Where we meet Jim.

Yesterday began with an early start..

Mornings routine complete and were on the road by 9 30.

Seems we're surrounded by mountains but its pretty flat and there is very little traffic.

The grades start up and over through and down a very very long grade to salt lake basin.

Grey skies and grades

Salt lake home of..... Salt.

We pass on the south shore of the lake and see some  mountains in the distance.  It must be Nevada.

53 miles later we reach those mountains... 

Yes, you could see mountains 53 miles away.  It's that flat.

We pass the bonneville salt flats, pricsilla hits 88 miles per hour and we time travel back an hour into another zone.

There are many up hill grades and some get us and some of the few trucks around down to about 40 mph. Then we get to the part of Nevada which is more of the same. It's flat and empty with mountains off in the distance.  but you occasionally pass an exit that looks like it would take you to nowhere or to nothing or some hugeass factory complex way off in the distance. We pass Elko which was plan A and I still am feeling quite good. we press on.  we also pass through plan B battle mountain (home of them ten dollar lap dance and some bird hunt tournament and decide well head towards lovelock even though the single rv camp is not answering the phone.

We are greeted by a very friendly Jim who turns out to be the caretaker.  He takes our info and tells us to go to slot three.  Seems like this place has seen better days but is well kept and feels full of promise.

Seems that all the other residents here are sort of permanent and either work at the mine or the prison which we passed earlier on the high way.  We make dinner and start making tomorrows plans. lula needs to walk and we run into Jim and end up sharing beers tequila and stories after we are invited into his fenced in yard.

Turns out he was born in Arkansas but was raised and has lived "everywhere else". He is quite a character full of life charm and anecdotes.  he's a warm hearted retired trucker turned camp manager willing to share what he has.  He's not pushing any agenda other than enjoy your life and what you have.  He and his wife entertain us in their yard and there is laughter well into the evening.  He tells us of the prison minister and how its full of pretty bad people like OJ (simpson i assume.)  Most memorable is his tale of Ol Scratch, a cat he once had that "jumped out of a moving truck cab winder which was cranked down about yay much". This happened on a dock in New Orleans.  He and his wife decided to spend the night on the dock with permission hoping the cat would come back to its food bowl, which it did.  The next morning as they are leaving the docks the cat again jumps out of the moving cab window and James (as his wife calls him) yells after the cat "I hope you like norleens ya damn cat".  I would go out of my way to stop here again.  This is a missing slice of America.

 Turns out we can make soquel in about six hours according to google.  Nancy and i discuss and neither of us are convinced we can maintain the speed as we still have the Sierra Nevada mountains to cross. They are about as high as we've been but nancy tells me the grades are steeper and more frequent.  Anything over 6 hours puts us on hi way 17 over the Santa cruz "hill" at rush hour. In priscilla? No thank you.  We decide to have an easy drive and try to spend the last night someplace in the mountains. Jim has already shown us just about every alternate route and passable back road on his atlas but in the end we all decide that 80 to 680 to 17 will work best.  

We'll let you know what happens.