Day 30 June 27

Hi Everyone,

We left Ely behind today and headed out to complete our drive along the

Loneliest Road....Ely had turned out to be more interesting than we had expected with a real “wild-west” look to it. It was once a mining town and stop on the Pony Express and a main wagon road from Salt Lake City to Carson City and California. Small casinos, saloons, old wood front buildings and, a sprinkling of turn of the century houses and a few1940-50's style motels make it an interesting place to poke around for an hour or two. 

 

Highway 50 (and the interstates which now cover some of the old road), which we have followed on and off since St. Joseph, Mo., pretty much follows the Pony Express trail all the way to Sacramento.  With the dry climate of central Nevada the actual trail has been preserved and can be seen in many places next to the highway. It looks just as you would imagine --an old wagon road or trail in the dessert. 

The high desert countryside with snow capped mountains, sage covered basins and the occasional dry lake and salt flat was much more beautiful than we expected. We saw a bit more traffic around Ely and then again as we neared the turn off to Sparks and Reno, but it was still very quiet along most of the route. You could stop next to the highway and not see another car for half an hour. A few lonely settlements are the only sign of civilization for miles and miles of highway.

We entered the town of Austin (it’s just about right in the middle of Nevada) and noticed it was holding a Serbian Festival. It was a very small place, again full of wild-west style buildings and beautiful old graveyard which had very elaborate tombstones. I’d love to find out the history of this place. Since it is an old mining town we guessed that many of the miners were Serbian, as you will also find in some of the California Gold Rush towns.

Just past Fallon, we left the old Highway 50 route (which heads over to Carson City) and headed instead towards Reno. We got a great rate for good room at the El Dorado…can’t say we saved a lot though after other “expenses” that evening in the casino. The city itself seemed almost deserted. Of course, it was a Monday with a holiday coming next week-end but even so Reno seems to have been hard hit by the current economy and, perhaps, high gas prices.

We had a wonderful Italian dinner at the La Strada restaurant in the El Dorado Hotel. Our waiter was from Cloverdale (Sonoma county, north of San Francisco) and is attending the University of Nevada, Reno and majoring in Political Science.

We will be on our way to Placerville tomorrow. I’m anxious to see Elizabeth and John.

Until then, Linda and Richard