Pahrump, Nevada

Thanks to a leaking valve on the toilet and a lack of t.v. reception in parts of central Nevada, we decided to postpone our departure from Carson City by two days and just make one over-night stop on our way to Pahrump.

We were once again fortunate to find a competent and professional mobile RV tech who promptly repaired the toilet leak and made an adjustment that allowed us to once again use the electric mode on the water heater.  For a number of days we’d been relying on each other to remember to turn the propane-fired heater on.  Neither of us are any too reliable in that regard but at least we weren’t treated to any cold showers. 

Given the extra time in Carson City, we decided to go up and over the mountains for a peek at Lake Tahoe.  The day was bright and clear and we got an early enough start so that we were able to go south to South Lake Tahoe and then north to Incline Village.  There wasn’t much traffic and both towns were fairly empty; tourist towns during “off season” have a ghost-town-in-training aspect about them! 

Looking northward we could see a column of smoke arising from the opposite shoreline.  We never did find out what the story was, a forest fire or a controlled burn, but it was very definitely not far from Incline Village.  There were several areas along the way which had experienced fires fairly recently.  New growth hadn’t started to make headway and charred stumps were still in evidence.  We also noticed a number of dried out trees which we assume is the handiwork of the beetles which are devastating so many of our forests.

From this photo you can see the twisting and turning that U.S. 50 does to get down the mountain-side and into Carson City.  We  noticed that the run-away truck ramp appeared to head straight for the roof of Costco and the RV park right beyond.  I’m glad I didn’t know that as we were having “lunch at Costco” on Saturday!

We departed Carson City on Wednesday and stopped for the night in Hawthorne, a desert town which is home to Hawthorne Army Depot not far from the southern tip of Walker Lake.  The lake might as well be a mirage because your eyes won’t quite believe this enormous puddle of bright blue in the middle of brown nothingness.  The mirage is enhanced by a total lack of any signs of life along the shoreline…no cabins, no piers, no boats.  Two campers seemed to be making use of the lakeside cabanas and that was about the extent.  Memory is faulty but perhaps that’s where we saw the land-locked cabin cruiser decked out as a diner and signs announcing lobster crossings.

Between the tiny towns of Mina and Coaldale (which can only be described as living ghost towns) lies the Columbus Salt Marsh.  As you can see from this photo, the white line of the marsh mimics the snow on the nearby mountains.  One of those mountains may or may not be Boundary Peak, the highest point in Nevada at 13,140 feet.   This was my first attempt to take photos while hanging out the window as we bumped on down the highway at 65 mph.

The run from Hawthorne to Pahrump is really long and really dull with Tonopah being the only town of any size along the way so it was with a huge sigh of relief that we arrived at Charleston Peak in Pahrump.  Charleston Peak is also the name of one of Nevada’s three wineries and shares location with the RV park.   The other two wineries are in the vicinity of Reno.  We believe Charleston Peak has finally been able to bottle some wines from estate-grown grapes.  They got off to a bad start when wild burros ate the first planting of vines and grapes had to be brought in from California to continue production.

Temperatures have been in the 90’s and we’re looking forward to the cool front that’s supposed to move in this week.  We’ve met up once again with our RVing friends, the Parrs, and have several adventures planned while we’re here.  Stayed tuned.