I started the engine on 3:08pm on Saturday afternoon. The odoeter was 054752 miles. I loaded up the cargo with so much stuff (see photo).

It turned out I put too much food and cooking stuff. I seldome cooked during the drive...

What I Had Missed: I ignored the sign to Virginia City since it was already after dark, and I wanted to go as far as possible. But one of my friend told me that this was the city of mining. When Americans think of a boomtown-mining town, it is this Virginia City. It has produced 60 billion (not million?) US Dollar at the value of the time from mining. I wonder how much worth with current US dollar.

Finally, I am departing for the Southern Utah road trip. An hour later, I was stuck in the traffic on I80 around Berkeley. Hmm, I should have taken my favorite CA-84/Niles Canyon shortcut to get to I680. Oh, well. Stop complaining about big cities. Soon, I would be in the wilderness.

View of US50 in Nevada. Mountain ranges and flat lowlands with alkali lakes dominates most of the scenery.

Driving the US50 was beautiful; the views of South Fork of America River and the Sierra Nevada kept entertaining while I drove. It was just about sunset time when I reached Lake Tahoe. I stopped my car to enjoy the peaceful scenery for a while. After taking a few photos, I continued east to Nevada. It was around 8:00pm when I passed the Carson City, the capital of Nevada. It was a typical Nevada town, filled with casinos and motels. I kept driving, ignoring all the vacancy signs. But soon I learned that there were no motels for next 2 hours. I tried to find a camping site but all of them were taken already. At 10:20pm finally I found a motel in a town called Fallon. It was yet-another Nevada town, full of casinos. Hmm, which part of this highway does "America's Loneliest Highway" refers to?

It was very disappointing; there was no egg with steak dish in the breakfast menu. I thought that was the standard item in Nevada. Anyway, I continued driving on the US-50.

Sand Dune right along the US 50, seen from the ruins of Pony Tail Express Station.

A meadow at the lowlands between the mountain range.

I could not see anything last night because it was already after dark. But now I understands why they call this highway "America's Loneliest Highway". There were no human life along this highway, at least that was what I thought when I was driving the first 100 miles of the road between the town of Fallon and Cold Springs. There were series of mountain ranges, all marching north-and-south. The road went up and down crossing these ranges. The mountains were bold, brown, rocky, rough, and looked like real bad soil for any agriculture. In between the ranges, low lands expanded. These flat fields were filled with alkali water or salt lake, with some smells of bad waters. This terrain reminded me of that of Death Valley. Unfortunately, it was not as bad as Death Valley. Only if this land were worse, this could have been a national park.

Right in middle of the desertedness, there lies a big Sand Mountain. As I got close to the sand, I saw small bugs crawling on the dunes. It turned they were sand buggies; hundreds of people were camping at the foot of the sand dune for the fun of driving up the sandy hill. It was like a small community. Very interesting. Near-by the dune, there was a remaining of a station for a Ponytail Express service. It was amazing how people can live in such place.

After passing the town of Cold Springs, the loneliest highway became much more beautiful. The mountains were covered with forest. Some peaks still had snow on top of them. There were water rushing in between the mountain ranges. I guessed it rained recently. I could see this was spring when the green and flowers enjoying the weather. Some forest were pretty thick; Toiyabe and Humboldt national forests surprisingly cover much of the middle of Nevada. It was not bad at all. Before this trip, I thought Nevada was a flat desert state, just like Las Vegas. But it has mountains and forests.

Nevada
May 20, 2001

(Right) Impressive Wheeler peak rises 13,000 feet above sea.

Great Basin NP lies just before the Utah border, and has beautiful Wheeler Peak at 13,000 feet above sea. It is said that you can see hundreds of miles in a clear day from the peak. Unfortunately, I could not hike the peak since it was still covered with snow. I came to think this could be the easiest way to stand at the peak of 13,000 feet tall without much climb. The scenic drive goes up 10,000 feet and it is only 4 miles away. OK, it does sound very strenuous but still it can be done in a day. The park also offers interesting cave tour into Lehman Caves. (Arrived at the park around 3:30pm, at 640 miles from SF).