Carson City, NV

2017-10-16 Westbound; Home!

We left the Visalia WalMart at about 8:15 this morning. We pulled the Villa over the Grapevine, and arrived in Irvine:

2017-10-16 California 01 Irvine 03

Our intrepid crew was waiting to greet us:

2017-10-16 California 01 Irvine 01

Happy Hours and a home cooked meal ensued; an enjoyable time was had by all…

June 10-October 16

128 Nights

Over 15,000 miles, including about 1,000 miles as part of the WBCCI Nor’ by Nor’east Caravan

28 States, 5 Canadian Provinces, all 5 Great Lakes, 10 border crossings between US and Canada

Public transportation: 7 Train trips, 4 bus trips, and 3 Uber rides (not counting excursions as part of the Nor’ by Nor’east Caravan)

8 Frank Lloyd Wright buildings

5 Laura Ingalls Wilder sites and museums

Visited by our grandchildren: 2

12 Visits to friends and/or family

3 Visits for service on the Chevrolet Silverado truck

5 visits for service on the Airstream

143 Airstreams seen along the road or in RV parks ( plus 24 on the Nor’ by Nor’east Caravan, 31 at the Carson City Rally, 98 at the Jackson Rally, and many, many more at the various Airstream dealers we visited along the way…)

October 17, 2017 7

2017-10-10 Westbound; WBCCI Region 12 Rally begins…

Today the Region 12 Rally begins! The happy merry workers have arrived and they are setting up the big tent:

2017-10-10 California 01 Jackson 01

We have the day free until 4:30, so we decided to go tour the town of Jackson. It is very historic, with plaques on most of the buildings telling us that they had been built in the mid 19th century. This is gold country; we are not far from Sutter Creek, and all the towns in the area are proud of their gold rush heritage.

Unfortunately, there is not much besides old buildings in Jackson:

2017-10-10 California 02 Jackson 03

At the end of the street is the courthouse…

We walked up and down the streets. Most were empty, closed, or under re-construction due to a recent fire (how recent, we don’t know…)

So we did not find a good place for lunch. Maybe we’ll come back on the weekend – apparently more places are open on the weekends…

We returned to the Villa. Most sites are filled with Airstreams:

2017-10-10 California 01 Jackson 02

2017-10-12 California 01 Jackson 04

Happy Hours started at 4:30 and dinner followed. The entertainment for the evening was the playing of “Human Bingo”. It is a “get acquainted” game… There are almost 100 Airstreams here; we had spent the weekend with many of them in Carson City, and many others that we have met in the past. That is almost 200 people! So I’ve been struggling with remembering names and circumstances all day long and I am peopled out. I’ll meet the rest of the Airstreamers in the upcoming days at my own speed…

As we exited the tent after dinner the sky was putting on quite a show. No, this is not fires – just a California sunset:

2017-10-10 California 03 Jackson 01

And an enjoyable time was had by all…

October 14, 2017 0

2017-10-08 Westbound; California and a mountain pass at 8,574 feet elevation!

We once again started the day by walking to Mom and Pops for breakfast. Then we joined other LTAC members in a hike to a local waterfall!

Yes! It’s up there!

2017-10-08 California 01 Carson City 01

It was a short hike, and pretty easy. Carson City sits at about 4,800 feet elevation, and this was about a 200 feet climb (after a drive up the foothills…); we were almost a mile high!

Waterfalls never disappoint:

2017-10-08 California 01 Carson City 02

Along the way we were treated to views of the valley, fall colors, and unusual rock formations:

2017-10-08 California 01 Carson City 06 2017-10-08 California 02 Views 02

After the hike we returned to the Villa. It was time to go…

We hit the road at about 1:00 pm. We were shortly back in California. We are headed to Jackson, CA, to attend the WBCCI Region 12 Rally. We will be arriving early, so we will have some quiet time before the other 100 Airstreams arrive.

I didn’t think much about the drive; I just set the GPS in the truck and followed its directions. As we wound our way through foothills, I casually asked Lynda to look on the map and see what the elevation of the pass was that we were driving through. She said, “8,754′”. What? This may not be Rocky Mountain high, but it’s higher than we had ever been before. Some people get altitude sickness at elevations like this.

Anyway, we drove around and around, and up and up. We enjoyed the scenery:

2017-10-08 California 02 Views 03

The roads were very busy with tourists stopping alongside the road to photograph the fall colors, along with hunters, parked along the road and heading out across the open fields with their dogs…

We scaled the summit at 8,754′, and we headed downhill. Then we were heading up again, and scaled two other passes at about 8,000′. It was an exciting drive. And then we headed down and down and down. Jackson is at 1,200’…

It was not an easy drive. Steep downhills, sharp curves, lots of cars going both ways… But we made it to Rancheria RV Resort, at the Rancheria Casino… It is a beautiful RV park! Large spaces, nice concrete pads, lots of grass:

2017-10-08 California 03 Jackson 01

We set up, met a few of our neighbors (there are about 30 Airstreams in the park…), and Happy Hours ensued. An enjoyable time was had by all…

PS: In the middle of the night strong winds erupted suddenly. Other than having to run outside to pull down the awnings, we had nothing much more than a lot of noise and a shaking Airstream. However, this was the night that Napa and Sonoma counties caught on fire… We are glad it didn’t happen here…

October 13, 2017 0

2017-10-07 Westbound; Urban Rally in Carson City…

Saturday morning in Carson City dawned bright and clear. We walked down Carson St. and went to Mom and Pops Diner for breakfast. As we walked down the street we saw all the Airstreams that were parked along the street:

2017-10-06 California 02 Carson City 06

After breakfast we returned to the Villa and prepared it for the Open House. The local papers had advertised that all are welcome to see the Airstreams. So we cleaned up, put away stuff, and made the Villa look as nice as possible… We were told to be available from 10:00 am to Noon.

People started arriving at 10:00 am. They were still coming through at 6:00 pm. Apparently the newspapers said “all day”… But we don’t mind…

We did sneak away for a few minutes in the afternoon to do the “Wine Walk”. Downtown Carson City does this the first Saturday every month. (On the third Saturday they do a beer crawl…)

We signed up, paid our $15.00, and received our wrist bands and our glasses. There were over 60 merchants pouring wine throughout the downtown district.

Some had set up tables on the sidewalk, others had you come into their stores. Note that this wasn’t some delicate wine tasting with good wines and tiny pours. These were fairly average wines with full glass pours. Ant no one was keeping count on how many times you asked for a glass of wine… Between stores, there were throngs of people, carrying and drinking glasses of wine, and walking along the sidewalk… We’re not in California anymore!

2017-10-07 California 01 Carson City 04

Some places had entertainment: Irish music, similar to what we heard at the Ceilidhs in Nova Scotia…

2017-10-07 California 01 Carson City 05

Our final wine stop was at the local Elks Lodge. After drinking our wine, and enjoying some of the food they had set out, we sat at the bar and watched college football. And, since the bar was open, we were allowed to order drinks. Let me tell you, if you like to drink and have the opportunity to drink in an Elks Club bar, you are in heaven!!!

We made our way back to the Villa and fixed a quick dinner; lookieloos were still coming through… We left and walked to see an outdoor concert put on by some local musicians:

2017-10-07 California 01 Carson City 02

An added benefit of the concert was the ice cream store right there on the square:

2017-10-07 California 01 Carson City 03

We had a nice time hanging out in Carson City. It is a friendly, nice little town. They have just spent a ton of money redoing their streets, curbs, and sidewalks. Now they just need to get a few more upscale businesses and fill in the “missing teeth” of the storefronts along the street.

We started to return to the Villa, but were distracted by a casino bar that had both the CAL game and the Dodgers game on the TVs just above the bar. Drinks ensued and an enjoyable time was had by all.

PS: The Dodgers had a better night than CAL…

October 12, 2017 0

2017-10-06 Westbound; Goodbye, California, Hello, Nevada…

We left Hat Creek mid-morning, and headed east. Soon we were rewarded with a view of Lassen Peak in the distance:

2017-10-06 California 01 Lassen 01

We continued south, just west of the Nevada border, until we crossed over into Nevada near Reno:

2017-10-06 Map - Nevada

Our map is now complete, showing all the States we have visited on this trip, except for the five Canadian Provinces. We’ll have to look for a combined map when we return home…

We soon at arrived in Carson City. We were instructed to show up at exactly 2:00 pm, so we had two hours to kill. We did some shopping and spent some quality time in a nearby Starbucks:

2017-10-06 California 02 Carson City 01

We are going to spend this weekend with the Lake Tahoe Airstream Club in what they call an Urban Rally; specifically, it is called Airstreams on Main. There are 32 Airstreams parked along Carson Street – downtown Carson City – and in an adjacent parking lot. It was great fun to attend an Airstream rally again after these many months. We met many new friends and saw many interesting Airstreams:

2017-10-06 California 02 Carson City 02