High Desert, Nevada

We left Carson City, NV headed southeast with no plans except to reach Las Vegas at the end of the day. We traveled through Nevada’s great basin a/k/a The High Desert and came upon the biggest and most remote Army Depot that we had ever seen. Located in Hawthorne, NV, the Hawthorne Army Depot covered thousands of acres of desert and it appeared that there were at least a thousand barrack buildings. We witnessed three Hum-Vs in desert paint with automatic rifles on top, manned by several soldiers each who had apparently just come back from a training mission. Cool. The only signs of life through the entire morning was one scorpion skittering across the road, one mule who looked totally lost and 3 buffalo enclosed in a small corral. We kept on climbing gradually until we reached the town of Tonopah, NV and learned that it sits at over 6,000 feet above sea level and on its eastern edge lies Nellis Air Test Range. Yikes! This town was about the creepiest we had ever seen. In the early 1900s it was a booming mine town (mining what, we never found out, but it wasn’t gold or silver) but now it is nearly a ghost town. There are more junk cars and trucks out here that we have ever seen. The residents encircle their property with junk vehicles, as if they were circling the wagons! I think the nuclear testing has done something strange out here! Nellis encompasses a good 200 square miles of desert and we understand now why they chose this area. There is not a living thing here but sage brush and the occasional prairie chicken, hawk or crow. We continued on and decided that we would take a 75 mile side trip to Death Valley. Hey, we drove this far, how could we NOT go there? It was awesome. The mountains appeared to be made of sand in many different colors of pink, yellow, grey and black. Remember the sand art that the kids made by putting layers of different colored sand in a glass jar? That’s what it looks like. Beautiful, remote, scary in a way and at the bottom is the Arasmosa River at minus 190 feet below sea level! The river is only a thin stream this time of year, but we saw signs that this area is subject to major flooding if they get a little rain. We stopped at Furnace Creek to view the inn there. Right smack dab in the middle of Death Valley is this beautiful inn. We were so glad that we took this side trip because it was a wonder to behold. The pictures don’t do it justice. (I hate this camera, remember?) We then drove the 80 or so miles into Vegas and went to where the HI Express locater told us to go, but we never found it and ended up calling 411 and getting lodging at the HI Express West Las Vegas instead. So, it was 9:00 pm before we got settled in last night. Saturday, we plan on visiting Lake Mead and Hoover Dam and coming back to the room and get gussied up and hit the Strip and drop a couple of dollars!