Reno to Cheyenne

In 2010 when we drove Evey's car across country for her, we drove from Cheyenne to Salt Lake City in one day and then SLC to Reno in a second day.  SLC to Reno is about 565 miles, which is why we did NOT do that this year and stopped in Elko as a halfway point.  That made it possible to go to the Golden Spike National Site yesterday.  It was super exciting for us as we had recently finished the TV show Hell on Wheels about the building of the transcontinental railroad and finishing at Promontory Summit in northern Utah.  We left Elko later than we planned in order to take care of some chores, and then there was a detour that cost us nearly half an hour of time as we got very close to the National Site.  We literally had to drive up, down, and around another mountain to get to the Golden Spike visitor center.  We arrived at 4:05 and it closed at 5.  Even so we did everything we wanted: I got a passport stamp and bought souvenirs; we saw the Golden Spike site and final tie; we watched the video.  We also listened to a ranger talk about the two locomotives that were there that day.  Both are recreated and running today, so we saw them both retire for the evening.  After the Visitor Center closed, the outdoor exhibits remained open, so we took the two mile Eastward Auto Tour, which allowed us to drive over what was the railway for two miles to see the final cut, some trestles filled in, and some blasting through the rock as well as the Chinese Arch, a natural phenomenon that has been designated a monument to the Chinese workers who helped build the railroad. We learned that 138 miles of track in Utah, from Corinne to Lucin, was torn up in 1942 to send the materials to the war effort.  By that time, those towns were no longer serviced by the railroad.

In 2010 when we were starting in Cheyenne and driving to SLC, a distance of 444 miles, we took the time to go through a museum in Cheyenne in the morning first.  We are not doing anything today except driving, so we should be on the road by 9:30 and in Cheyenne by 6:30 or so.  As I recall, it's  a pretty boring drive, but maybe I'm wrong.  Also we will finish James Michener's Texas today!  That's exciting.   It was a 65 hour audiobook, probably the longest one we have ever done.

I have finished four books on this trip: Texas, Undaunted Courage (the Lewis and Clark Expedition), The Raven (Sam Houston biography), and a paperback novel about a Navajo Indian police chief but I can't remember its name.  I am now halfway through the Mark Twain at Lake Tahoe book, too.  If I finish it soon, I'll start the next mystery novel that I bought, which takes place at Lake Tahoe.  There has been a lot of time for reading on this trip despite all the driving and touring.  Mark has not read as much because when I'm reading, he is usually practicing his lines for the play Art, which will begin rehearsals right after we get home.

It's Monday and Labor Day.  I don't know what to say about my weight because I checked it about 8 times and got 8 numbers.  The lowest was 261.1 and the highest was 263.4.  I don't know what to believe, but they are all acceptable at this point.  I had a good day the last two days and expect today to be good as well.

Stopped for this picture at the border because we loved the sign with the two trains facing each other.

Finally made it here at 4:05 p.m.

Got my stamp!

The spot of the final tie and spike. The Golden Spike was ceremonial only and immediately replaced with an actual spike.

Mark is at the final tie and in front of the re-creatinon of the locomotive Jupiter of the Central Pacific coming from Sacramento.  The No. 119 of the Union Pacific coming from Omaha had been there and was already retired for the night.

A replica of the Golden Spike.  The actual one is in Stanford University in the art museum, founded by Leland Stanford who was the president of the Central Pacific railroad.

This plaque is cool.  Not sure it is clear enough to read here, but this spike went up in to space on a shuttle mission in 1990!

Walking out to the final cut on the driving tour.

Driving over a trestle built up by dirt from those cuts.

Driving through a blast cut area.  This was a one-way gravel road on what was track.

Now he's just showing off!

IHOP dinner in Woods Cross, UT, a northern suburb of Salt Lake City.

Happy Fifth Anniversary to Evey and Eric Gaertner.

 Happy Anniversary Evey and Eric.  Sorry we didn't get your card and gift in the mail on time.  It should get picked up on Tuesday from Elko, NV, so maybe you'll get it about Tuesday.  I know you had a wonderful anniversary trip to Banff and Lake Louise in Canada.

At Lake Tahoe

At Yosemite

Sept. 4, 2011.

Elko

We left Reno around 10:30 a.m., stopped at Winnemucca for lunch at Subway, and arrived in Elko, NV around 3:30.  We checked in to the Rodeway Inn, and I was immediately unhappy.

The website said there were laundry facilities and breakfast.  Breakfast is just cold or hot cereal and some fruit you can pick up in the tiny lobby and take to your room.  Laundry facilities meant there's a laundromat two blocks away.  That wasn't so bad, but we had to take a second floor room.  Except for the log cabin in Lake Tahoe, we have not had to carry our stuff up to a second story on this entire trip.  Eric did it for us at the log cabin.  LOL!  Thanks, Eric.

Anyway, we dragged all our stuff upstairs.  The room is okay, although the old bathroom has a pedestal sink with no shelf space and no electric plug for Mark's toothbrush.  The shower was nice, though.  The old tub had obviously been ripped out and replaced with a huge modern shower.

We took our laundry to the laundromat.  That wasn't bad, really, because the machines were fast, big, and cheap.  We got all of our laundry done in two loads running at the same time.  I used the time to read my Mark Twain at Lake Tahoe book.  After it was done, we walked across the street to the little grocery store. We have a great fridge and microwave in the room, so we got yogurts so we could just eat regular breakfasts in the room like we had been doing in Reno.

Saturday we walked to a nearby little park ironically called Green Belt Park.  We sat on a bench and listened to an hour of the Michener book.  We only have two hours left now!  Then we walked around a few more blocks looking at the town and enjoying the weather, but mostly we were killing more time hoping the maid had done the room.  No, not done.  So we drove to Subway and got our salads on the gift card for lunch and took subs out for dinner in the room later.

We went to the Visitor's Center, but it's closed on weekends.  We took some pictures of it from the outside and then went to the Commercial Casino, which used to be the oldest hotel in Elko.  It has a huge polar bear stuffed and in a glass case inside, so we checked that out before going back to the Rodeway Inn to read, nap, and write a blog.  Tonight we are going to watch a double feature on the TV: Fast and Furious 7, and Pan.

There's a wonderful museum in Elko, but we went to it in August of 2012 when we doing our Nevada tour.  I took a ton of pictures inside that museum back then, but it doesn't appear I put any on the blog.  Oh, well.

Tomorrow we are heading to Salt Lake City, Utah with a side trip to Promontory Summit and the Golden Spike National Site.  I expect to get another passport stamp!

My red car in the parking lot.  Our room is above the white car, the door is closed, next to an open door.  At least it was right at the top of the stairs.

Good laundromat

Little grocery store across the street from the laundromat.

Listening to the book.

Ruby Mountains, originally miners thought the red sparking rocks were rubies, hence the name.  They were actually garnets, and garnets are still mined there.

Really nice rocking chair on the back porch of the Visitor's Center.

Front of the Visitor's Center.  This house and the out buildings were all original buildings of the Walther family, originally located about 65 miles from here on Sherman Creek, and moved to this spot in Elko to serve as the Visitor Center.

Commercial Casino, formerly hotel.

Pretty Western murals surround the entire casino.

Mark and White King, the over ten foot tall polar bear.

The NARFE Convention has ended. Now on to Elko

It was a very interesting and busy convention, as always. This was my third one and Mark's fourth.  In two years, the next one will be in Jacksonville, FL, and two years after that it will be in Scottsdale, AZ.  We do plan to attend them both!  Mark is more motivated now to go back and keep working for NARFE.  That's always one of the happy outcomes of conventions.

Tomorrow we will begin our drive eastward across the country, back to Maryland for a wedding.  Tomorrow night we are staying in Elko, NV, which is 289 miles.  That's not too far. We have about three loads of laundry to do when we get there because this big fancy hotel did not have self-service laundry. We will stay two nights in Elko because it's Shabbat.  Sadly, it is a Rodeway Inn without a pool.  What a big step down from this luxurious place! On the other hand, they have a washer-dryer we can use.

Here are a few more pictures from our time here in Reno.

Monday night we had dinner at the Grand Cafe, which we liked so much that we went back for dinner Wednesday night.

The Pop Art in the Grand Cafe was very cool.

Tuesday night we had dinner at the Cantina.  My margarita was delicious.

Terry Zitek, the Exec VP of the Florida Region, joined us for dinner.

After dinner we went to the California/Nevada night.  We ran into Evelyn Seabrook, also from Florida.  They were both dressed for Country Western night!

The band Route 66 played for three hours.  AWESOME BAND!

This lady on the fiddle was incredible.

Wednesday morning was the NARFE-PAC breakfast with a speaker who is a pollster and analyst for NBC news.  He presented a very interesting talk about the upcoming elections.

Thursday morning's meeting ended in just an hour.  Mark and I relaxed the rest of the day until the banquet.  President Thissen thanked everybody before dinner.

The band Route 66 played classic rock for dancing after the dinner.  We stayed until they ended at 10 p.m.