Category: TR

Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 8)

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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…

Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Days 3 through 5)

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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.

Nevada 2024 Trip Report (Day 1)

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Today was a long day. First, I couldn’t sleep last night; this appears to be happening every time I travel now. At a little after 5:00 AM, I left home and headed to the Charlotte airport. Here, I found the line just to drop off a checked bag for an American Airlines flight was nearly as long as the TSA line. And both were HUGE! It was cold this morning in Charlotte, and there are some cold days in the forecast for this trip, so I was wearing my winter coat. In this mass of humanity. By the time I had to take off my coat at the security checkpoint, I almost couldn’t get the thing off, as I had been sweating so much that the inside of the coat sleeves were soaked to the point of sticking to my arms! Ultimately, I was reminded yet again that I need to get TSA Pre-Check.

Then there was The Flight. I was flying to Las Vegas, Nevada, but had a stop in Los Angeles, California. From Charlotte to L.A. is a 5.5-hour flight, and for a flight that long, I did NOT want to be stuck in “Basic Economy” (read “no leg- or even foot-room”). So, I threw down an extra ninety bucks for an exit row seat. I also took a dose of Lorazepam, hoping this would keep any anxiety at bay AND cause me to sleep through the flight. I did sleep off and on, and the leg room was marvelous!

It took a LONG walk to switch planes in L.A. I have to say, there are large portions of LAX that look more like a high school basement than a major city’s international airport. But never mind that. I made it to the second flight, and on into Las Vegas with no trouble. Since my flight was an early one and I was flying west across three time zones, it wasn’t much past lunch time when I got my rental car. So, I headed to Naked City Pizza, which was recommended on the “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” web site, which specifically endorsed (among other things) the “Steak and Cheese Fries”. So that’s what I ordered. I was a little disappointed. They were good, but not the taste explosion I was hoping I would get.

After lunch, it was still a little too early to check into my hotel room at The Strat (formerly The Stratosphere). So, I hit up the “Pinball Hall of Fame” (PHOF). Please note that this place is not so much a “Hall of Fame” as it is a HUGE arcade with an amazing selection of pinball machines of all ages. There are a fair number of arcade video games as well, and a couple other coin-operated machines of yesteryear. For my purposes, I’ll divide the pinball machines into three categories, like so:

  1. Old (anything built before 1980). PHOF has an AMAZING selection of Old pinball machines, many of which you can still play. Many others cannot be played at any given time, which is understandable, since it must be hard to find parts for them.
  2. Middle-Aged (built between 1980 and 2000). All my favorites fall into this category. I was a little upset at the condition of most of these machines. Yes, it’s gotta be increasingly difficult to find parts for them, but I’ve seen machines in dive bars that are better maintained than many of these are at PHOF. Some of them weren’t even leveled – they wobbled back and forth as if one leg were shorter than the others.
  3. New (built in the 21st century). PHOF had a surprisingly large variety of New machines, and all the ones I tried were in great working order!

Much to my dismay, my arms started cramping after a couple of hours here, so I checked into the hotel and just rested until bed time. I am hoping to go back to PHOF before I leave Las Vegas. If I do, I’ll try to get some pics while I’m there.

Stay tuned, this is planned to be a long and varied trip, so there’s MUCH more to come!

Mississippi 2024 Trip Report (Day 1)

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And just like that, my Mississippi state vacation is underway. Just like what? Well, like this…

The plan for Day One was to leave home at 4:00 AM for Charlotte Douglas International Airport, then fly to George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. Once in Houston, I was to change planes, then fly to Jackson, Mississippi. I would then rent a car and drive to Red Bluff. After photographing Red Bluff, I would then drive to a hotel in the city of Natchez. That was the plan. Here’s what actually happened…

I left home at 4:00 AM for Charlotte Douglas International Airport, then flew to George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. All good so far. Once inside the terminal, I checked the “Departures” monitor to see which gate I had to get to next. To my shock and awe, next to the gate number there appeared the word, CANCELED. This was a little concerning. I made my way to the listed gate anyway, to ask the gate agent what options they might have for me. As it stood, there was ONE more flight to Jackson today, for which they could give me “priority standby”. And there was an available seat on tomorrow morning’s flight. They gave me both of these, but the gate agent seemed to think it was rather likely that one or both of these flights may end up canceled as well. It occurred to me that I may be able to alter my car rental reservation to start at Houston rather than Jackson, so I asked about retrieving my checked bag at Houston instead of them flying it to Jackson. The gate agent suspected this may take 4 or 5 hours, as the baggage folks were facing serious issues due to a slew of cancelations the previous day.

And so I left the gate and headed for the baggage claim, to get the baggage department’s opinion on the matter. On the way there, I looked at Google Maps and found that a drive from Houston to Natchez would take about six hours. This would require eliminating Red Bluff from my itinerary, but I went ahead and called Enterprise and successfully changed my car rental. Fortunately, the baggage folks didn’t have any trouble retrieving my bag for me, so I had it within just a few minutes. I also had no trouble with the just-changed car rental, so I was on the road less than two hours after landing at Houston. I drove north out of Houston, then east across Louisiana’s, um, ankle. I only made four stops: one for nappin’ and three for caffeine. Well, and maybe about eight more stops to scream at the Google Maps Navigation app.