Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Road Trippin' California: Part 1 - Hwy 50

When I googled 'Hwy 50', I was led to believe that it would be the loneliest road that we would ever travel on, given its name 'The Loneliest Highway'.. I think the road is wrongly named; yes there weren't that many cars but it was anything but lonely. It is a hell of a long drive from Cedar City to Sacramento, CA, so we decided to spread the 10 hour journey over a couple of days and so far, we have had a blast and seen some amazing things. The first day we travelled from Cedar City to Ely, NV, making a stop for a few hours at the gorgeous Lehman's Cave, a national monument in the Great Basin National Park. The tour was so cool and the cave was impressive like nothing I have ever seen before; I am so pleased that we made the stop. They estimate the cave is between 1 and 5 million years old and is still 'growing'. It is very cold and damp down there and the limestone stalagtites and stalagmites look almost fake, it is insane. The tour guide was very knowledgable and was full of all kinds of interesting information during our 1.5 hour tour underground. These pictures absolutely do not do the cave justice.
A short 90 minute trip from Lehman's Cave bought us to Cave Lake State Park just outside of Ely, NV. The State Park is an oasis in the middle of a whole lot of nothingness! It is a lovely place to spend the night for us and Taggy dog had so much fun on the walks and he even went swimming in the rather frigid lake water! We were very unprepared however for how very cold the weather would be that night - we woke in the morning to a thick layer of ice covering everything - it was cold! When the sun came up however it proved to be a really lovely day and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Cave Lake.
After thawing out from Cave Lake, we drove a couple hours further down the road, through yet more miles of nothingness (seriously, you can look for miles and miles out of all the car windows and see NOTHING!!!... hard to believe but so true). Seeing the worlds supposedly largest 'shoe tree' was a real treat and quite a wonder in itself. This huge tree looms out of nowhere with hundreds of pairs of shoes thrown high up into its branches. An amazing sight and a beauty in itself, standing there baking in the hot sunshine. It's actually really difficult to get the shoes to stay in the tree. There are hundreds of pairs laying on the ground that have fallen off the tree, so there's plenty of opportunity to try and get a pair thrown up in the tree. Wade did really well and threw 2 pairs up there... me, it took about 10 tries but i finally made a pair stay!
A few more miles of nothingness and we arrive at the Middlegate Pony Express Station.. the only bar, sat in the middle of nowhere for hundreds of miles. This place has so much charm. It's a smallish dingy little establishment full of people passing through Highway 50 on their way to wherever. The beer was surprisingly very cheap and it was a realy nice place to spend an hour or so. The ceiling of the bar was covered full of dollar bills that people had written their name and date on. It was kinda cool.
Back on the road through more miles of nothingness and all of a sudden, out of nowhere looms this huge sand dune among all the scrub and bare mountain. It is quite the sight!


Finally at the end of Highway 50 we come to beautiful Lake Tahoe on the California / Nevada border. It is so beautiful; the campground we chose was gorgeous and had it's own dog beach so Tag was well happy to splash in the water and get long walks on the beach. The weather was beautiful and I wish we had of had longer to enjoy Lake Tahoe. I can't wait to go back some day. I was sad to be at the end of Highway 50, it was a far more enjoyable experience than I had been led to believe it would be. Depsite the hundreds of miles of nothingness, there were so many wonders to be seen and I am pleased I saw everything that we did. Next leg of the roadtrip takes us into California to Sacramento!

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