Cascade to Boise
Wow, 2 months have gone by since we left Arizona. Hard to believe. Funny we left Arizona to come north to get out of the heat., but it’s supposed to get to 106 degrees this weekend in Boise. Okay, I just looked and it’s going to get to 118 in Beaver Dam. So okay, it is cooler here.
Had a great time in Cascade. We spent time at the lake doing a little camping, swimming, site seeing and riding the RZR. We even had a yardsale! We ended up selling our side by side to Lee’s cousin. We needed something a little bigger and ours was perfect for her. So a win-win for both of us.
We saw the coolest wildlife. The cabin area was filled with deer, chipmunks, squirrels and some of the most beautiful birds I had seen in a long time. Yesterday we saw a bald eagle catch a nice bass and it flew right in front of our camp. And wouldn’t you know it, neither of us had a camera. Oh well, we have our memories…Until next time…stay cool…

Pendelton, OR to Ritzville, WA to Priest River, ID to Couer d’Alene, ID, to Potlatch, ID to Cascade Idaho
Wow 45 days and 5 states since we left home. Can’t hardly believe it. We have seen some great country and have met some interesting people along the way. We just got to spend a week with my brother in Northern Idaho, which was so awesome. We wern’t able to see him last year because of the Pandemic, but this year he was actually able to take some vacation time while we were here. Didn’t get to do a whole lot, because the weather turned cold and rainy. Temperatures in the upper 80’s the day before we got here, to maybe the mid 60’s during the week we were here, and back to the high 80’s now that we are leaving. Oh well, such is life.
We went fishing one day, and of course my brother caught a nice trout within the first 15 minutes or so. He got a bite later on, but neither Lee or I even got a nibble (yes of course I wasn’t using any bait, can’t show up the guys now, can I?) We even got to see some deer that have a trail next to my brothers neighbors house. It’s so awesome to be in town and see wildlife going on about their business. It’s cool when nature and humans can co-exist together.
Lee has a couple of frends that live up here in Northern Idaho, but wouldn’t you know it they were both out of town while we were here. Bummer. So sad to leave, but our next adventure awaits us…..
We headed out, stopped in town and picked up some much needed supplies at a big box store, then headed on south. Spent the night in Potlatch, Idaho. So much history. The RV park is run by the city, so they have a ton of memoribilia throughout it. There was a nice walking path around the park, that had a couple of workout machines to work on your arms while the walking was working on your legs. There was a Disc Golf Course, a Pickleball Court, a baseball field and a Splash Pad. There was even a train engine, along with a Gazebo that had pictures and information about the history of the area. But the coolest thing was the War Memorial. They had the names of local soldiers dating all the way back to WWI. It was all so cool and gave me some ideas as to what I would put into an RV park if I was ever to build one.
Our next stop was Lake Cascade where we spent one night at a campground along the lake. We are staying at one of Lee’s Uncle’s Cabin while we await the opportunity to start working on another Uncles property. Hey you gotta help out with things if you want them to allow you to stay more that a day or two.
We went for a side by side ride and rose up about 2,000 feet. The view of the lake was incredible. This is my first visit to the area. I’ve driven through town and by the lake before, but have never stopped. I was impressed by all the campgrounds and picnic spots that the state had put up along the lake shore for people to enjoy. Wish they would do something like that at the Lakes close to Boise. We’ll be here for a few more days, so no telling what else we will be able to see and enjoy….

McDermott to Sumpter to Pendelton, OR
Spent the night at a little RV park in McDermott, OR and walked to McDermott, NV to have dinner at the casino. Gambled a little and had a nice dinner. There was only a limited menu, but the food was good. Lee won enough on the slots to pay for our camping and dinner, with a little left over for the Flea Market in Sumpter this weekend.
Made it to Sumpter on Wednesday, how the heck did that happen?!? We thought it was Thursday. That’s what happens when you have 2 long driving days in a row and don’t take time to look at the calendar. Well, good thing we are staying with family, so we didn’t have to worry about messing up our reservation.
Spent the holiday weekend shopping at the Flea Market in Sumpter. This thing is a big deal. We spent one day just hitting yardsales at people’s houses. 2 days were spent in town and the 4th day was spent visiting some of our favorites again. Had a great time, but I think that I wore Denise and Lee out. Poor Steve didn’t get to go because he got a kidney stone that refused to pass.
Had a great time seeing Steve, Denise, Jack and Maggie Mae. Denise out did herself again with her homemade sourdough rolls. She made buns that we ate corned beef (the real stuff, not the sliced kind out of the deli). Yum…I am so lucky because I not only have half of my corned beef sandwich left, but she sent us away with a bag of her homemade sourdough biscuits. She spoiled us rotten.
Got to see an Elk last night. Of course I was in the kitchen making my sandwich so I didn’t get to see him close up, but I did get some photos of him across the meadow.
Packed up this morning and drove to Baker City where we found a car wash that had a sprayer outside so we were able to wash the truck and trailer. Our truck is a dark blue, but looked tan from all the dirt roads we were on looking for bargains. Finally got on the road and had a harrowing drive down the Blues into Pendleton. Got stuck behind a passenger car that kept hitting his brakes any time he got above about 45. It seemed like he practically stopped a couple of times. I was so afraid that our brakes would overheat. Never so happy to pass a car in my life.
We made it to the Wildhorse Casino which is on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, just outside of Pendleton. They have free boondocking sites, surprisingly close to the entrance. We’ll see if we are lucky or not….

Washoe Lake State Park to McDermot, Oregon
Got a great spot at Washoe Lake State Park, even though the sign at the entrance said that this loop was full. Decided to take a chance and glad we did. The warmth of the space heater and having the satellite come instantly on without having to find the signal first is definitely worth the $10 per night charge.
We spent Wednesday just getting settled in and were expecting to go site seeing on Thursday, but mother nature had other plans. Thursday brought rain, hail, snow and high winds, so we just stayed inside for the day (well except for Dinky Dawg’s walks).
Fridays weather was better, but not by much, so we decided to brave the elements and get out to explore the area. First stop was to Walmart to get some supplies, then we headed out to see the next State Park on our list…but what’s that?!? A thrift store. Well, we gotta stop…Okay back to the plan…what…an estate sale?!?..Okay, back to the plan…Finally made it to Dayton State Park. It had a 10 spot boondocking campground, which was pretty full, and a nice day use area. Got out and explored a bit. Lots of history at this park. It was the site of Carson Junction, where the desert and river trail met on the California Immigrant Trail. The Carson River flooded back in 2017 and wiped out most of the park, so we were lucky to get to see what was left of it.
The next stop was Virginia City. The sky’s were starting to really cloud up, but we decided to chance it. Started to snow on us just before we got there, but it wasn’t sticking. Tons of tourists cars, narrow roads and no place to park had us just driving from one end to the other and back. Had to keep pulling over for cars to get by because the Beast (my affectionate name for Lee’s truck) is so wide with the dually tires. Decided to take the truck route back to town for some different scenery. Seriously, 25 mph switchbacks at about a 10 to 15% grade. Took twice as long to get down than it did to get up. But the view was pretty.
Found a Chocolate Factory at the bottom of the Mountain, so of course Lee insisted (not really) that we stop and check it out. Got some fudge, yum, and found the factory seconds rack (like a clearance rack at the candy store, sweet), where we picked up some Sponge candy (kinda like the insides of a butterfinger, but lighter and airy) and some Peanut Brittle (my mom’s is so much better). Sugar rush!
Headed back towards Carson City and found another thrift store. Just had to stop and look…Then back to Walmart to pick up the refrigerator items and something for dinner (who wants to cook after a day like today). Made it home just as another wind and rain storm rolled through. Great timing.
Saturday is all day Nascar. Truck and Xfinity on TV then the Arca race on the computer. Good thing it’s raining, so we are content to stay inside.
We were planning on leaving on Monday, but the weather was so nice that we decided to do some more site seeing. We decided to get a couple more stamps in our Parks Passport. We went up to the Lake Tahoe State Park. We couldn’t let Dinky Dawg out of the car, since the park was on the beach, but we did get some great pictures of the lake. Lee finally bought me my Walking Stick that he promised to buy me for Christmas. Of course we overpaid for it, but it’s really pretty. We went to the Visitors center and they had a cool display of memoribilia from the show Bonanza. We didn’t get to see the Ponderosa because some private person bought the land and tore it all down. But I did get to have my picture taken with the cardboard cutouts.
Then we went to the Mormon Station Historic Monument in Genoa, NV. Genoa was the first settlement in Nevada, and the Mormon Station was the last settlement on the California Emmegrant Trail before you got to California. You should have seen the look on Lee’s face when I told him that he had to go to the bar and have a beverage. He was shocked since we rarely have drinks when we were traveling. Then he found out that it was the oldest saloon in Nevada. Cool.
So for those of you keeping track, we have finally hit the 15th Nevada State Park visited, so we are able to get a free 1 year Parks Pass. I am hoping that they will give us a credit towards the All Access Pass (which is what we have for camping). Wouldn’t that be awesome.
Headed out Tuesday morning for our next stop. It was windier than we would have liked, but we made it ok.

Fort Churchill State Park to Washoe Lake State Park, Nevada
We pulled into Fort Churchill State Park on Thursday morning and by late afternoon the park was almost full. We were at 100% by Friday night. This place was a real Army Fort back in the 1800’s. Pretty cool.
We spent Thursday and Friday just enjoying nature. Dinky Dawg had tons of fun chasing the lizards, as did Miss Bristol. It was funny watching her try to get them. Dinky Dawg ran over and jumped on me to tattle on her every time she went after one. (I actually believe he was just mad because I wouldn’t let him off leash outside of his fence.) Saturday brought rain showers, so we were inside most of the day. Finally broke down and fired up the generator and tried to get the TV going. Could only get one of the three satellite’s, so we couldn’t watch the Nascar race. 😥 We tried listening to it on on the computer, but we kept loosing the cell signal, so we missed most of the race.
We tried the satellite again on Sunday, thinking that maybe the storm affected the signal. Nope, still only one satellite instead of the 3 we were supposed to get. But then we figured out that we could watch it on the Fox Sports App. But of course, the cell signal was bad again, so we decided to go for a drive and explore the area. We checked out the other campground in the park, which is nicknamed the 4 wheeler campground. We could see why when we drove down the very rutted road. Glad we didn’t have the trailer with us.
We then went to Lahontan Reservoir State Recreation Area and got another stamp in our Parks Passport. That’s 11 so far. Four more and we get a free annual pass. Sweet!
Then we went into Silver Springs to stock up on a few groceries. Found a small chain store and got almost everything on our list except for produce. I asked a clerk if there was a grocery store in town where we could pick up some produce and she gave me a blank stare. “What kind of produce?” You know like those exotic things, no one really eats. No, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onions, you know, regular staples. She didn’t know, but asked someone else that was shopping and they suggested the Liquor Store?!? I said “don’t you have a grocery store in town?” Didn’t seem to know what I was asking. Strange. Lee asked the cashier where they bought their groceries and her answer was “we just stock up”. Very strange.
Went to fill up the truck with gas while we didn’t have the trailer and I went to the liquor store (seriously, it was a small grocery store that happened to sell liquor). The only onions were in a 3 pound bag, which is way more than we can store, so I asked another shopper if she wanted the extras, as I couldn’t use 3 pounds. She said that she could always use onions, although I think that she thought I was some kind of weirdo. So 3 onions and 3 Roma Tomatoes, (no lettuce available) cost me $5.49. Don’t you just love small towns? Good thing our camping is free.
We went back to town on Monday and did the laundry. Yes, we still have to do the basic things even when we are on vacation. We took Dinky Dawg for a ride in the Side by Side when we got back from town. Boy, he sure loves that thing. We got dusted out but had a great time. On Tuesday we rode our bikes around the park and checked out the museum and the ruins. The history of the fort was cool. I saw a Lizard sitting on top of a sign that gave the rules of going through the ruins. I took a photo of it because he looked like he was a guard enforcing those rules.
We decided to leave on Wednesday, even though we could have stayed another day because the next park showed that it filled up fast every day, and we figured that we would have a better chance of getting a spot on a Wednesday. It was about an hour and a half down the road, which made us happy since we had a strong head wind almost the entire trip. We went past the cutoff for Virginia City, and went through Carson City, Nevada’s State Capitol. We also went past another State Park, but didn’t stop because we wanted to get the trailer parked.
Found a great spot at Washoe Lake State Park that has electrical hookups so we can use our space heater and save our propane. Glad to have them, since a storm has rolled in and they are calling for temperatures down to 32 degrees and a chance of snow showers. Brrr….

Walker Lake to Fort Churchill State Park
We had a great couple of days here at Walker Lake. We met some great people from all over the country in the BLM Campground. It was only $6 a night, so not too bad. We found a really awesome spot that overlooks the Lake. It was level and had a picnic table with a cover. Lee picked up a brand new Shade Sail at a yardsale last winter and it sure came in handy to block out the late afternoon sun, but it still let the air flow through.
Didn”t see a lot of wildlife on Tuesday, just some birds and Lizards, but Wednesday was awesome. In addition to the birds and lizards, we were visited by a 4 foot snake that posed for some photos. A couple was walking by and we pointed it out to them. She was all like “can I take some photos?” and he was all like “What kind of snake is it?” Well, how the heck do I know. I told him that it wasn’t venomous as it had a sleek head and not the triangular head of those ‘bad’ snakes. Needless to say, he wouldn’t come very close. And no, I never got closer than about 6 feet.
Then about an hour later, Lee told me to grab my camera as there was a herd of about 30 Big Horn Sheep just passing behind our camp. Got some awesome photos of them, with both my phone as well as my new Canon camera. Can’t wait to look at them on my computer.
Miss Bristol discovered that she has a love of Lizards as bad as Dinky Dawg. It was cute to see them both compete to see who could catch it first. I’ll admit though that it was a little unfair as Dinky was on a chain and Bristol was loose. . Didn’t have to worry too much about the cat though because it was so new to her that she wasn’t obsessed like Dinky is. It’s funny how she comes back when you call her. You’d never catch Dinky coming back. Uh huh, not when there is a lizard around to chase… We also had the custest little mouse in our camp just after dark. Dinky saw it first, then Bristol. Needless to say they both had to go in the trailer when the mouse showed no sign of leaving the camp. Didn’t want either one of them to catch it and play with it to death. We did the right thing and let it live another day.
We considered staying here another couple of nights, but decided to head on down the road. Made it to it to Fort Churchill State Park, just outside of Silver Springs, NV. Glad we got here early, as the park is starting to fill up. We had our choice of 3 pull through spots, and chose the one with the least amount of trees so that the solar would charge the batteries.
The GPS has some funny little quirks sometimes. It took us off of the highway and had us drive down a couple of country roads. It was probably shorter, but it was definately slower because we got behind a tractor doing about 15 MPH. Couldn’t pass it because the road was too narrow. It was okay though, because we were in no big hurry and are used to following tractors because of all the years we spent in the Magic Valley.
The campground that we are in is dry camping, but there are bathrooms and water spigots close by. It has a dump station for when we pull out, so it won’t be too bad. We’ll have to use the generator to run the TV so that we don’t miss any of the 3 Nascar races this weekend. But on the plus side, it’s free camping because we purchased the Nevada State Park All-Access pass that gives us free camping as long as we don’t use the electricity. No worries about that here. This State Park was an actual fort back in the day and is near the Paiute Indian Reservation, so we are looking forward to seeing lots if history and taking lots of photos.

We were planning on spending just one night in Ash Springs, NV, but then decided it would be nice to have a couple of days to get the tiny house organized. We hate traveling on the weekends due to the traffic volumn, so our projected leave date was Monday. Of course we woke up on Monday to some pretty high winds. The next ‘big’ town we are going through is Tonopah, NV, so we looked up the weather for that location and they were calling for 30+ MPH. So another night will be spent here. It was cool because we got Shell fuel points for staying in the RV park. We saved 33 cents a gallon off of our gas!
We only had five other RV’s in the campground besides us. One was around a 40 foot 5th wheel. Made our little 18 footer look even smaller. They were older musicians and were headed to Ely to play a gig. Turns out they stay in the same RV park that we do in Ely, NV and even hang out in the Boise area. They left on Saturday morning and a new neighbor came in on Sunday. These people were from Meridian and only live a couple of miles from my Mom’s house. We have been to a lot of the same places that they have during our travels. Small world, huh? They were really impressed with Lee’s truck, that I have affectionately named “The Beast”. She asked me a ton of questions about it and then her husband came out and asked me some more. He told me that we really got a steal when we found it. Everyone is so amazed when we tell them that we had the camper shell custom built 18 years after the truck was made. The factory did such an awesome job of matching the paint that you have to look really close to see any difference in the shade.
The the last 3 all came in on Monday night. 2 of them were toyhaulers and they were nice enough to give Lee a tour. Now of course, he wants to upgrade ours. 🙂 We didn’t meet the last one, as they came in after dark and left really early this morning.
We pulled out of Ash Springs around 11 AM and made it to Tonopah around 2:30. We thought about boondocking in the Casino parking lot again, but decided that we wanted to keep going. We fueled up and headed out. Did I mention that Lee FINALLY let me drive? Whoohoo. Of course, I had to train him to be a good navigator. It’s a work in progress. LOL. He never realized how hard I worked letting him know when someone was passing us, when there were dangers (or Cows) up ahead on the road, and getting him a drink or snacks. It isn’t just sitting around enjoying the scenery, let me tell you.
We pulled into Hawthorne, NV about 4:30, picked up some ice and headed out to find the perfect camping spot. And boy did we. It’s absolutely beautiful here. Everything I could want in a home. A lake, the desert, AND the highway just above us so I can watch the world go by. Perfect. Of course, I looked up the weather and they get an average of 7 inches of snow here a year. Nope, not staying here past our mini vacation.

Wow, 29 months since we began our Journey in November 2018. Hard to believe that so much time has passed. Sure doesn’t seem like it. These past 6 months in Beaver Dam have been quiet due to the ongoing pandemic, but not as bad as the rest of the country. Beaver Dam is a small little town with very few businesses, so the changes were hardly noticed. But things started opening up in the past couple of months. We got to enjoy outdoor karaoke (no we did not get up and sing) and the
legendary Lawnmower Races. The weather was mild, but it seemed like we had more wind than last year. A couple of huge thunderstorms kept us inside for days at a time.
We were able to go to the Nascar Races at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March, although it was very limited attendance. We were able to camp next to our Nascar (and real life) friends, Carol and Carl and were really close to our groups honorary Mom and Dad, Patsy and Rick. Was able to smuggle my Flat Kurt Busch into the track, and he had a great time playing tourist before he settled down to watch his real self race in the Cup race. Sadly all that sightseeing must have tried him out, as he came in 19th for the day.
Last year we has a great idea to buy a small toy hauler trailer so that we could camp out while taking our Polaris RZR out into the desert to play. We decided to bring it back to Idaho for the summer since it was so much smaller. It was a huge amount of work to load it up to bring it. We decided to bring it again this year, and silly me, I thought it would be easier this year. Not! 5 full days of loading and organizing. Not fun. It’s really hard to decide what you need to take with you when you are leaving for 4 to 5 months at a time. I told Lee that next year we were taking our regular trailer with us and leaving the weekend trailer in our spot. Lots less work.
We only made it to Ash Springs, NV, a mere 117 miles from Beaver Dam, AZ. But it’s enabling us to get reoriented to living in a tiny 18 foot home. High winds today and Nascar all weekend has helped us to decide to stay put until Monday. So stay tuned…

(Another long read-7+ minutes) So, as you can probably tell, I’m a little behind on writing my blog. We spent a lot of time in areas without phone service and did some boondocking, where we didn’t unload the side by side out of the trailer (at 18 feet, there isn’t any place to sit with the RZR in it). So finally here is the update.
Day 704: McDermott, NV to Rye Patch Recreation Area, Nevada State Park
We left McDermott and headed south hoping to find a State Park along the way. We never travel on the weekends, because of the amount of people that utilize the highways as well as the state parks, but we hoped for the best because it was Saturday. We found the Rye Patch State Recreation Area and were lucky enough to find a pull through spot that was long enough that we could unload the side by side. There was no shade, but we were right along the river just below the dam, which was on the east side of us so we actually had afternoon shade from the trailer.
The view was awesome. We saw tons of wildlife enjoying the water, including a flock of wild turkeys and some deer. We didn’t have any phone service where we were, so no internet, but I was finally able to get the Dish TV going so that Lee could watch the Nascar Cup Race.
Lee and I took a ride around the park in the side by side. It had a second campground and a fish cleaning area at the reservoir. We did find one spot where we actually had phone service, so we were able to check in and let people know that we were not lost. We spent two nights in the park (which didn’t cost us anything because we had purchased the All Access pass in June).
Day 706: Rye Patch Recreation Area to Tonopah, NV
We were planning on just going a couple of hours down the road and stay at Walker Lake, but there were tons of signs along the road warning that there were frequent high winds in the area that would be bad enough to shut down the highway. We didn’t have any wind that day, so we decided to keep heading down the highway to Tonopah.
We stopped at a rest stop in Luning, NV and ran into a local gentleman that had lived there for years. He showed me a huge piece of Turquoise that he had mined in his mine. (He said it was called the Happy Mine.) It was beautiful. He then opened up a ziplock sandwich bag that had small pieces of turquoise and let me pick out a couple of pieces. Didn’t even charge me for them. I am now the proud owner of 2 pieces of raw, unpolished turquoise. Never expected to be saying that!
We kept seeing signs for a big casino, so we thought that we would just boondock in their parking lot. Well, let me tell you, the signs were a little deceiving. The parking lot was not big enough to boondock in and the 15 spot or so RV park was was full. So we turned around and headed back towards a rest stop that we had passed a couple of miles down the road. We happened to find a tiny casino on the way to the rest stop that had a dirt semi parking area. There was an RV boondocker in it. Lee talked to the guy and he said they didn’t have a problem with us staying there as long as we let them know. Sweet, another free night. And the benefit is that the casino had a Chinese restaurant in it. Best Chinese food I think that I had ever eaten. If you are ever in Tonopah, NV stop by the Banc Club Restaurant & Casino and eat at the Bamboo Chinese Restaraunt inside. You won’t regret it!
Day 707: Tonopah, NV to Beaver Dam, AZ
As with any area in Nevada, we drove for miles without seeing much of anything except scenery. But there was about 100 or so miles that had open range and there were cows everywhere. We only saw a few that were close to the road and only a couple that were actually in it. We also saw two different herds of Antelope. Cool.
Had to make a pit stop, so we pulled over to a wide spot in the road, and of course one unlucky cow had been hit by a vehicle, and they dumped it over the embankment. Stink! Of course, this freaked out Miss Bristol and she wanted out of the truck. She settled down a little bit, but continued to yowl (Meow at a really high pitch, for those of you that are not familiar with an unhappy cat). Oh yeah, did I mention that this happened near Area 51?
We stopped to play tourist at the Alien Research Center and Bristol had had enough! She climbed out the window that was open about 6 inches. Luckily, we have a harness on her and a leash that is long enough for her to reach the ground so she doesn’t get hurt. Believe it or not, this is only the second time that she has gotten out of the truck. She is usually a really mello passenger. I unhooked her from the truck and she headed directly to the trailer, so I assumed that she just needed to use the litter box (yes, we do have one in the truck, but until this day she had never used it). I let her in the trailer, and of course she ran and hid under the side by side. Ugh! Got her out, but not before I whacked my head really hard (think I actually saw stars) and then had a major asthma allergy attack because of all the dirt on the bottom of the side by side. Thank goodness I had my inhailer. But honestly, who here doesn’t think that the entire thing was brought on by the Aliens?!? Dead cow, freaked out cat, allergy attack, all in one day! Aliens for sure!
We saw a pretty bad accident about 20 miles from home. A pickup had rolled and it was towing a travel trailer, which was smashed flat! Don’t believe that anyone was seriously injured, as no one was hanging around the truck, and we saw it before any emergency vehicles arrived. I posted the accident on a couple of Mesquiet Facebook sites, since the freeway was at a stand still and no one was getting by the wreck.
Finally arrived at home. Only to find that we had at least one mouse inside while we were gone. UGH! Extra cleanup!! We had to hookup all of the water, sewer and power in the big trailer because we weren’t allowed to leave them hooked up while we were gone. Took us over an hour before we could actually put out the slides and get into the trailer. Did I mention that we had arrived home after 3 PM? We were tired. Next year we are going to boondock outside of town for a night, so we get home early in the morning before it gets hot.
Day 711: Beaver Dam, AZ Well, we’ve been home for 4 days. I almost have the little trailer unpacked. It’s taking longer that it should because A, there is no hurry and B, I am doing some rearranging in the big trailer so that I have a craft work area. I am so excited.
Went grocery shopping and spent far too much money, but it was nice to be able to actually buy stuff and not have to worry about space and weight. I have a little bit of stuff to finish up in the yard, and there IS a hurry as there is a storm coming in tomorrow afternoon and we are going to have low temperatures, rain and high winds. Oh well, life in the desert.
We’ve been asked if going down US95 was better or worse than US93. It was definitely a longer drive, but we saw a ton of new things, met some new people and got some cool souvenirs. It was worth it, and I got to trip down memory lane because we followed the same roads through Nevada that I drove on when I moved to Idaho, so many years ago.
We had a great 4 months seeing everyone, but it is SOOO nice to be back home again.

Sumpter, OR to McDermott, NV
What a great time we had with Steve, Denise, Jack and Maggie Mae. They have a great place near Sumpter that is loaded with all kinds of wildlife. We saw several white tailed deer, that believe it or not, come right up to their front yard. Steve threw one of the Doe’s an apple and it was so cool to watch her eat it. Dinky Dawg and I saw an elk, but it was hiding in the trees so I didn’t get a very good picture of it. Dinky Dawg assumed the position and pointed it out to me. I swear sometimes that dog is part bird dog (elk dog?!?). We also saw a little squirrel and a couple of chipmunks. The only snake we saw was a baby that had been squished by a car quite a while ago. Oh yeah, we also saw some cows, when Steve took us sight seeing. Ok, so not that exotic, but still.
Steve and Denise let us stay in their little cabin so we didn’t have to unload the side by side. Lucky for us, because it got cold. Had to bring the tomato plants and the avocado and key lime trees in.
Steve taught me how to hold the guitar strings so they actually played music, imagine that. Denise used us as ginney pigs for her homemade sourdough rolls. I ate two of them, without butter, and they were so good. Thought about stealing the rest, but decided I’d better not. And she also made peach cobbler with fresh peaches. Tasted just like you were eating them right off the tree.
I left them a Tic-tac-toe set I made at Jerry’s house with bumblebees and ladybugs painted on rocks so that they’d have a game in the cabin for their guests. Steve sent me a text saying that they now had bugs in the cabin since we stayed there. Made me smile.
Of course we didn’t have any definate plans of where we were going to stay when we headed out this morning. We only knew that we wanted to drive down US95 since we had never been that way. So we punched in Winnemucca, NV into the GPS and headed out across the mountains. We climbed 4 summits, only one over 5900 feet. They weren’t too bad, and the truck did ok. We got stuck behind an oversized load and were driving about 10 miles an hour for about 3 miles until we were finally able to pass it. Other than that, the traffic was almost nonexistent.
Speaking of nonexistent. There weren’t any gas stations along our route. We gassed up in Baker, OR, before heading to Sumpter, but only saw one small gas station about 20 miles past Sumpter. We were getting a little tense as we were getting down to 1/8th of a tank of gas and the GPS showed the closest station was in Winnemucca. The GPS on my phone showed that we could back track about 12 miles, heading back towards Idaho, to Rome, OR. So I made a frantic phone call to them and they assured me that they had gas pumps.
Funny story about Rome, OR. Back in July of 1982, when I was moving to Idaho, I had to stop for fuel in Rome because I spaced filling up here in McDermott. My friend Todd P. and I made it to Rome, only to find that it was locked up tight until morning (remember those days when you had to wait until a human was available to get gas). I didn’t think we had enough fuel to make it to Jordan Valley, so I called my sister to let her know that we would be spending the night. She insisted on driving from Nampa and brought us gas so we didn’t have to sleep in the car. And here we were again, me and Lee Todd (strange coincidence, same name and all) needing to fuel up in Rome, OR.
We started out this morning in the Pacific time zone, then went to Mountain time, then back to Pacific. So needless to say, we are all confused. So we decided to just park in a casino parking lot for the night here in McDermott, but the only one in town was all boarded up, so we found a simple little RV park on the Oregon-Nevada border that had room for us. So now we are getting ready to lay our weary heads down for the night. Until tomorrow, where I actually have plans to stop at our first of hopefully many Nevada State Parks, and its only 125 miles down the road! That’ll make Lee happy, for sure.