We're off again

10-1-2011

We are off and running! As we left this morning headed for City of Rocks National Monument in south central Idaho, there was quite a bit of traffic on the freeway. There is a football game at the local University sometime today, and must have been some tailgating going on early.

City of Rocks is an interesting place to visit. We spent a weekend camped there a few years ago, and really enjoyed it. It is a popular rock climbing area, and we watched a group rappelling down Bath Rock. You can still see names of some of the pioneers on some of the rocks, and can see smoke stains on the rocks where they were camped. Lots of huge boulders all over the valley. It would have been a hard place to pull a wagon train through.

Well, we didn’t make it to City of Rocks. Our intent had been to go on from there and stop at Happijac just south of Ogden, Utah to get some jack extensions on Barney and Betty’s cave-mobile. But our timing is off, and they wouldn’t be open on Sunday. So—we detoured in Twin Falls, Idaho and headed south on Hwy 93 with our first new main destination being Great Basin National Park just out of Ely, Nevada.

We stopped at a small rest area south of Jackpot, Nevada for a wonderful lunch of fresh corn on the cob, tomatoes, cukes, carrots, avocado, beans and coleslaw. A bus with a very interesting paint job was also stopped there! Then we leap frogged back and forth with them until they turned west in I80.

Lunch time at the rest stop

We eat out a lot!

Looks good enough to eat, doesn't it!

"The Bus"

We stopped at the railroad museum in Ely, NV to take a look at the steam locomotives. There were 2 steam engines moving cars around the yard. There are a bunch of Germans, probably on a tour, running around taking pictures of the trains. It’s really kind of comical watching them charging around with their tripod and gadget bags setting up for the next shot.

One of the steam engines

Barney "switching" the tracks

Wilma - "all aboard"

Betty and Barney - "all aboard"

Tonight is the first night they are running the Spooktacular, haunted ghost train, which will run every Saturday evening in October. We are planning to stay here for the night and take a train ride in the morning. It’s a tough life.

W/B