Sleeping all alone in the desert and waking up to the sunrise was amazing. It was so quiet – the only things we heard in the night were thunder in the distance and some wind. I did hear a few critters scamper around outside in the early morning, but it was really awesome to wake up and come outside the RV to drink our morning coffee watching the sun come up completely alone. We were up early and waiting for the tour guide to come back and take us down to the canyon when a truck rolled in to clean the port-o-lets that were there in the parking lot. As he was leaving he drove over to hubby and started talking about anything and everything. We have a joke in our family that he will start up a conversation with anyone anywhere, so it was hilarious when the truck left, our son said, “Really Dad? The port-o-potty guy?” and hubby’s response was “I didn’t start it, he did!”
Shortly after that, the tour guide arrived with two other visitors and we made our way down to the canyon. In the morning light, it was spectacular. The rest of the tour walked with the guide and I stayed behind them and took shots with my more advanced equipment (ie not my cell phone). I’ll let you just look at the shots and say this: You. Must. Go. Here. You must also use the tour company we used. They were so laid back and relaxed – they didn’t rush us at all. They didn’t even charge me for the night tour since I didn’t get any shots with stars because it was so cloudy. I mean, they even let us stay on their land for free. After our tour completed, we reluctantly said our goodbyes to the family. They made us promise to come back and stay again. They are doing some improvements to the area where we camped and hope to get permission to build a building there with restrooms and such soon. I said when we come back it will be all different and we won’t be able to camp there. Jackie said they’d always have one spot saved for us! We gave her and her mother a small jar of Ohio honey. I said we loved so much that they shared their home with us, that we wanted to share ours with them.
We packed up the RV and made our way down the bumpy dirt road to the main highway. On our way out Sergio was coming in with a truckload of other visitors. He waved his arm out the window with a huge goodbye. We will miss this place.
We left Antelope Canyon about 10:30 am and a couple hours down the road, we stopped at Pine Springs National Monument. We spent way longer there than we planned, but it was so interesting. There was an original fort there, built in 1870. The spring there created a literal oasis in the desert. It was significant to several native peoples for centuries before cattle ranchers and Mormon settlers found the spring and built the fort around it. The fort structure was all original – floors, windows, even the wavy glass in the individual window panes. There was an awesome cooking stove that was original, but all of the other original furniture had been removed. We took a tour of the fort and grounds before we got back on the road. (Ask me sometime to tell you the historic story about the 8-year-old little boy at the fort).
The rest of the day was one of dread for all of us. We knew we had a long, boring day ahead driving into and through a huge portion of desolate, rural Nevada. I will include some pictures here, but there’s not much to say, other than even though it was horrible, I’m glad we experienced such desolation. We drove hundreds of miles without seeing evidence of any other human beings – no buildings, cars, or anything else man-made. We saw 1 lizard running across the road, lots of cattle, and lots of cacti. The desert was brutal. We were actually both pretty scared at one point. We were on a strange road called "Extra Terrestrial Highway" and the only "town" we came to was the town of Rachel - which looked to be 4 or 5 houses. Once it hit 100-degrees, it seemed like it just kept climbing and would never stop. It reached a high of 117-degrees. We had to be really careful about fueling up whenever we had the chance. Hubby opened the door at one point and stepped out into the heat and said, “Oh my god, you should feel this.” (I said I’d pass). The AC in the RV was on max and we were still burning up. I was worried about breaking down. At one stretch, we drove 3 hours and only saw 3 other cars on the road. Think about that – hundreds of miles and no one else. We drove along the edge of Nellis Air Force Base – and we came to the conclusion that they must do some pretty secretive stuff there, because there’s no gates, no signs, no evidence of the base being there at all except for the note on the map and one posted sign for a dirt road turn off to a gate that we couldn’t see from the road. As the sun began to set, the temp hit 99 and no kidding – it actually felt cool outside. Like I said, I’m glad we experienced this once, but I’d never want to do it again. (By the way, the kids were oblivious to all of this – they sat in the back watching movies, playing games, and working on their summer assignments for school.)
By 8:00 pm the temp was in the low 90’s and falling, and we came to the town of Tonopah, Nevada. It started out pretty sketchy looking from the east side, but once we got into the town-proper, it was pretty cute. There were lots of old buildings and it reminded me of an old west type of town that modernized in some ways, but stayed a stage-coach town in other ways. We stopped for the night at Tonopah RV (see my campground review of this place in our Campground Reviews section). It wasn’t great, but we got a good night’s sleep and okay wifi. Since it was so late, we had a pizza delivered from a local place – expensive, but good. We had full hookups – which we often don’t – so we all took longer than usual showers, and I even got to dry my hair before bed! We were all pretty tired, so we went to bed early. We have another long day of driving tomorrow so that we can reach Lassen Volcanic National Park before the Visitor Center closes. We’ll be heading north, so hopefully the temperatures and the landscape will be a bit more forgiving!
By the way, as it turns out, once we arrived in Tonopah and were connected to wifi, we were able to look up Extra-Terrestrial Highway. Apparently, Nellis AFB is the infamous "Area 51." I always thought Area 51 was in Rosewell, New Mexico, but apparently not. According to my internet research (which may or may not be accurate, so . . .), Nellis AFB was a secret base until 2013 when it was approved to be added to commercial maps. Back in the 1930's or 1940's there had been a UFO sighting and crash in the area. Today's explanation is that it was a Soviet aircraft that crashed, and we kept it a secret so that we could study the Soviet technology and so on. But once we read all this, our trip along that road earlier today made much more sense. Rachel, Nevada is a well-known tourist stop along the road for alien T-shirts and such. Legend has it that the US Airforce reverse-engineers UFO technology there on that base. Interesting and kinda cool, but not enough to ever make me want to go back there! There's some pretty creepy and funny videos on YouTube about Area 51 if you are ever interested. Get a quick glance of our experience on the highway below:
