Tonopah, Nevada: Half Way To Vegas

Actually, a better title would be "Tonopah, Nevada: Half Way To No Where". This is a high desert small town that appears to be barely hanging on. Just a few stores, a hotel/casino/diner/RV park/donut shoppe. Who knows what other businesses lurk inside those dark wooden walls?

We left Reno today after saying goodbye to Marcie & Terry last night. The ride here was through the desert which is not surprising since all of Nevada appears to be desert. There may be some exceptions however they must be small and on the edges of other states.

Loved the weather in Reno and the lack of bugs. It appears to have a perfect climate most of the year; all except for the winter which gets pretty cold.

Passed a few lakes including a lake lies along side of US-95 as you descend from a mountin pass. Great view of the lake and of a large Army weapons storage facility. Amazingly large number of sheds, buildings, and bunkers all supposedly filled with munitions of various sorts. The bunkers appear to have been designed to minimize the impact to adjacent bunkers if one of them blows up. Of course the Army says that could never happen but if it did, the bunkers will minimize damage to adjacent storage areas and would hopefully limit any destruction to a single bunker.

We drove through a huge desert storm. Beautiful in its own way: huge dark clouds sprinkled with the occasional lightning, high winds blowing a wall of sand before the storm, a thin wall of heavy rain visible as it move along the ground plus a few of those little dust tornadoes. The winds were the worst we've hit yet, tossing our RV around like a bathtub toy. Always interesting on a high speed two lane road....

As mentioned we are in Tonopah for the evening: no TV signals, slow Internet connection, and the occasional wave of wind/rain blowing through town. Should be an interesting night. I'll let you know...

Tomorrow we finish the drive to Vegas, which is ~200 miles away. We'll be there for a couple of days and then its off to Phoenix where we'll meet the girls on the 6th. Can't wait to see them.

See Ya!