Pioche | Nevada

 

 

Pioche is a very small town, no stop lights, no grocery store and very little traffic.  But, they appreciate RV people so much that they have set aside a free campground for them, even though there are quite a few regular campgrounds.  This city campground has water hookups as well as sewer and you can stay here for a full week.  There is a little box near the list of rules requesting donations.  In back of our little campground, we see deer during the evening. 

 

 

Of course, there are multiple old abandoned buildings, such as this old hotel from the mid 1980s.   

 

Right next door is the "Million Dollar Courthouse". It didn't take a million dollars to build it back in those days, but the money sure adds up when you have all sorts of problems with financing and other things that soak up money.

 

In back of the courthouse is the jail, which looks very inviting.

 

 

The Overland Hotel and Saloon is building which is still in business and is left over from the mining days.

 

 

The Nevada Club is still operating also.

 

 

There was a section off the main road with these old buildings and equipment.

 

I love this little slanted house with the upside down roof peak.

 

More interesting buildings are scattered around, some now house businesses and some are just abandoned and locked up.

 

I don't know for sure, but I can probably figure out what this building was used for back in the mining days. 

Miner's shacks looked like this.

 

There was some culture in town, since they had an opera house as well as a movie theater.

 

Amid all the closed, abandoned buildings, there is a park with a gazebo and little waterfall and some old mining equipment up on a trestle.

 

 

One evening while I was out watching the deer, we had  pretty nice sunset.  They are not as plentiful as in some areas I've been.

 

 

 

Illipah Reservoir BLM Campground | Nevada

 

Bureau of Land Management does a great job with campgrounds.  This one is easy to find, just a mile or so off Route 50, which claims to be the "loneliest road in America". 

 

 

The campground is up on a plateau with hills all around.  There is some great scenery here, and the reservoir has great fishing.  Even with the dumpster available and the picnic tables with shelter, there is no charge for camping here. 

 

 

My campsite was up on a hill overlooking the reservoir.  They had shelters for the picnic table and you'll also notice that they have a fence type enclosure on two sides.  There's a really great reason for this - being up on the top of a hill in the mountains, this area gets lots of wind coming through and those fences block it if you want to sit outside.  However, the RV still gets the full strength of the wind and there were a few days with heavy winds that weren't much fun.  I might have stayed longer if it hadn't been for the wind, since it's a great campground.  I'm sure that there are times of the year that the wind is not as active. 

 

 

The campsites are large and nicely spaced.  Mine was a huge area that I thought I could do just a turn-around in, but it was a little short because of some rutted areas that were left from the rainy season.  In any case, it was easy for me to jockey it around to get set up.

 

There were cattle in the area, mostly on the far side of the lake, but we had some wandering through the camp one day.

 

You could tell that they had been drawing water out of the reservoir because there was a "low-tide" smell down at the lake.  This little rock outcropping was a spit of land out into the water where most of the people fished.  Obviously this was in the morning before the wind kicked up.

 

I don't know how old this, but it looked like a cute little house on Route 50 going to the reservoir.

 

It never rained while I was there, but there were some dark clouds one evening when the sun set.

 

 

 

A'Le'Inn | Rachel | Nevada

 

This is the only sign I have seen for this highway, although it is marked as such on both my maps.  There are no gas stations for many miles in either direction.  When I turned onto this road, there were signs telling me that gas wasn't available for over 100 miles.  For those who are brave enough to stay overnight, they have RV sites as well as a big gravel lot for dry camping.

 

 

This old truck has a "flying saucer" hanging from his crane.  I'm not sure what it really is, but if there were aliens in there, they are tiny!

 

Close-up view.

The aliens don't get much help with parking space - do it yourself!

 

 

 

The seem to be friendly creatures.

 

 

There are interesting murals all over the place.

This tree is interesting - the underside of the leaves are all very pale, with darker green on the top.  Must be an alien tree.......

Possibly a signal generator for the aliens to find this place?

 

Inside the restaurant is lots of stuff for sale, plus a bar for food and drink.  Friendly people, too, but they're earthlings.

 

These are very nice little quilts, of course in an alien theme.

 

People were buying all sorts of alien things, including the tequila shown below.   If they are doing this type of business every day - they must be doing OK.  BUT, there are lots of miles to go before you can find a store, gas or other supplies, so it's expensive to bring anything in.

 

Obviously, I didn't get to enter this room, off the main room.

 

Back in 1996, 20th Century Fox constructed this time capsule to be opened in the year 2050.  They figured by that time, the "interplanetary travelers" would be coming here on a regular basis.

 

This is in the open field across from the restaurant complex.  I found out that Area 51 is difficult to get to, if you don't like dirt roads.  And apparently, when you get there, it's just a gate.  I elected not to do the trip - I'm sure the road would have been washboard and pot holes.

This was the scene I looked at for the last 50 miles or so of my trip - and it looks the same either way.  There was some pretty scenery before this.  Late afternoon when I was there the Air Force base started doing all sorts of maneuvers, including breaking the sound barrier - big boom. 

 

Tonopah Mining Park | Nevada

A panorama of part of the town on Tonopah.

This structure is for hoisting material up from the mine, which could be 600' below.

These types of buildings are near every mine and head frame.

At one time, this was an office, now it's holding parts. 

This was an interesting building - not so much from the outside......

Inside, these gears helped bring material from the mine.

The controls required someone to stand there and work them.

I like this door on the gear building.

You can see tracks on the right side of the path to this building.

These cars that brought out the "catch of the day".

This is looking straight down into part of a mine.

The Burro Tunnel is a sanitized version of a mine tunnel so that people could experience the tunnels.

This was the hoist for one of the richest mines in this area.

There were many buildings around the mine.

This one had a side window where you can see leftover parts.

Allsorts of parts and equipment are scattered around the entire complex.

This framing shop was responsible for cutting all the lumber that was necessary to run the mine.

I like this - really just a hole in the ground, it was used to store dynamite and other equipment.

This was a blower that just happened to be somewhere on the property.  It looks like it's in pretty good shape.

I spent a couple of hours roaming around the area, and I still didn't see everything, it's a massive area to cover.