Wednesday, August 22, 2012, Tonopah, NV

Wednesday, August 22, 2012, Tonopah, NV

It rained most of the night and started again about 8 AM. It was raining heavily most of the morning. We both did things on the internet. We decided to go to Belmont in spite of the rain. The rain stopped after we left Tonopah on US-6. A little east of Tonopah we turned NE on SR-376 and then north on SR-82 to Belmont. It had obviously rained a lot and there were a couple of places with water crossing the road. We saw two antelope crossing the road. They looked fat and healthy.

Belmont is a ghost town, at least a ghost of its former self. An interesting place. It was the first County Seat of Nye County and the Court house is still there along with the remains of some old mills and buildings. There is a bed and breakfast and a church that has services twice a month. After driving around and taking pictures we headed back to Tonopah.

We stopped to do five caches on the way back to Tonopah. I was going to do some caches near the RV Park but got distracted by the fact that two of the storage bay doors won't open. I tried the key and auto lock fob, no luck. More to add to the list. I drained the sewer tank and tried the city water supply and it all seemed to work fine. Tomorrow on the way to Reno I plan to leave the satellite on In Motion and see if anything breaks loose. We can come back to Tonopah anytime to do some of the caches here and along the ET Highway.

The old mill site

Two double bunk jail cells

Belmont B&B

The Chuch at Belmont

The first Nye County Courthouse

The It Ain't New York City cache at the turn off to Manhattan

A warning when turning onto SR-82

Prominent citizens of Belmont

For supper we had a salad with tuna fish. The best meal ever.
With no TV we spent some time on the computers with the Sirius Radio playing Old Radio Classic's.
Before dark tonight there was a lot of blue sky.
We will probably go to bed earlier tonight and get a start in the morning that will get us in Reno early in the afternoon.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012, Tonopah, NV

Tuesday, August 21, 2012, Tonopah, NV

 

 
Tuesday, August 21, 2012, Tonopah, NV
We slept in until 9:20. I flushed the electric toilet in our bathroom and nothing happened. The water was off. I checked outside and the water was off at the faucet but also running out the overflow at the fill opening on the side of the coach. I checked the bypass valve and it seemed to be in the correct place. But if the city water is on it overflows the tank instead of bypassing the tank and feeding the inside faucets. With that and the DirecTV problem from yesterday, I am starting a list of repairs needed. Last night a rain storm started at about 11 PM, because it was blowing in I had to shut the windows. It became stuffy right away and I turned on the air conditioner. It was raining too hard to go out and extend the awnings over the windows. This morning I decided to extend the awnings over the side windows so rain wouldn't come in. The awning above the window by my computer was no problem. When I pulled the awning over the driver's side windows, the strap came loose. Something else to add to the list.
I sat down at the computer and started sending thank you's to all the people that sent expressions of condolence about the death of my mother. I think I got them all, some of the e-mails had been sent to Gerri's e-mail and she forwarded those to me. I also thanked all those on Facebook who had made comments on Gerri's post about my mother's passing. There were a lot of nice comments from people she had met while we were traveling.

At about 1:00 I was ready to go out geocaching. One of the reasons we are staying in Tonopah three nights is for me to do the oldest active cache in Nevada and a few caches in the series along the Extraterrestrial Highway. The ET caches are a series of caches along Nevada SR-375 and other roads in the area of the Tonopah Test Range and Area 51. There are over 1800 caches in the series. I set my GPSR on the Oldest cache, XKD-380, as the bird flies it is 38 miles from where we are parked. As the Jeep drives it is further, North on US-6 from Tonopah 38 miles to the Fish Lake turn off, 18 miles of dirt road to a Forest Service road, 4 miles to parking and a 450' walk to the cache. Of course half way through the walk I came across a road that would have meant a shorter walk. The last 240 feet was up a hill and over to the edge of a cliff. A few years ago this would have been easy rock hopping but now I have to practically crawl over the boulders to keep my balance. I located the cache and signed the log book, I was the 705^th finder. This cache was placed 12/26/2000, I have only done two older caches. I took some pictures with my phone showing the surrounding area and started back to the Jeep.  

Looking east over the rocks that hide the cache.

I have lived in Las Vegas for 48 years, but this area exemplifies what I love about Nevada.  The long valleys, the rugged mountains and the sparse population.

Looking north from the cache site

After logging the cache I decided to do 12 of the ET series caches while returning to Tonopah. The first one was only 140' feet from the Jeep. The others were placed one every 1/10 of a mile apart. Once back on US-6 I did 8 more caches along the road back to Tonopah. The last cache I did was just west of the RV Park.

We finished up the last of the taco meat leftovers, the tacos were better every night. After logging my caches I checked my e-mail and answered some more messages of condolence.
Gerri had me massage her left ankle and the area around the scar from her operation before she went to bed. It had quit raining by 11:30. If tonight is like last night, it will rain off and on until morning.
I did start writing a biography/eulogy for my Mother. I may post it here later.
I was in bed by midnight.

Monday August 20, 2012, Tonopah, NV

Monday August 20, 2012, Tonopah, NV
Our plan for today was to leave Las Vegas by 10 AM and drive as far as Tonopah. We planned to stay three nights at the Tonopah Station and then drive to Reno on Thursday.

Glenna on a cruise 2007

As my regular readers know, up until this year my mother, Glenna Wisnewski, has traveled with us most of the time. She hasn't been to Mexico since falling and breaking her hip there. She also didn't go with us on our last cruise. In April we had to place her in a memory care facility. She seemed to be doing pretty well there until a few weeks ago when she fell and was hospitalized. Nothing broken but on returning to the home she ate very little and eventually stopped eating altogether. Two weeks ago she was placed under hospice care. She continued to refuse to eat and would drink very little. Saturday the hospice put her in a hospital bed and on oxygen to try to ease her breathing. Yesterday I visited her with Gerri and her mother and our Minister from Church. She was having a hard time breathing and was asleep most of the time. She did seem to recognize us and would alternately hold my hand, hug me and sleep. I got a call that she passed away at 2:30 this morning.
We had already made arrangement with Palm Mortuary for cremation. We didn't plan on a memorial service or funeral here in Las Vegas. She will be interred with her husband of 46 years at the Riverside National Cemetery. We will arrange whatever graveside memorial that seems appropriate at that time
After a flurry of phone calls to make sure we really had all the bases covered, we left Las Vegas at 3:10 PM. We took Rainbow north to US95 to avoid a storm that seemed to be hovering over the route through Pahrump on SR-160. The way we went also eliminates a long hill out of the Las Vegas bowl and allows for more travel on four lane divided highway. It was windy most of the way with a lot of storm activity around the mountains on both sides of the road. In Indian Springs and several other places the road was wet where the storms had crossed. We got only a few sprinkles along the way and in spite of the wind we made good time, only having to slow below sixty a couple of times.

A Rainbow near Goldfield, NV

Just north of Beatty we got stuck in a construction zone with one way traffic, we had to wait about a half an hour. They are resurfacing the road, too bad they aren't making it four lanes. We got to Goldfield at about 6:30. There was beautiful rainbow in the east. Isn't a rainbow a reminder that God keeps his promises?
We got to the Tonopah Station Ramada Inn at 7:10 PM and found a pull through site, number 7. Our timing was good because while I was unhooking the Jeep two more units showed up taking the last unoccupied sites.

Sunset in Tonopah, NV

I got all hooked up, water, electric and sewer since we plan to stay three nights. The clouds we still hanging around in the distance, making for an awesome sunset. After registering and taking pictures of the sunset we had tacos for supper. The meat was leftovers that I froze a couple of weeks ago while Gerri was recuperating from her fall. In turn that meal was made from taco meat we had frozen after Chris and Cassie's going away party in March. Waste not, want not and leftovers get better each time they are served. BTW, we have more than enough left over for more than another meal.
I tried to return some of the condolence calls I got while driving, not too much luck. I will try again tomorrow to make the calls back and answer e-mails that came in today along with all the condolences on Facebook.
At about 10:30 I had to close the windows up because of heavy rain blowing in. It immediately got stuffy, so I had to turn on an air conditioner.
E-chores tonight, but I forgot the thump drive with my pack ups of the planned routes and other programs I use both at home and while traveling. No TV. For some reason the satellite wasn't locking on. I called DirecTV but we couldn't get it going. I may address it tomorrow or wait until we get to the RV Park in Reno.
It was a long day and after a shower I went to bed about midnight. Depending on the noise factor, I will sleep in tomorrow.

Sunday August 12, 2012, Las Vegas, NV

Sunday August 12, 2012, Las Vegas, NV

We were up and ready to leave Flagstaff by 9:15. Not much to comment about on the trip, I slept until Gerri turned off I-40 in Kingman. It must have been a smooth trip. I was awake most of the rest of the way, but if you have driven from Kingman to Las Vegas a few times there isn't much that is remarkable.

We made the return trip a little quicker than the trip to Flagstaff. No rain. We were home about 1:30. Todd and his family had left about noon. They stopped by the home to visit Glenna but had left before I got there.

Hopefully next week we will begin our 2012 RV trek. We plan to go to Reno via the ET Hwy and after visiting the G-People then head for the mountains of southern Colorado, Fun Valley near South Fork. We plan to stay there until they close in mid-September and then head to Columbus, MS. Gerri's High School class is having a 65^th birthday party (Class of '65). After that we will probably spend most of October in Texas visiting friends and relatives.

Saturday August 11, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

Saturday August 11, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

I was up earlier this morning, Gerri had left the drapes open so the light woke me up. It didn't bother Gerri, she slept later.

Today we were having Denise and Kyoko coming for lunch. They live in Sedona, Denise is Gerri's 1^st cousin. Neva was bustling around the kitchen by 7:30 and never stopped until we sat down at the table. Stopped? OK, she just slowed down a little when it came time to eat We had pot roast, mashed potatoes and stir fried vegetables. The roast was one that we had bought through John's contacts at a meat company in Las Vegas. Kyoko brought a strawberry cake. A great meal with good company. We wound down our visit with the cake and coffee. By the time we got to picture taking and saying goodbyes it was sprinkling rain with quite a bit of thunder to be heard in the distance. After company left it rained hard for a short time. I went out caching at about 3:00. I found four and called it a day.

I did go by Sam's Club and gassed up the car for the trip home tomorrow.

Back at the timeshare we watched the news and some Olympic events before eating. We had a great meal and cleaned up the left overs from the last two days' suppers.

Computer time and watching the Olympic events rounded out the evening. Neva did get some of her things packed up for the trip home.
Today is our oldest son's 48th birhtday.

Friday August 10, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

Friday August 10, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

We slept in late this morning.

Starting at 10:00 I was on the phone for about 45 minutes with Hospice workers about services needed and available for my mother.

The weather here in Flagstaff was mostly mid 80's today with occasional clouds later in the afternoon. I hoped to get out geocaching but messed up my pocket query and don't have a cable to load caches one by one into the GPSR. My second pocket query hadn't come in by 3:00PM, so I may not get out hunting today.

I took Gerri's phone and went caching. I found one near the timeshares, ` about ½ mile walk. I tried a couple of others but drove around and around without finding a way to get to them.

Went back to the timeshare. We had supper at about 7:00. Salad and then salmon cakes with Lima beans and corn. For desert we had fresh fruit and cookies.

Some computer time and watching the Olympic events rounded out the evening.

Thursday August 9, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

Thursday August 9, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ

We were up early, for us, this morning. A lot to do and places to go for both of us. Both Gerri and I have luncheons today. Gerri with some ladies she worked with and me with the Sheriff's Protective Association board of directors. I still serve the board as retiree liaison.

Before going to my meeting I went to visit my mother. It's hard to tell if she knows me or not. She doesn't respond to questions and only asks, “where am I supposed to go” or “what am I supposed to do.

Yesterday at her doctors suggestion we signed her up for Hospice care. They are supposed to finish evaluating her today. Beside being unresponsive she hasn't been eating more that a few bites or a glass of milk a day. The Hospice representative says after the evaluation they will stat a plan to treat her and at least try to keep her comfortable without moving her to a different care facility.

Gerri got home from her luncheon about a half hour before me, I got home about 1:30. We got everything in the car for a short trip to Flagstaff, AZ and were on the road after fueling up Gerri's car at about 2:50. We will be staying with Gerri's mother at her Wyndham timeshare. I had some reluctance to leave town but realistically there is nothing I can do that isn't being done.

Earlier this morning I spoke to Jeannette and they plan to come to visit my mom this weekend. I gave them the codes to get in the house and instructions on the air conditioning. I also warned them that Glenna may not recognize them and not to be shocked at her weight loss,

Thee o'clock seems to be a good time to leave Las Vegas. We had light traffic on I-215 and US-93 to Kingman, AZ. After we crossed the bridge and were a short way into Arizona we could see dark clouds over the River Mountains and the White Mountains as we approached Kingman but they were pretty far off to the north. After we got on I-40 and past Kingman the black clouds were ahead of us and we could see occasional lightning. When we got into the mountains east of Kingman it started raining and several times I was down to 40 mph or slower because of the visibility. Some of the lightning strikes weren't far away. Several times we heard the thunder before the flash of light had died away. By the time we got to Williams we were past the storm and it was clear the rest of the way to Flagstaff, We arrived at the timeshare at about 7:30. The trip of 250 miles took just over five hours. Not bad considering the slow downs at the heavy storm times. The light traffic and 75 mph Arizona speed limit made the driving time shorter.

After unpacking and relaxing for a while, Neva served supper. Black eyed peas with cornbread and a pineapple cottage cheese salad. One of our favorite meals.

In Flagstaff this time of year it can be mid 80's during the day and 50'ish at night. We caught up on e-mail and watched a few Olympic events before bedtime. I opened the bedroom window and it was cool enough to close it at about 4:30AM.

Much to my chagrin, I realized that Saturday is Todd's birthday. He will be in Las Vegas and we will be in Flagstaff..