We headed south a little later than usual this year…… so that we could come back up a little later… with the hopes of hitting a few places on the way home that we usually cannot get to because of the cold/snow. We usually go down through Nevada on our way down, when we go in November, but most years we are in a rush because some weather system or other is “encouraging” us to go south and fast…

So we usually come down I5, and over to Susanville California and enter Nevada near Reno/Carson city area. We go down through Hawthorne, then Tonopah and Beatty (essentially HWY95).

Nevada sits at a higher elevation, and so the nights can be cold, below freezing, which has always steered us to find a different way home. This year with our new battery…… etc… we are able to fully charge each day and discharge down to 70% (battery charge) during the night. SO we are able to camp in “dispersal” camping areas, which are areas designated for camping with no formal amenities such as electricity, water etc. Usually they are not far off the road, on BLM land, and also usually quite scenic.

THIS was from a dispersal site out side of Tonopah. We love Tonopah because of the amazing rocks we find near there. Miles of open area (BLM land) (kind of like Crown land in Canada) to wander all day long, looking for cool rocks. This year we have learned the many faces of petrified wood and so stuff we thought was nothing we now realize can be beautiful agatized or opalized petrified wood.

Well this picture is from Lake Mead, but you get the picture of what we do all day almost every day, wherever we happen to be.

I have not taken many pictures of rocks this trip, because they tend to be more “photogenic” once they are cut, or tumbled.

Beatty is a town in the south west of Nevada, that is at a lower elevation, so basically the last warm spot heading north. ( 🙃 OR the first warm spot heading south). It is the gateway to Death Valley heading west. There is not much there to interest us usually, but while searching for a store, I discovered an old historic casino that they are apparently remaking into perhaps a coffee roaster place??? Ken and I LOVE steampunk stuff, and this old casino has been completely refaced, resurfaced in Steam punk.

as you can see, the buildings around are totally PLAIN…

I guess what struck me is that this amazing building appears to be done up SOOO well in a town that …. we will just say is ….not so amazing…… Whatever this place will be, it is not there yet and the work is continuing. It must be quite a labour of love, as this town is far from anything. I know myself, I will be anxious to see what it looks like next year.

Tonopah ……..photos…

… and always the ever present Burros…. just sitting watching what we are doing…. so cute.

To go back to the map at the beginning, we drove a highway between Tonopah and Austin,( that does not show on that map), but is a great highway, along a long valley with snow topped mountains either side. I am not sure that they are snow topped in the summer time, so it seems early spring or late fall might be the most scenic times to travel this way.

We are currently just south of Mcdermitt, which is a border town between Oregon and Nevada. It seems that every border into Nevada has a number of casinos…. but this one only has one, it is called the SAY WHEN CASINO. 🫢I like that name. Today we are on the hunt for opalized petrified wood, which we have never really seen, but might have.

It IS getting down to 27-28 F (-2, -4C) at night and it is quite freeing to know that we can weather these temps with no hookups.

petrified wood from Tonopah

Although I have likely mentioned this in this blog before.. I lost the diamond from my engagement ring out in the desert while rockhounding… about…7 years ago. We always jested that perhaps some rock hound might find it in the desert and think he had discovered a new diamond mine

I have gone ringless for all those years and last year at the Tucson gem show, we searched for and found a beautiful sapphire. We went home and I found a jeweller to take my engagement ring and wedding ring, and salvage the gold, and the create a new ring with the sapphire and leftover diamonds

I was never really happy with the ring, I think because I had chosen not to have claws on the ring … this is “bezelled” which is a safer setting but allows less light under the gem.(better for rockhounds and gardeners….)……. soooooo

This year we decided to once again look for a sapphire at the Tucson Gem show and were drawn to the booth with the Montana sapphires which are not so much blue as more of a greenish colour. We spent quite a bit of time going over all of the choices there and found the gem we liked the most (we also got to know the guy quite well, he cuts all of his gems and had lots of stories to tell)

….oh and BTW. …. MORE STEAMPUNK…. Each year the Tucson Gem show has a competition for ART made from recycled stuff.

LOVE THIS STUFF….

Now THIS… stuck me a picture worthy…perhaps someone else might feel that an antitheft device on the steering wheel is an important accessory, but my thoughts were … why bother?

some early thoughts, but the wrong shape….

so in the end we bought the sapphire we liked the best, then went in search of a setting, not really expecting to find something I liked… but I did…. The setting was priced at 6000 but he sold it to me for….1500… (MUCH less than a transmission)…. and there was a jeweller at the Gem show to put the sapphire into the setting and so we went home with a new ring

I cannot honestly say I have ever had much of an interest in jewelry…. but for some reason I tend to stare at my new ring all the time…. I guess after 40 years of marriage it was time for a new one. Ken on the other hand lost his ring in our first 5 years, and so his is also a replacement.

So looking at the maps between here and home, there is STILL severe weather warnings, so shall hang out here for a few more days…

Bye for now, much love from Janet, Ken and Tucker.