WinnieYucca (sic) east

August 17, 2015

My paternal human took me outside and I found a grasshopper!  I got to play with it, then I lost it, then I found it, then I ATE it!  It was so much fun!  Then my human brought me inside.  I was just getting started!

Our morning walk took us down the main street of WinneYucca (sic).   Spouse got sidetracked, so I marched on without him along the street.  It is industrial, nothing to look at.  I saw a sign pointing to the 'Bloody Shins Trailhead'.  Ok, I will go that way.  I weaved through a residential area, which is always a bit interesting.  I am sure the trailhead is miles away, and I wonder how it earned its name!  I then retraced my steps.  Yawn...

We readied Hannah for departure.  Back on I80 east towards Elko.  It wasn't quite as boring as the day before.  There were a few cattle ranches and a river, and even a bit of green.  Spouse was hoping to make it all the way to Elko on the fuel he had.  The truck range read 131 miles, and the road sign read 114 miles.  Really?  Can't you fuel up before then?  Since we have 5 gallons of fuel in a fuel can, he was confident... until we went up a really big hill....  He fueled up about 80 miles later in Battle Mountain.  And much to his delight, it is the cheapest fuel price he has seen so far.  Much to my delight, I didn't have to sweat running out of gas on the highway.   A fly had hitchhiked from Winnieyucca (even the flies want out).  I let him out in Battle Mountain to find a new home.

The scenery was still a bit boring.  I kept nodding off, my head dropping, pulling muscles in my neck, then I would jerk up.  After a while of torturing myself, I leaned the seat back.  I was wide awake.  Go figure!

From Elko, we got off the main highway, and headed north on hwy 225.  Don't know what is up this way but it goes north, so why not.  It can't be any more boring that I80 at this point.  Well, it was boring starting off; that Nevada brown thing.  Eventually, we saw some cattle ranches and patches of green.  It was rather striking that there were lots of yellow wildflowers right along the side of the road, but 10 feet away, there were none.  The topography was high desert  scrub with old gnarly sage.  After a while, the flowers spread across the plain.

The Wild Horse Reservoir came into view.  Looked extremely low in water.  From that came a little creek.   We followed the creek to the Wild Horse Crossing campground and decided to stay for the night.  There were no amenities:  no water, sewer, electricity.  But we were able to back into a space with nice shade.  We opened all of Hannah's windows and the breeze made it quite comfortable inside, which was good as we had no air conditioning!  It is nice being in a campground like this as opposed to an RV park.  You have space and privacy and quiet.  You can light a fire.  On the other hand, you must be judicious in your use of water, and turn you mind off to the internet.  And in this case, forget about phone service.

Rudy loved the smells and sounds.  We took him all over on his leash.