MAR 29 Monday, sightseeing; Virginia City
The wind gusted most of the night and at times, the unit was shaking and it was waking me up of course. We are in a large valley surrounded by very high mountains. We are near Lake Tahoe and the ski resort so the winds just blow from the top down. The wind blew all day from light to very strong.
We left early, stopped at the Tourist Info Centre to get some information then drove to Virginia City. We took Hwy 50 East then north on 341. The road was incredibly scenic. We stopped first in Silver City, 5100 feet, and look around at a hotel built in the 1800’s. We carried on to Gold City at 6000 feet then arrived in Virginia City at 6200 feet. What a neat and wonderful city. It was very rustic, picturesque and full of history. This is where the TV show Bonanza was filmed whenever an outside scene was required. Unfortunately, the site was sold to a private citizen and the place is now closed. Too bad! We had lunch in an old saloon and walked the main street. The sidewalks were still made up of boardwalk. We really felt part of the era. The only drawback was the strong wind all day. It was a warm day but the wind was cool. While here, we did some geo-caching and found 10 of them. These hills were famous for the gold and silver that was found here and there are a lot of open mine pit and mine shaft but warnings everywhere about the dangers of entering one. Of course we took lots of pictures and posted them to our Picasa Link on the left side. We spent the whole day here and finally came down at 4 pm.
We stopped in Carson City at the “Frikin & Cat English Pub” where we had a couple beer and dinner. They had a special for two for $9.95 which included a shared appetizer and two entree dishes. Pretty good but they made it up on the price of beer. Did you know that the word “firkin” is an English word that means the wood barrel that beer comes in?!
We came home and relaxed. It began raining later in the evening and the wind finally calmed down a bit but not for long.
MAR 30, Tuesday, Leaving Carson City
We got up this morning from a horrible night of listening to the wind bashing our slides and toppings. The forecast is for 3 inches of snow today then 6 inches tomorrow with winds force of 25 to 30 mph; we decided to leave.
We were on the road by 10:45 after receiving a refund of one day. Pretty good considering their policy is “NO REFUND”. We took on fuel at 2.999 and got on Hwy 395. The sky was great with snow and the wind was blowing from the south which helped us. We by-passed Reno and travelled trough California north of Reno. The weather was a mixture of snow, sun, rain, hail and more snow. The temperature ranged from 40 to 27 back to 30*F in Lakeview, Oregon. We stopped in Alturas, California for fuel @ 3.17 then for lunch in Likely, California. We finally arrived in Lakeview, Oregon around 5 pm and decided to spend the night here. Plenty of snow on the ground and actually, we arrived in a snow storm which made the decision to stay easier. After setting up, it finally stopped snowing and the sky cleared for a while. WHAT A DAY!!!! The only good thing about it is that the road was cleared of snow and dry most of the way. Our highest altitude was 5600 feet.
We travelled 434 KM ( 264 miles) in 6 hours at an average of 51 MPH.
N 42* 11’ 51”
W 120* 20’ 48”
Alt: 4812 feet
MAR 31, Wednesday, to Bend Oregon
It is amazing how one finds 35*F a heat wave after being in 27*F (-4*C)!!! That’s the kind of day it’s been. We left Lakeview around 9:30 am and went north on 395 to hwy 32 where we turned North-West, it was a nice highway and picturesque. Lots of Buttes and high plateau. When we left Lakeview, it had snowed overnight so the highway was still covered but not slippery but all the same, we drove at 45 MPH just to be safe. It cleared when we got to HWY 32. It was sunny most of the way.
We finally turned onto Hwy 97N and stopped in Lapine for lunch at a small roadside restaurant. There we met the owner who was a musician at one time and knew and met a few well know singers. He had pictures on the wall and he had a petition that anyone that could name the singers would have a free meal. Good old Val got them all except two. The owner and his wife were quite impressed.
We arrived in Bend around 2 pm and set up in Scandia RV Park, a Good Sam Park then we went to Walmart to buy a container that I lost in Carson City during that wind storm and Albertson for some groceries. It is a balmy 38*F!
We travelled 277 KM (173 miles) in 4.5 hours at an average speed of 52 MPH
N 44* 01’ 49”
W 121* 18’ 42
Alt: 3785 feet
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