September 4th -- First day out

I left the house this morning at 10am. It was surprisingly easy to drive away knowing that I wouldn't be back for quite some time. I had enough time last night to convince myself that I hadn't forgotten anything.

I made a quick stop at Orchard Supply on my way out of town to buy two things -- a lock for the trailer tongue (I don't think it would be very easy to detach the trailer, push it away from the motorhome, and hook it up to something else, but I wanted to be safe), and some caribeaners (sp?) to hook up the trailer chains. The chains (cables, actually) came with these nice clips on the end, but the hitches holes are too beefy, and the cables can't clip on.

So, quick stop at Orchard, then on to Davis to pick up the license plates. So much for a quick stop. I should have known that trying to leave the Bay Area on Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend would be difficult. The traffic was absolutely horrendous. I did get to Davis and made a *very* quick stop there, but it took me about 3.5 hours altogether to get to Sacramento, a trip that should normally take about 2 hours with no traffic. Oh well.

The Sierra was no big deal. As long as I didn't run into traffic and have to lift off the throttle, I could maintain over 55 up most of the hills. But one lift, or any really steep hill, and I was down into the mid-40s. I never saw slower than about 43 or 44.

I stopped for (a late) lunch at the rest area at Donner Summit, right after the Boreal Ski Area. Boreal is having a "dirt boarding" competition this weekend. I assume that's snowboarding on dirt, but who knows?

I wanted to stop at that vista point that overlooks Donner Lake on the east side of the summit -- I've never stopped even though I've driven by it a gazillion times. This seemed like the trip for it. But it turns out that there are only about 4 parking spaces in there -- nowhere near enough for me! If it had been empty, I might have been able to squeeze in, but there were three cars parked and so there was no way. So, I pulled off, but didn't stop (and didn't take a picture like I'd wanted to.)

Blasted through Reno, and headed to US-50A, the cutoff to US-50. Filled up, even though I had maybe 300 miles left on the tank. US-50 through NV is known as "The Loneliest Road in America" and now I know why (see the pictures). It was amazing how few other cars I saw!

There were several signs that said that I was on the old Pony Express route. I would have taken pictures, but I didn't see them until it was too late, and there's no way to turn this rig around when there are no pullouts or anything. There were also several interesting-looking spots along the side of the road with signs shaped like the state of NV, but the same problem -- I was going 60+ mph and it was always too late to make the turn by the time I saw them. But just before I got to Austin for the night, I figured out that there are "warning signs" before those markers, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to stop and see what they were all about.

I pulled into Austin, NV just at sunset, at about 7:45. The Austin RV Park was misrepresented in the guides. I have no idea what they meant by "Big Rigs Welcome". And there's no one here to help, just a drop-box for the nightly fee. The RV park is kind of attached to the Baptist Church in town. Services are tomorrow morning at 9:30. Doesn't look to be a very large place, so I don't think there will be many people coming in.

There are two other guests here. There are two parking areas here, the upper and the lower. Each has one occupant. I parked in the upper (where you enter), because I think I have a better chance of getting out successfully. But as it turns out I'm using up about 5 spots, just parked alongside all of them. I'm using the water from one spot, the power from another, and I don't think I'll even bother to dump. And the whole rig is pointed downhill, which is a little bit frightening. The levellers couldn't even get me level -- and right now, the front wheels are all the way off the ground.

Since it was only just sunset I considered just continuing on to Ely, but that's several hours away (and appears to be the next option -- it's truly desolate out here). So, what the heck -- I called and made a reservation (but just left a message -- the voice on the answering machine said that if I didn't hear back, then I'd be fine, and I didn't hear back), and the guides say "big rigs welcome," and there's no one here. So, I set up camp (including the satellite -- but apparently I missed the US Open), made myself some dinner, and started working on this web page.

My neighbor is here with his wife in their 20' travel trailer, pulled behind their Explorer. They live up in Elko, but are just "getting away for the weekend." This is definitely "away." Elko might as well be NYC compared with Austin! He was dying to know what I did for a living such that I could afford this rig given that I'm younger than him. I told him he just needs to move to Silicon Valley :-)

Oh, hey! Someone else just drove in. Smaller class C, maybe 26' or so. He'll fit.

Tomorrow morning I'll take some pictures of this place so you get the idea. (I did -- see the pictures.) I hope this doesn't turn into a trend. I think I'll start planning to stay in bigger parks, like KOAs. The problem is that there's very, very little to choose from in central NV!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll see a ghost town or a mine or something. I'm not planning on going too far, maybe 350 miles, so that should leave some time for sightseeing. I'm going to go through the guides after I finish this web page.

And, if you didn't figure it out -- no phone here, so I won't be uploading this tonight!

Thanks for reading!
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