Day 199

Ely, NV to Jackpot, NV
Spent 3 days in Ely. We found an RV Park, The Valley View RV Park, that was pretty cheap, compared to the KOA across town. It wasn’t as fancy, but had full hookups, showers and a laundromat. Just $28 per night. Our site was along the fence by the highway, but it really wasn’t that noisy. After living in State and National Parks for the past 6 weeks it was kind of a nice change.
Can’t even begin to tell you what it was like to be in a “big city”. A little over 4,000 people in town. The last 3 state parks that we stayed in were in Lincoln County and we were told that there were only 7,000 people in the entire county!
I dropped Lee off at the Oupost Saloon since he had friends in town, and I spent the afternoon exploring the town. Went to a thrift store, a sporting goods store, the car wash, the Family Dollar, Ridley’s grocery store, the gas station and the Foodtown grocery store (I worked at the one in Meridian years ago, so I had to check it out. It was about the same as the one that I remember from 1986). I have to tell you that I was like a kid in a candy store at Ridley’s. (The last “real” grocery store that we were in was in Laughlin in April.) I actually got to stock up on some staples.
Lee and I both had a really great afternoon. It really does help to get out away from each other and have some ‘me’ time. And Lee found out about the trains that we could ride on.
We went for the train ride on Thursday and had an awesome day. We rode inside for the first half of the trip and listened to the conductor and then went out to the open air car for the return trip. So exhilarating. Will definitely do this again.
We got up early today to get a head start on the day. It’s a good thing because we had a major blowout on the trailer with no safe place to pull over. We finally found a road to pull off on and were able to get the tire changed. Of course we had problems getting one of the lug nuts off. The rubber was shredded and fell off somewhere before we could stop. We were driving on the rim, so now we will have to get a new tire and rim.
A mom and daughter stopped to help us, which was really cool. It’s nice to know that there are still good people out there. There was thunder and lightening right above us, but I am proud to say that I did not have a panic attack. Of course, then it started to rain, so we got soaked. Glad we only had about 5 miles to travel before we got to the RV park, because we were exhausted.
Even though we had problems today, we had to realize that we have been pretty lucky. 199 days and this is our first real problem. Pretty good odds if you ask me.