We left Vancouver a day later than planned. It was a 12 hour day which started out well. We usually get quite a few questions at the border when entering the Usa 🇺🇸. Much to our surprise this time we breezed through in seconds!
The I-5 was busy but fine. We had carefully checked the weather and chose our route accordingly, the Porsche is not equipped for snow having only summer tires. YEP, we ran into snow in Lassan Park. At first it was just rain but we could see from the side of the road it had snowed very recently. Soon the raindrops turned to snowflakes! They didn't seem to be sticking to the road so we pressed on. We came upon a works truck and stopped to ask him about conditions ahead; he assured us we would be fine as he had just plowed where we were headed, saying this was definitely not in the forecast.
It was tense in places but we felt too committed to reverse. That little drama over we continued with our day. We ended up in Grants Pass at a Best Western......the desk clerk was very chatty telling us all about his life! He gave us a recommendation for dinner, The Wild River Pub, his directions were totally mixed up and we ended up finding it by pure fluke.
Next morning, day 2, we stopped at a nearby Starbucks and were on the road 🎶🚘👍again. We were enjoying the scenery and deciding on how long we wanted to drive. We got on the wrong road at one point and by the time we figured it out had done an additional 35 miles. We had been looking for an alternate route around Las Vegas, which required us to go from the town of Fallon to Hawthorne. En route we were held up for over an hour by a serious semi trailer accident, the semi had crashed through a guard rail, by the time we were able to pass by the remains of the semi left little to the imagination. It left one feeling quite ill. Next we entered the little town of Hawthorne. It is known for having the largest supply of ammunition in the world. We had wondered as we approached the town what all the structures were, and on the opposite end of town saw many bunkers built into the ground, more storage facilities......good to know we are prepared.
By this time it was getting late, for us and hundreds of others delayed by the accident. There were no hotels in Hawthorne, darkness was looming. We decided to phone ahead to the Best Western in Tonopah AND lucky we did as we booked the last room. We arrived in Tonopah at 8pm, dark and cold, but thankful. At 6,000 ft elevation we realized it could actually snow.....but it did not. We settled in and walked across the street to the Bbq eatery and shared a sandwich.
It had been a long day and the plan was to rise early and drive to Carefree the next day.
Day 3 we left Tonopah just before 8 am, it was a beautiful morning, cold and the mountains all around us were dusted with icing sugar snow. The cloud formations were spectacular, some like UFO's. The road was long and straight with desert on each side and ringed with mountains. I took a few photos of the clouds, grey, white, fluffy, dark, with a beautiful blue visible in places.
Many semis on the road again today and lots of traffic. We figured out how to avoid going through Las Vegas but decided it really wasn't much better traffic or time wise.
We arrived at our sweet little abode at 5 pm today......home sweet home.
