Crossing the Desert....

We spent a lot of time traversing the desert of California and Nevada... Okay, really we didn't... But there is something about driving from one small desert town to the next small desert town to the next small desert town that makes the trip seem to go slower than time can tick!  I am not sure if it is the repeated landscaping, the desperation of the small abandoned ghost towns, the sparseness of amazing caches.... or that fact that we were pouting that time would not permit us to do the ET trail on this trip (probably the reason!!)... but the drive was loooong!!

Luckily, we did catch a few shining moments!

We snagged a quick virt at a pop-up-in-the-middle-of-seemingly-nowhere casino!   Impressive on its on, but made even more so by the fact that there wasn't anything else around!   Talk about juxtapositioning!

A driveby of Mt Shasta was next.... Strong, powerful.... I'm sure it was a beacon for early travelers coming west!

Susanville was by far a personal favorite of "desert towns" for me.   Rich murals graced the sides of many of the local businesses and buildings.... but I was too busy taking pictures of their tributes to their military members to get a shot of the murals!

More desert... More landscape... More beauty...

And then we got a little creeped out.... NO, we did not stay here... NO, we will not stay here if we drive this route again!

Tonopah was a great little town.  An old silver mining town, they seem to embrace their community/hertitage and respect their military!  While most towns we passed through seemed to be dying... Tonopah appeared to be well-managed and growing (they are even putting in a micro-brewery!)  It was by-far one of the more successful towns we passed through... and they even had an earthcache!!!

More desert... More landscape... More beauty....

Area 51 provided several giggles and the cheezy souvenir store located in the same parking lot as the super-cheezy "entertainment" club provided us with an opportunity to pick up a few trinkets... and get abducted (if even for just one moment!) by a couple of good-looking out-of-this-world travelers!

We also passed near Death Valley... very quickly.   A drink for the geo-mobile, a quick parking lot cache, a few trinkets... and we were off and rolling again!

<3 Mac