ANOTHER GEM IN PLAIN SITE...

Once again, we enjoyed staying at Tonopah Station - a great old Hotel that I wrote about this past August.  This trip we decided to try something new so after breakfast we strolled thru the Central Nevada Museum in Tonopah NV.  WELL, if you’re ever in the area, don’t miss this Gem.  We’ve been visiting ghost towns of Nevada since 1971 and although we’ve been in Tonopah many times this newer indoor/outdoor museum was the best history/mining museum we’ve ever seen!!!  http://www.tonopahnevada.com/CentralNevadaMuseum.html  and it’s received Best Museum in Rural Nevada for three years in a row!    Coleen & Curt, you’d love this one if you haven’t already seen it.

And if that weren’t enough for 1 day, after stopping by historic Warm Springs NV http://harryhelmsblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/ghost-town-of-warm-springs-nevada.html   which was first settled around 1866 as a stopover for stagecoaches traveling from Utah to central California, Don stopped here and there to find 12 geocaches on the ET Extraterrestrial Highway.  You might think that’s a lot, but there are more than 520 “planted” along the way.  We of course had to stop for lunch at the A’ Le’ Inn - Rachel NV http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2896  before driving the final 110 miles to the North Shore Inn in Overton NV, part of the Moapa Valley near the northwest corner of of Lake Mead. AHHH!!!

Each piece of equipment was identified

with a descriptive plate.  Let's see how you do on the next few:

Item A

Item B

Item C

and a closer view of item C

Item D.  (And the answers are:
A= Double Decker Underground Mine Hoist
B= Double Drum Mine Hoist
C= Headstand
D= Fordson Badger Power Shovel

A visit to the "Ladies Room" showed the
precursor to the iPhone as of 1919

And the softer side of ladies wear.

Nancy's favorite Columbia Graphophone "horn"

This describes the object in the preceding photo

Largest photograph in the world (12' 3" x 23" taken in Tonopah NV with a
camera developed by miner F.W. Sheelor largest panorama camera

And the museum docent showed us the actual camera,
which the museum was fortunate enough to receive
last week as a gift of the owners living in Alaska!!!
How about that...

For you camera buffs, a few more views.

Ladies, what is it?????????

Yes, a permanent wave machine, and in about 1966
I received a permanent in NY City with one
of these devices.

On to Warm Springs at the west end of the ET Highway
(that's Extraterrestrial)

The "warm springs" are still flowing and moderately
warm to the touch.

Out buildings and shade areas on the property.

Views along the ET as Don geocached...

picking up 12 - that's not a lot as there are about
520 along this highway...

which offered nice scenery in every direction.

A good place for lunch

and free parking for your transportation device.

Here's looking at you Alien Style!!!

The view was great, all the way to the Moapa Valley

where we spent the night.

RERUNS AREN'T ALL BAD...

We were scheduled to leave for our AZ winter 2014/15 on Oct 4, but Thursday morning (Oct 2) I said to Don, I could be ready today - shall we head out tomorrow instead of the next day?

So Friday morning we got up early, drove over Donner Summit, thru Reno NV, Hawthorne NV and on the way to Tonopah NV  decided to revisit Candelaria an old Silver Mining area just off of Hwy 95S, 151 miles south of Fallon NV  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candelaria,_Nevada

Since we took this same route to AZ in August we decided this side trip was in order… we had been to Candelaria before, in about 1974, with Don’s folks, our son and daughter Eric & Kristine and nephew Wes Harvey.  One fond memory, the guys (except Don’s Dad), went into one of the abandoned mine shafts, with our Dalmatian, Bandit, who kept running ahead.  Don decided to turn off the flashlights and Bandit quickly returned and stuck like glue the rest of the way.  Enjoy the sights we “saw” this time, and remember, no mine shafts for this woman!!!

East of Reno NV along I-80

shows great diversity.

Fallon NV Naval Air Station - "The Worlds Best Naval Air
Training Base".

Following an 18 wheeler made us smile... Serta Mattress truck
with dancing sheep to count...

Torrential rains 10 days earlier "greened up" much of Nevada

and "termination dust" as they say in AK, dusted the high peaks.

Don strikes Silver - Geocache 24000 as we turned
of to revisit Candelaria which was the largest town
in the immediate area back in 1880's and the Northern
Belle's "cache" was over $7,000,000 mostly in silver
starting in 1864!!!

The creative Great Seal of NV tells the story - love it.

A few great building are still partially standing

and we are always amazed by the skilled craftsmen
who were also miners and shopkeepers.

We parked the Hyundai near the place we parked our
Chevy Pickup and Chinook Camper some 40+ years ago.

Mining tailings tell the story of the area.

I choose to walk back to the old buildings as
Don drove,

so I could capture foundations and creative rock walls,

not to mention miner's cabins

and other remains of by-gone establishments.

The back of the Wells Fargo Bldg showed us

the devastation that mother nature can cause even on a
well-constructed bank building.

Don holds up the front (check the width of those walls),
and the iron doors.

I enjoy a more relaxing activity - afternoon wine!!!

Desolation

and Demise remind us of brave soles.

Our navigation system guides us out of the area
and tells us everything we need to know

to find our way to Tonopah Station - a great place to
stay and eat, if you're in the area.  Tonopah NV is a historic
gold mining town.