Although we couldn’t hear the highway traffic generally from where we were in the RV resort, we were woken by the sound of several sirens out on the highway, sometime between 7 and 7:30am, and then an emergency alert that came through on Mufit’s mobile around 7:30 telling us that the same highway (Highway 50) was closed due to an accident. We looked up where it was saying, and were very pleased to see that it was closed from the RV resort going south, not north – the direction we needed to travel. As we didn’t really get back to sleep after that, we got up after a while and took the dogs for a walk, walking down to the highway to see what was going on and to confirm what we’d heard, and sure enough, we had been very lucky as they were turning people around right at the entrance to where we were staying. It was sad to read later on that the accident resulted in a fatality, and that the person responsible for the accident was suspected of drink driving, at 7am. 😦
Müfit had a few calls for work this morning, so we didn’t rush out, and we didn’t have a long way to drive anyway, so there was no rush. We only had to go about 80kms / 50 miles, but we were planning to stop somewhere along the way and be tourists for an hour or so!
After leaving the lake behind, we headed to Carson City – the capital of Nevada – where we found much cheaper gas than we’d been experiencing in California. We filled up, bought a few groceries (again!), then found a park and parked up for lunch. After this we headed up hill to Virginia City.
Virginia City was one of several boomtowns from the gold and silver rush in the area. It was founded in 1859 and the population peaked at around 25,000 in the mid-1870s, so it was a massive place for the time. It had lots of saloons, obviously, but also churches, theatre and an opera house, so it was quite a sophisticated place! Today, there are still lots of historic homes dating from that time, and the main street has been kept pretty much as it was. We drove through the main street, looking for somewhere to park. There were signs overhead that indicated cars could go left to park, and RVs right, but whenever it said that it was pointing to an incredibly steep and quite narrow street that didn’t look at all suitable for something of Al’s size.
We eventually turned down a street further along and drove down – all the streets went down – made a few more turns, and settled for parking on the side of the road. We hadn’t realised just how far from the centre we had gone, so we had a long and seriously uphill walk with the dogs, but got there in the end!
We spent an hour or so walking around and going into some of the shops. We didn’t make it into any of the museums, because they were very unobvious, but it was fun to see the old buildings. The kids and Müfit bought a few things and then we headed back to a very hot Al, as he’d been sitting in the sun!
We didn’t have too much further to travel but did have to go down yet another steep and winding highway to get there. We’re staying in Sparks, just east of Reno for 2 nights at the Sparks Marina RV Park. It’s a nice place, similar to the one in Long Beach but bigger.
Bolgil Family Adventures 