It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a ThrowBack Thursday around here. What say we do one right about now? Well, all right then! Let us voyage back twelve years, to early March of 2012, to a place on the eastern edge of Boulder, … Continue reading Sawhill Ponds (March 2012)
It’s been a whole week since I got home, and here, finally, is the last chapter of My Nevada Experience. We begin on Day 15 at the National Automobile Museum. And y’know, it’s places like this that make me re-consider my personal no-cameras-in-museums policy – … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (the last two days)
Day 12: On this day, I went to the Nevada Railroad Museum. I wanted to see ONE thing here, as I had read a little about that one thing and was highly intrigued by it. That one thing was their McKeen Motor Car. The description … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Days 12 through 14)
Today is the big day, the one I’ve been waiting for. The day I drive “the loneliest road in America”, the stretch of U.S. Highway 50 that crosses northern Nevada. Ironically, this wasn’t a planned part of the trip. I just needed to get from … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 11)
If you are seeing this message, I am dead. Or maybe just lazy. Whichever you would consider to be an appropriate excuse for going nearly a week without posting when there is active travel to tell you about. Day 9: At the end of my … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Days 9 and 10)
I got up early this morning and took these pics of the sunrise from my hotel room window in Ely, Nevada:
From the first time I spotted the town of Ely, Nevada on a map, I have always figured it would be pronounced like E. Lie (as in: ‘e not tell truth, ‘e lie!). I was wrong. The locals pronounce it as E. Lee, as if they’re describing something that tastes too much like an eel. Then there’s the Lehman Caves. I thought the name would be pronounced “Layman” or maybe “Lemon”. (Come to think of it, “The Lemon Caves” sounds like a good name for a children’s book.) But again, I was wrong. The locals pronounce it “Leeman”. So, if you’re ever traveling in eastern Nevada, keep this simple rule in mind: “Whatever the Hell the vowels may be, you should pronounce it like it’s Lee.” My apologies to the Tootsie Roll marketing department. Wait, why am I talking about Tootsie Rolls in a Parkinson’s travel blog? I’m not; I’m talking about caves.
What, you may ask, is my level of experience with cave tours? Well, I’ve never been to any of the REALLY big caves (Carlsbad, Mammoth), but I’ve been to at least 20 caves scattered around the U.S., and the Lehman Caves tour is definitely one of the best of them. This is largely because it’s so “intimate”. In most caves, the really cool formations are seen from a respectable distance. In Lehman, you’re standing right next to many of them. And there are LOADS of formations. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen so many formations packed so closely together. Perhaps even more impressive is the density of formations that are no longer there. Y’see, this is one of those cave systems where, in the olden days, tourists were encouraged to break off a piece to take home as a souvenir. As a result, there are incredibly dense concentrations of little nubboes, which are all that’s left of a virtual forest of stalactites. Still, there’s more than enough left to make it worthwhile. But the aforementioned intimacy includes multiple, relatively long passages where you must contort yourself to get through – more than I’ve seen on any other walking tour. (I’ve never gone on any of the more advanced caving / exploration tours.) So, while I’d certainly recommend Lehman Caves to most folks (make sure you buy your tickets in advance), I probably would not recommend this tour to many of the Parkinson’s patients I know.
I had selected the first cave tour of the day to allow myself plenty of time to hike and otherwise explore Great Basin National Park (which the caves are part of). But there was one thing I wasn’t counting on: snow. When I left Las Vegas, I knew I’d end up about 200 miles farther north. I did not know that I would also be gaining a mile in elevation. To make matters worse, it was an exceptionally windy day. With all the trails (and most of the scenic loop road) snowbound, there really wasn’t anything else to do. I tried walking the scenic loop road but didn’t get very far before the wind and cold were just too much. I did at least capture these images along the way:
At that point, I headed back to Ely, snapping these last couple of pics, looking back at the mountains of Great Basin National Park:
On my return to Ely, I pretty much just watched basketball for the rest of the day. And I’m not fully sure what I’ll be doing tomorrow…
Today begins much like yesterday. Once again, I am planning to spend the day at a Nevada state park that I know virtually nothing about. This time, it’s Cathedral Gorge. I know I read a description of the place, and that it was a late … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 7)
Day 6: Leaving Las Vegas Now I’ll have to watch that movie again when I get home. But yes, on this day I am leaving the big city for the smaller towns and more remote desert parks and such. I am beginning with Valley o’ … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 6)
As usual, I am falling behind on my “real time” trip reports, so I’ll make the next three days go more quickly than usual.
Day 3:
Took this pic at sunrise, from my room on the 18th floor of the Strat…
Went to the National Atomic Museum. Learned that 100 above-ground nuclear tests were performed within sight of Las Vegas during the 1950’s. Tourists came to Vegas from all over, just to see the real, live mushroom clouds. I spent half the day here. I’d recommend it. Next, I drove up Paradise Road to get back to my hotel. Pondered the irony of calling it Paradise Road, when it seems to have been paved by work crews from Hell. Spent most of the rest of the day gambling. I won a shiny fiddle made of gold!
Day 4:
The devil I went down to Bellagio, and watched the fountain show (in broad daylight). It was as I remembered…pretty cool. Proceeded to walk around what I’ll call the Vegas “Skywalk” system. There are liquor stores and restaurants galore, but I wandered into the Bellagio casino and got lost. Once I was found (but not claimed), I headed back to the Pinball Hall of Fame. I found a whole aisle of machines that I had missed on Day 1. This included a large number of OLD (“woodrail”) pinball machines, and more of my favorites (which seemed to be pretty well maintained, and a couple of oddities – notably, a game called Canada Dry. Yes, a pinball game themed after Canada Dry. I ran away.
Day 5:
After a few days of dealing with throngs of people (both in cars and on foot), overpriced (but good) food, a 15-minute walk from my hotel room to my car, and other tribulations, I was quite happy to take this day off and work on my tax returns.
Another night of very little sleep. This was largely due to a lack of soundproofing in the Strat Hotel tower, mixed with the fact that people are comin’ and goin’ at all hours in Las Vegas. So, I tried to get a few winks in … Continue reading Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 2)
Voyages with Parkinson's 