Days 1 and 2 -- Carson City to Pahrump, Nevada -- 302 miles

Today the grand adventure begins again! Our plans were to head south to Tonopah, Nevada where we had made a reservation to stay the night at the local RV camp and that went off in fine style. We rolled out of our driveway around nine o’clock, congratulating ourselves for getting such an early start.

There was only one small hitch before we left – I had forgotten to unplug the rig from the ACn outlet, and we rolled about thirty feet with the cord dragging behind us before an “unfamiliar sound” alerted me to the goof. Once the cord was safely stowed, we gave leaving a second try.

The first thing we needed to accomplish was to get our propane tank topped off at the nearby Silver City RV Park. With only one person ahead of us that job was accomplished quickly, and we soon were headed north on Highways 395 and I580 to the junction of I580 and Highway 50 east.

After driving 50 some odd miles on Highway 50 we picked up the “Weeks Cutoff” until we intersected Highway 95 headed south and then we just settled back to enjoy the scenery that we hadn't experienced in quite a few years.

Leaving home is always difficult when you know you’re going to be gone for weeks and weeks. The all-important check-off list starts to rule your life. Do you have everything loaded that you’ll need? What did you take last trip that turned out to be unneeded? What tools did you forget to take last time that you really, REALLY needed? And so on.

We took most of the day driving the 156 some odd miles from Carson to Tonopah. As many of you know if you’ve followed along on our travel blog in the past, I seldom if ever drive more than that distance per day. If you try and pack in more miles, you necessarily miss a huge variety of interesting sites to explore. In addition, if you like to shoot as many photos as possible on your trip, you just can’t drive hundreds of miles AND pull over to grab interesting shots.

When we arrived in Tonopah our chosen RV camp turned out to be a little rustic, but since it was situated about mid-way between Carson City and the second day’s destination of Pahrump in southern Nevada, we decided that roughing it was just fine.

As fate would have it, we met the most interesting fellow traveler who pulled in about a half hour after we arrived and parked right beside us. This was great for two reasons, the guy – named Jamie – was driving one of those 10-wheel monsters that was so huge it blocked the afternoon sun that had been baking us on that western side. The second reason was that Jamie was so damn interesting to talk to that we sat with him and had cocktails for a good hour while we listened to his life story and related a bit of our own.

Jamie, as he told us, was Iranian and had been unfortunately given up for adoption when he was seven days old. His adoptive parents brought him to America where he grew up, as he put it, a good Catholic boy.

Being rather slender and very small in stature, Jamie decided at a very early age to become a racehorse jockey, which he did for a decade, making quite a name for himself and no small amount of money. 

In the end, Jamie got out of racing and went to college to become an electrical engineer. This specialty segued into a career as an aviation electrical specialist which he pursues to this day, Now he receives a paycheck both from the Boeing Company and the Air Bus Company.

But the most interesting thing Jamie revealed to us was that he has no permanent home. He drives his megalithic "home on wheels" from Montana to Arizona and back again as the weather dictates while maintaining his address of record in the state of Florida. Amazing!

After getting pretty light-headed over Jamie’s “special” straight vodka cocktails, we traded business cards and parted company, promising to keep in touch in the future. It turned out to be just an amazing encounter on the road of life.

This morning we rolled out of Tonopah after shaking hands with Jamie one more time, topping up the gas tank at about $6.00 a gallon, and setting our GPS (Concetta's cell phone) for Pahrump 146 miles away.

We soon rolled into Goldfield, just a wonderful place to drag out the camera and do some blog photo shooting. That done, we continued south only to almost immediately run into an extensive bit of road widening and paving with traffic only proceeding alternatingly one direction at a time.

But we weathered through well enough, especially since we were listening to a book on DVD of the life of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok whose name was actually “Jim.”

Turns out we didn’t know even a tiny percentage of Wild Bill’s life and his real story is vastly more interesting than what we learn in school. One part that especially enthralled us was when Hickok worked as a spy during the Civil War. He even risked passing himself off as a Confederate officer and got away with it.

Even with the many stops for construction today we still had time to have a tree-shaded lunch in Beatty, Nevada, a couple of sessions of rock-hounding, and multiple opportunities to shoot photos. Concetta and I just love accumulating interesting geology along the way and most often haul home at least a few score pounds of samples for our rock garden. If you’ve ever seen Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the movie “The Long, Long Trailer,” you know what I mean.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ve got to go spruce up for our Anniversary dinner tonight. The restaurant is strictly white-tablecloth and separate silverware for everything on the menu. Hopefully it turns out well and I’ll fill you in tomorrow. Ciao and happy travels of your own!