, however after asking locals we located it in the middle of a highway detour. A blind-mans-bluff tour of the camp finally unearthed a terse note, “CAMP FULL”. It was one of those places that you read about in paperback novels, decrepit trailers and junk everywhere. We were somewhat pleased we would not be spending the night there.
That led us to have our first and last night camped in a Wal-Mart parking lot! (A sort of camp-of-last-resort). We were in the middle of nowhere except this town and going back on the highway was not in the cards. We had four other campers in the lot with us, but it seemed a little eerie, it just does not feel right.
At 3.30 AM, we got up, had coffee, porridge and were on the road by 4.20. Fourteen and one half hours later, we were parked at the Farm. 980Ks is a lot of mileage in one day folks, but that big bed, big shower, big bathroom and big kitchen was calling to us! (Not to mention our big family, many of whom were happy to greet us in the incessant drizzle.)
That’s it folks. Back to the real world. I hope you got a kick out of being a Gypsy as we were for a while.
By the way, we traveled just under 12,000 Kilometers and did not have one flat tire or mechanical malfunction.
The gas prices ran from a low of 59 cents, [Texas], to a high of 86 cents, [California], Canadian, a litre.
Photo is of Grandad and three girls on an early morning Missing Hamster Hunt!
posted by Doug and Fellette @ 8:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home