Shopping and friends......

 6:55 am - Wednesday - April 10th - Minden, NV - 34° F, humidity 75%, wind 3 mph out of the south.....mostly clear skies today with a forecast high of 73° F.  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were visiting the famous 'Four Corners' where the boundaries of 4 states (Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico) come together.....

We've stayed at the Tahoe-Douglas Elks Lodge 5, or 6 times over the years, and love it.  The lodge building is quite new, and the grounds are well manicured....

....they provide 5 back in RV spots on asphalt with a nice crushed rock border the back of the sites, which allows us to back in without unhooking the trailer, which is nice.  20, 30 and 50 amp receptacles are provided, as well as access to water.  There is no dump station.  It is a stunning location with a great view of the mountains which encircle the Tahoe Basin (see mountains in middle picture above).  While it is close to downtown Minden, and Gardnerville, it is also in a very quiet, rural part of town.  We love it here, and highly recommend it to all Elks members.  Usually there are one, or two other RVs here, but this time around we have the place all to ourselves.

After three days of moving every day it was time for a brief interlude, and the Carson Valley is the perfect interlude place!  Within a mile, or so, of each other we have a Supercuts, COSTCO, Walmart, and Trader Joes, not to mention an In 'N Out Burger.  On top of that, if we wished, we could be in the Lake Tahoe Basin in 25 minutes.  

It's been a good month since my last haircut, and knowing I would not be able to an appointment at Kaleidescope in Alturas until early May getting my ears lowered was at the top of our list as we drove north to Indian Hills.  We left the Elks Lodge around 9:30 am, and arrived at the Supercuts at exactly 10 am....perfect.  I was the first on to be called, and by 10:20 am I was good for another month on the haircut front.

Our next stop was Walmart, then Trader Joe's (both in the same parking lot), then it was over to COSTCO where we arrived just before noon time....just in time to check out all the food sampling stations of which there were many on this date.  We will not see a COSTCO, or Trader Joe's for many months, so stocking up on our favorite COSTCO/TJ's items while we are here is always a must.  There was nothing notable about what we bought, except the two new fresh water hoses I bought for the Newell.  The ones we have are 5-6 years old, and the longer of the two began to leak when I hooked up to the hose bibb here at the Elks Lodge.  

After returning from out shopping foray  I unraveled one of the new hoses to top off our 160 gallon fresh water tank.  We always like to arrive at a destination with a full tank, just in case, as is the case at LPG&RVRF, the water is not on yet.  Yes, they do shut off the water in the winter there.  It should be on within the next few days, but just in case we will have 160 gallons in our tank to use if it is not.

Every time we pass through the Carson Valley over the last number of years we make a point of having lunch, or dinner with long time college friend, Terri Dickerson, who has lived in the Carson Valley for decades.  I contacted her Tuesday evening and made arrangements to meet her and her partner, Bill, for dinner at the local Olive Garden in South Carson City at 5:30 pm.  It is about a 25 minute drive from the Elks Lodge, so we left around 4:55 pm arriving there around 5:20 pm.  Within minutes Terri and Bill arrived and we spent the next two hours talking, laughing, eating great food, and talking some more....

.....I neglected to memorialize our time together with an 'usie', but here is one I took two years ago.

We were home by 8 pm, and in bed before 10 pm.  Wednesday will be a 206 mile day, and will take us the better part of 6 hours to get to Likely.  We want to be on the road early enough to get to LPG&RVR early afternoon, so an early bed time was in order.  As I write it is abut 7:30 am, and we want to be rolling our wheels before 9 am as we also need to top off the Newell diesel tank while we are in Nevada. Diesel is around $3.65/gallon locally, and much, much higher where we are headed, Northern California.

Thanks for stopping by!

200 to go....

 7:47 am - Tuesday - April 9th - Minden, NV - 32° F, humidity 63%, wind 2 mph out of the south by southeast....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 68° F.  On this date in 2014 TLE and I were visiting Horseshoe Bend outside of Page, AZ....had to get pretty close to the edge to take this picture.....TLE did not like that at all.....

.....the view this morning....Tahoe-Douglas Elks Lodge near Minden, NV.....

The overnight low in Bishop was around 32° F, and it got quite cold in the Newell interior (we sleep without the heaters running), so we didn't even think about leaving the warm, comfortable confines of our heated electric blanket bed until the sun had been on the passenger side of the Newell for about 30 minutes, which made it around 7:30 am.  On these extra cold mornings TLE relies upon me to get up, make a mad dash for each electric heater thermostat, turn them on, then make a hasty retreat to the bed.  It takes about 10 minutes for the heaters to make the interior hospitable enough for TLE to emerge from her electric blanket cocoon....lol.

The outside temps would not get over 40° F until after 10 am, but we didn't want to wait that long to leave, so we set our sites on 9:30 am for departure.  The only two things we deploy on an overnight stop are the Winegard satellite dish, and the Starlink.  All I have to do to stow the Winegard is push a button, but I do have to go outside and disconnect the Starlink dishy from the cable, coil up the cable, then the 50 amp electric cord, and we're ready to move.  I did all that around 9:15 am, and by 9:26 am our wheels were rolling.

For those of you who have been reading my blog for more than a year, you know about all the passes and summits one must traverse between Bishop, CA and Minden, NV on US-395.  For those who do not remember, or haven't been reading long enough to remember, there are 5 major summits/grades one must climb, plus numerous shorter ones, before one reaches Minden, NV.  They are Sherwin Summit, Dead Man Summit, Conway Summit, Devil's Gate Pass, and Simee Dimeh Pass, the highest of which is Conway Summit sitting at 8,143' above sea level, and the highest point on the entire length of US-395.

A view of the White Mountains to the east as we begin the climb up Sherwin Grade to Sherwin Summit

Sherwin Summit

Crowley Lake.....last year it was still frozen, and snow covered the entire valley

Mammoth Mountain Ski Area....looks like some wonderful Spring Skiing is to be had there this year

↕Mono Lake↕

Mono Lake from the vista point near the top of Conway Summit...the snow you can see to the right, and in the background is normal for this time of year when there is no drought.  Last year was the snowpocolypse, and everything in the foreground was white with snow, and Mono Lake was still frozen.

If you think diesel prices in your area are high, check out Bridgeport, CA!

.....in all we covered around 156 miles between 9:30 am and 1 pm Monday....not a lot of distance, but a lot of climbing!  We spent a lot of time in 2nd gear running around 29 mph up many of the grades.  Of course, we go down the back side of these grades in the same gear we climbed them to keep our speed down.  You don't want to lose control of 39,000 pounds (19.5 tons) of steel.  We took frequent stops to enjoy the views, and just take a break.  As we do every time we near the top of Conway Summit we stopped at the vista point to take a picture.....this tradition began with my family when I was about 5 years old, and continues to this day.  Traffic was not too bad Monday, but by the time we parked the Newell at the Tahoe-Douglas Elks Lodge, and shut down the big Detroit Diesel 6v92 we were tired.

We've just 200 miles to LPG&RVR, and another summer spent with good friends, and playing golf.

Thanks for stopping by!