9/25/2017 - Heading East - Day 1

Monday - Right after the conclusion of the horse show last night, we got word that Joe's Aunt Nellie (Lucille's 93-year-old sister) had passed away.  So first thing this morning, we started heading east, to Indiana. We didn't even go over and say goodbye to the horses. We were dumped and on the road by 7:25, heading up Hwy 20 to I-80, then across eastern California and all of Nevada.  We had planned on taking scenic Hwy 50 across Nevada before our plans got changed, and even though this wasn't a scenic route, it was still quite pretty. We first saw snow-capped mountains in the distance around Truckee, but before the day was over, we were driving right next to mountains that were completely covered in snow.  We crossed the California/Nevada state line about 9:00.

We came through part of Nevada's Basin area where we saw a lot of white soil -- we assume this is salt.  We even saw some areas with steam, it looked like the geysers in Yellowstone, but don't know if that was what it really was.

As we left the basin area and started climbing in elevation, we had some really beautiful views of the mountains.

This also put us in the heavily-populated area of wildlife, especially deer, although we did not see any.  But they have some animal overpasses in place and are building more.

 This was the prettiest part -- and here's the road ahead.  Looks like summer here is over.

We have 5 hard days of driving ahead of us, approximately 2100 miles, so we need to put in between 400 and 500 miles per day.  We made a good stab at it today -- logging 482 miles. And I drove about 100 of them.

We pulled off in Wendover, Nevada, 2 miles from the Utah state line, about 5:00.  But it looks like there is absolutely nothing between here and Salt Lake City, so we called it a day.

I had this grand plan, I found a casino here with laundry, according to my casino camping book.  So rather than dry camping free, we pulled into the RV park, which cost $35 ($5 more than my book said).  And there was no laundry.  The guy at the registration desk said there was one across the street, and we drove up and down the street twice (this is basically a one-street town) and could not find one.  We did see one that looked like it had been out of business for a few years.

So I got on my phone and did a search.  Siri sent us out to the defunct military base, it looked like the buildings had been deserted about 20 years ago, windows were all broken out, so that was a waste of time.

Joe was ready to give up, but I told him to stop at a gas station and I would go in and ask.  Well, the gal in there didn't speak English.  Apparently, I didn't make her understand what I was looking for because she sent us to another gas station.  There was a CAR wash there.  After that, we gave up, so I still have my basket of laundry in the back of the car.  Maybe we will have better luck tomorrow.

We came back to the RV and watched the second half of the Arizona football game.  That went the way the rest of this night has gone.  Then we just called it a night.  We need to get another early start tomorrow.  We will take I-80 to Salt Lake City, go south on I-15 to where we connect with I-70, the continue East.  For days.  Probably take I-64 around the south side of St. Louis so we can come in just north of Evansville and make our last stop at the Flying J so we can come in with empty tanks.  I expect we will be tired when we arrive in Vincennes.