Catching up Again

Old buildings - Virgina City, NV

Main Street Virginia City, NV

View out of truck window

Old Church in background

Over the Labor Day weekend we were able to take my step-daughter Lani back to her home in Fallon, NV.  Frank and I had been wanting to get away and that was the perfect excuse to take a road trip.  Even though we didn't need an excuse. We had been wanting to revisit Virginia City an old mining town and this was a good opportunity to do that.

It was fun having Lani all to ourselves and we talked about everything which made the trip go by faster.  The trip to Fallon is on a long lonely road, but it is great as there is hardly any traffic on most of the highway.  When we got to Alamo we made sure we filled our tank with diesel and also had some snacks, as there is nothing in between Alamo and Tonopah, well except Rachel which has a small restaurant and is known for the Alien adventure stories. 

The famous Area 51 is over a mountain range behind Rachel.  After we turned onto the Extraterrestrial Highway as it is known (hwy 375), and traveled a few miles there was a metal building that had a huge silver man made Alien standing in front of the building.  It must have been 30 feet high.  I was going to take a picture of it on the way back, but we went by it so fast that I didn't have time and I didn't want to make Frank turn around.  Guess that will be a fun day trip to take sometime in the future. 

When we got to Lani's home in Fallon we took the tour of all the remodeling that she had done.  They bought a manufactured home that was in need of some tender loving care, and Lani was the person to do just that.  She is amazing as she completely remodeled the whole home.  I couldn't believe the things that she did with cabinets, counter tops, etc.  We were amazed at one chest that she had refinished as the top looked just like marble.  She is so talented.  I should have taken some pictures, but I was tired and hungry and we needed to get to our hotel and get checked in.  We met Lani and Terry at a Casino restaurant and had dinner then went back to our hotel for the night.

Much to our disappointment our hotel wasn't very nice, but we only stayed there one night and was able to get a room the following morning at the Holiday Inn Express which had a bunch of cancellations.  It was my first choice, but they were booked solid when I first tried to get a room.  What a difference, and we were much more comfortable that night.  

We were disappointed in our little trip to Virginia City, as it was packed solid with people.  It is like any mining town, and is built on a steep mountain side.  So the roads were steep and Frank didn't feel like he could walk up and down the streets where we would have had to park.  So we rode around and just looked at everything.  We had talked about taking a train ride, but decided with all the people there, we more than likely would not be able to get a ticket.  We decided that the reason it was so packed, was that the local people were staying closer to home for the Labor Day holiday, and there were a lot of things going on to attract people to Virginia City.  We noticed some old cars coming into town, and figured there was a car show about to happen. 

It was a fun trip even though we didn't get to get out of the car and explore the old town.  I really don't enjoy fighting a crowd.  So we continued on our road trip and decided to go down off the mountain into Reno taking a different route than the way we came.  So we made a full circle back to Fallon.  Sunday morning we got up early and hit the road to home.  We left a day early in order to miss traffic and it worked out great.