April 20th, 2024 - Travel to Tonopah, Nevada

(Note: Picture intensive blog!)

We left our little spot in Rachel (Smitty even stopped by to say goodbye - just love these small towns) and headed west/northwest.  We are still on the Extraterrestrial Highway.  We did not see any aliens but the views - OH MY!

We did quite a few summits:

And down the other side:

This valley was 33 miles long - amazing!  The altitude here is about 5200 feet.

Cows - free range:

A dry lake in the distance:

And a farm - check out that view:

The remoteness is mind boggling to me.  This farm is about 100 miles in either direction to a grocery store.  WOW!

And a lake with water!

There was a lot of water in this area and the cattle were loving it.

Another farm:

Interesting colors:

The town of Warm Springs that did not make it.

The white is coming from one of the mines.

Because of the many geological events in this area of Nevada, there are many gems and minerals to be found.  There are also many mines here - most are abandoned.  The story I read was that many of these gems and minerals were found when the miners were on the hunt for silver and gold.  In those days, silver and gold were king - the other stuff was not.

In doing some of my research, those geological events created many springs and hot springs (but I could not find the locations of them - YET!)

Up to another summit:

(Sorry for the smudges - bugs on the windshield.)

And down into the valley below:

OMG - A mailbox!

Beautiful horse:

Another farm:

Another summit:

Coming over each of these summits and seeing the valleys below is just breathtaking.  It is always a surprise.

WOW!

This is another entrance into the Nevada Testing Site:

Our last summit for today was over 6000 feet and that is where Tonopah is located:

We made our way to Tonopah RV Park and set up.  We had some lunch and explored some of the town (as well as a much needed stop at the grocery store).

Tonopah is an old western town that was really started as a mining camp in 1900.  It quickly became known as the Queen of the Silver Camps. At one time there were over 100 mines just in this area.  When the mining stopped, the Tonopah district produced 175 million ounces of silver and 1.86 million ounces of gold from 8.8 million tons of rock.  (In today's prices, it was a few billion dollars - WOW!

There is so much to see and do here so tomorrow we are going to play tourist so stay tuned and enjoy today.

Miles Traveled: 111 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Nevada: SR-375; US-6  (Yes, this is the same US-6 that crosses the country); US-95