On the road again.....

 8:25 am - Tuesday - October 11th - Gardnerville Ranchos, NV - 49° F, 39% humidity, wind - CALM....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 81° F.  On this date in 2021 I successfully resurrected my friend's John Deere loader/backhoe, which had been sitting for 18 months.......↴

The Honey Lake Rest Area was way quieter than we expected, and we had a very pleasant slumber.  We didn't get up until 7:30 am with the sun well into the sky.  Usually we just pound out  miles going south to Carson City, or Gardnerville, but I am so glad we kept our first day to under 100 miles.  I had time to fix the aforementioned turn/brake signal issue on the trailer, and we avoided driving through Reno in rush hour traffic.....a big bonus all unto itself.

The sun was hitting the right rear of the engine bay, and with the aid of that sun for a couple of hours the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 warmed up enough to start without the aid of the block heater.

We used our new Renogy 2,000 watt inverter for the first time to heat water for our coffee, and it worked flawlessly....nice!  After cleaning our large two piece windshield of the flying insect carnage from the day before we were on our way further south by 9:30 am.  Traffic was light, as I set the cruise control for 60 mph, and just held onto the steering wheel whilst enjoying the view.  The terrain between the Rest Area and the Nevada border is pretty flat, and the road is pretty straight for miles......

....pretty soon we were gliding down the long decline into the Reno/Sparks basin, and crossing over I-80.  The freeway south of I-80 has been terrible for years (rough, cracked concrete), but NDOT (Nevada DOT) has been working to fix that for years, and for the first time in 10 years driving that stretch was relatively pleasant......

.....after the I-80 US-395 becomes I-580 for about 30 miles, and the road climbs slowly out of the Reno/Sparks basin and then descends into the Carson Valley....

......as we near Minden/Gardnerville you can see the mountains that border the Lake Tahoe Basin to the west of US-395.....

Just over those mountains lies fabulous Lake Tahoe

...we arrived at the Gardnerville Elks Lodge around 11:30 am, and within 5 minutes had backed into site #4.  As you may recall, there are 5 paved sites here, and they all fit our 62' length.  We get 50 amp electric, and water for $20/night, plus very quiet nights as we are way off US-395....

....I set up the Starlink 'dishy' on the roof of the trailer as I was pretty sure there would be other RV's later in the day, and I was right.   Once again, we had internet within 10 minutes of powering up the Starlink router.......

.....once we were done setting up for two days we headed out to a familiar micro brewery.....Shoe Tree Brewing Company, located about 5 miles from the Elks Lodge.  Next door to them is Pizza Factory, which will make, and deliver a pizza to your table at the brewery, which serves no food.....

....the afternoon was so amazingly pleasant as we lingered over our pizza and brews....we actually had two pints each, which is rare for us, and especially TLE.  Of course, whenever I drink beer a long nap follows shortly thereafter......we arrived home around 2 pm, and after putting away a few groceries we bought I settled into my recliner and napped for two hours!  

We had a pleasant evening watching the sun drift over the Tahoe Basin mountains, and by 5:30 pm the sun had set on our portion of the Carson Valley.....

The sun, she is gone at 5:30 pm!

....I want to thank all of my loyal readers for indulging me these past couple of months while a took a break from blogging every day.  I did miss it, but I did not miss the struggle to write about the same thing every day, and try to make it seem somewhat interesting.  Now that we are moving again, and soon to begin a new adventure I will be posting everyday for the foreseeable future!

Thanks for stopping by!