HOME FREE

Mar 7/10

We left Twin Falls the morning of March 5 and the weather was cool but mostly sunny with a few clouds near the mountains.  We drove south on US 93 through Jackpot, Nevada and saw the first of many casinos in this state.  Even the gas stations have slot machines.  The road was good and we stopped for fuel at Wells, Nevada which is at the intersection of US 93 and Interstate 80 to Salt Lake City. We are paying about $0.76 USD per litre for diesel fuel.  We continued south on 93 and slowly climbed in elevation to about 6427 ft.  The road goes down a basin between mountain ranges (it’s called Great Basin Boulevard) and the scenery is great.  There was snow on the side of the road from a big snowstorm yesterday and still patches of old snow out in the sage brush.

We saw lots of RV’s heading north—the snowbirds are returning to the northern states and BC early this year.  When we got to Ely, Nevada which was our stop for the day, the sun was shining and had melted the snow from the night before.  All the roads were really muddy at the RV sites and there were still big snow banks.  We were there early enough to have a rest and relax after 4 days of steady travel.

The night in Ely was our last cold night and the temperature dropped to 26 F (-3 C).  It was clear that night and we saw more stars than we’ve seen for years as there were few lights and the air is thinner at the higher elevation.

The next day we headed west and south on highways 6 and 318 which were also good roads with very little traffic and I had my first experience at towing the trailer.  We didn’t crash and Stuart didn’t freak out, so I must have done all right.  It took about 4 hours to get to Las Vegas.

We fuelled up in North Las Vegas and then followed I-15 and I-515 through the city and kept going east to Boulder City.  We didn’t want to stay in Las Vegas at all.  We’ve been there before and it was too busy for our liking.

We are now at the Canyon Trail RV Park in Boulder City, Nevada and are staying for 2 nights.  They have a self-serve RV wash area here so we hosed down both the truck and the trailer and they sure look a lot better.  The temperature was 67 F (19 C) when we arrived and it only dropped to 47 F (8 C) — that’s why we call this the “home free” point.

We are ready for a rest from travelling and plan to enjoy our Sunday before heading out again tomorrow.