Saturday Drive
Jun. 28th, 2020 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeLisa and I wanted to get out of the house and so we went for a drive that took us over a road we've never traveled but that we've often seen when driving to Reno. We had a bit of a hiccup when we topped off the Astro's fuel when the gas cap broke, but fortunately it sealed sufficiently for me to go over to O'Reilly Auto Parts, where they had a replacement part (made in the USA even). Then we were off.
Here was our route. We were going to Lake Tahoe via Mount Rose. The mountain is very visible from Reno. I would never want to go here in the winter because the road is treacherous, but in the summer it's just curvy.
We were going for the drive, not to actually get anywhere, so I did a lot of pulling over to get out of the way of people who wanted to drive faster than me (mostly everyone), but there were limited places where we could safely pull off and get out of the van. One of them was the parking lot at the Mount Rose ski area itself. The big 8260 is the altitude in feet at the base of the ski area (2,518 m). The tubular thing at left is something I'd never seen before: a fully-enclosed escalator-like ski lift that takes people to the top of the "bunny hill" and is useful for children and other beginning skiers.
Even on this day, with temperatures near 30°C, there were still isolated patches of remaining snow on the mountain.
We weren't the only people who had stopped to have a look, but there were few enough that social distancing wasn't a problem.
We continued up and over the summit, which according to Wikipedia peaks at 8,911 feet (2,716 m). We did not make any other full stops to get out, because the parking areas for the various recreation areas and campgrounds were packed and full of people, none of whom were wearing masks or practicing any form of social separation that we could determine. But the air was relatively cool compared to the stifling high 30s in Fernley, and we continued on to Incline Village, where we turned onto NV-28 along the north shore of Lake Tahoe. There was one really nice vista point coming down the mountain, but it was on the opposite side of the highway and I didn't feel that safe about turning into it due to people driving on this curvy mountain road as if they though they were doing a road race.
Not surprisingly, there was a lot of traffic, and every possible legal parking space (and quite a few illegal ones) was filled. Even pulling out to let faster traffic go by was difficult. This pullout is a bus stop near Sand Harbor Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park. Lisa kept an eye peeled for buses while I quickly snapped this photo and pulled back into the road.
On that drive, we passed the site of the Ponderosa Ranch theme park that briefly was used as a filming location for the long-running television show Bonanza. During the years my father was stationed in Bishop with the US Forest Service, we would drive by here when traveling between Bishop and Sutter (where my grandparents lived). I never got to visit it, although I did want to do so. The park closed in 2004, so it was gone by the time we moved to Nevada.
We enjoyed the views along the drive, but even if we had been able to find a place to park, it was much too crowded for us to feel safe. We continued on to US-50, back down the mountain to Carson City, then east to Silver Springs and north back home.
Even though it was only about 1 PM when we got home, both Lisa and I were pretty tired, as we've not been getting good sleep. I ended up going to bed around 5:30, sleeping until 11:30 PM, then going back to bed around 1 AM and sleeping six more hours, after which I felt a bit better.
Here was our route. We were going to Lake Tahoe via Mount Rose. The mountain is very visible from Reno. I would never want to go here in the winter because the road is treacherous, but in the summer it's just curvy.
We were going for the drive, not to actually get anywhere, so I did a lot of pulling over to get out of the way of people who wanted to drive faster than me (mostly everyone), but there were limited places where we could safely pull off and get out of the van. One of them was the parking lot at the Mount Rose ski area itself. The big 8260 is the altitude in feet at the base of the ski area (2,518 m). The tubular thing at left is something I'd never seen before: a fully-enclosed escalator-like ski lift that takes people to the top of the "bunny hill" and is useful for children and other beginning skiers.
Even on this day, with temperatures near 30°C, there were still isolated patches of remaining snow on the mountain.
We weren't the only people who had stopped to have a look, but there were few enough that social distancing wasn't a problem.
We continued up and over the summit, which according to Wikipedia peaks at 8,911 feet (2,716 m). We did not make any other full stops to get out, because the parking areas for the various recreation areas and campgrounds were packed and full of people, none of whom were wearing masks or practicing any form of social separation that we could determine. But the air was relatively cool compared to the stifling high 30s in Fernley, and we continued on to Incline Village, where we turned onto NV-28 along the north shore of Lake Tahoe. There was one really nice vista point coming down the mountain, but it was on the opposite side of the highway and I didn't feel that safe about turning into it due to people driving on this curvy mountain road as if they though they were doing a road race.
Not surprisingly, there was a lot of traffic, and every possible legal parking space (and quite a few illegal ones) was filled. Even pulling out to let faster traffic go by was difficult. This pullout is a bus stop near Sand Harbor Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park. Lisa kept an eye peeled for buses while I quickly snapped this photo and pulled back into the road.
On that drive, we passed the site of the Ponderosa Ranch theme park that briefly was used as a filming location for the long-running television show Bonanza. During the years my father was stationed in Bishop with the US Forest Service, we would drive by here when traveling between Bishop and Sutter (where my grandparents lived). I never got to visit it, although I did want to do so. The park closed in 2004, so it was gone by the time we moved to Nevada.
We enjoyed the views along the drive, but even if we had been able to find a place to park, it was much too crowded for us to feel safe. We continued on to US-50, back down the mountain to Carson City, then east to Silver Springs and north back home.
Even though it was only about 1 PM when we got home, both Lisa and I were pretty tired, as we've not been getting good sleep. I ended up going to bed around 5:30, sleeping until 11:30 PM, then going back to bed around 1 AM and sleeping six more hours, after which I felt a bit better.
