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Albuquerque New Mexico 2015

Drive down from Oregon - drive to Flagstaff part 3

Our Crazy Post Retirement Wanderings Hiking and Triking


Drive to Flagstaff - part 3

The first day we left Port Orford (morning of October 6th) driving down on US highway 101 down the Oregon coast, driving down to Crescent City, California. We Took US highway 199 over to California highway 96 and on to Interstate 5. Just past Mount Shasta on I-5, we took California highway 89 east through Lassen National forest and Park. We continued on California highway 44 through the Lassen National Forest. It was interesting looking out the window at piles of volcanic rock sporadically from time to time with no apparent source amongst the forest and countryside. Finally, after driving along through the national forest, we ended up in Susanville, California where we had reserved a room at a motel there.

We got an early start the next morning about 9:30AM, and headed down toward Reno Nevada. I had visited Reno, about 40 years earlier, and was not expecting much of a town, but I was surprised about what a large amount of growth that Reno had experienced in those 40 years. Apparently it's a pretty good sized city now.

We continued from Reno, on down to Carson City, and then over to US highway 95 through Tonopah, near Bonnie Claire, Nevada, and then on south to Beatty, Nevada. Second night we stayed overnight in Beatty, Nevada, which is on highway US95. Interestingly, after we drove a few miles past Bonnie Claire, Nevada, we found ourselves sitting at the end of a 3 mile long line of cars that were sitting and waiting for an accident to be cleared. We had heard that there was a collision of a motorcycle and more than one car. After we waited for the traffic snarl to clear up for an hour, we heard that one could drive through death valley national monument and get to Beatty in about an hour. So we decided to go for the detour. Wished we could have done it in daylight, but it didn't work out that way. It was late dusk when we started the detour, so it was mostly driven in dark We looked up the news reports and records, but never saw a report on October 7th on US highway 95 about 20 miles north of Beatty, Nevada. So it's a mystery. There were helecopters and everything. Go figure. Turns out we made the right decision, because we ran into somebody at the motel that was just arriving there 90 minutes after we arrived, driving about an hour out of the way.

The next morning we met an interesting local fellow who had a Ford Ranchero, who had spent about 30 years making into the "car Ford should have made in the first place". He seemed like a dedicated fellow who liked his car, but wanted it to be the best it could be. He also seemed like he was familiar with considerations relating to mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, and machining considerations related to bearing tolerences. All in all it was a good conversation.

We drove on to sin city, and bought gasoline there and had lunch along the main interstate (I-515) that connects to US highway 93 that goes on and hooks up with I-40 east, ending up in Flagstaff later that afternoon.

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