2020 September US 50 Loneliest road in America

  After evacuating California, we pick up US50 outside of Reno, NV. This is touted as “the loneliest road in America”. Yes, it is a very lonely road and we cautious of our fuel for the towns were few and far apart.

We did not clear the smoke until Austin, NV which is halfway down Hwy50 “the loneliest road in America”. What a view of the stars we have, so nice to be free of the smoke at last! We are so happy to be on the road, clear skies and beautiful scenery again. I kept playing with my weather app and found how to see where the smoke is. Excellent, the area around the 4 corners National Parks is free from smoke and here we come! Timing is perfect, Friday when Tanya is free from work, so we do not worry about cell coverage for a few days as we travel across the high desert.

Sometimes you do not know of attractions to see until you are upon them. We discover, Great Basin National Park along US50. This was at one of the highest mountains along US50, I was very confused of why it is called Great Basin if it is a mountain? So, I asked the park rangers and found that the entire central western area covering most of Nevada, Utah was a basin where water does not flow to the sea. Yet there are not many lakes to contain the water. As known of Great Salt Lake, the rest of the Great Basin is similar in that some areas develop lakes during rainy season and dry up as salt flats during the remainder of the year. The Great Basin National Park was designated because there was an attraction called Lehman Caves in this mountain also a Rock Glacier (ice under a slab of rock) and the state of Nevada wanted a National Park so this became the location for the Great Basin National Park.

Nearby is an archeology site for a village of the Fremont Indians who preceded the Anazi Indians. Not a lot evident to see but the walking guide covered a lot of information of each building and the land topography. Interesting that here where it is so arid now the Fremont Indians cultivated crops with irrigation and the Anazi Indians cultivated by rainfall.

Onward we reach I15 then I70 to pick up US24 to head into the Utah National Parks. Stopping in Richland, UT to stock up supplies and have tire concerns addressed for we plan to boondock for the next few weeks and do not know what stores would be available. While camping in Walmart may seem normal most of the time, we learned that for so long being in dispersed camping the noise difference kept us awake. This is not the first time we have experienced this but each time it is a shock to our sense the noise levels in cities. We definitely have a preference and know that it is a high consideration for us of where to live.