Adventures in Idaho
July 2000
Page 6

This was the day for us to start our trip home. We would be stopping for the weekend in Boomtown, Nevada. With no schedule to meet, Kay and I took our time getting up and around. We left the campground at 9:30 to head for Oregon. Before leaving town we had to make a stop at the store to restock our refrigerator. With that accomplished, we were on the road with our next stop to be Winnemucca, Nevada.

It didn’t take very long to find our way through the green fields of the Treasure Valley to the desert of eastern Oregon. There was the familiar hairpin turn in the highway at Jordan Valley and the truck scales at Burns Junction. Again the scales were closed and again I decided to stop and weigh our motorhome once more. I found that our rig was 200 pounds lighter than when we were on our way to Boise. Just as we pulled off the scales a big rig was coming in from the south to get weighed.

As we drove along we saw familiar rock formations we’ve seen on previous trips this way. It was getting to be lunchtime, so I looked for a place to pull off the road. It took a while, but I finally found a place wide enough that I could get a comfortable distance from the highway traffic.


We stopped here for lunch

Once parked, I got out to stretch my legs and to look over the scenery. It was very much an arid environment, but somehow an attractive scene. A road sign, in front of our motorhome, said we were parked at the summit of Blue Mountain Pass at an altitude of 5293 feet. The first thought that entered my mind was that we were a few feet higher than Denver, Colorado. We were just over a mile high. I took a few photos of the area before we ate lunch. It was a nice, restful break.


Our parking place was just over a mile above sea level


Our lunchtime view of the Oregon desert around us

Back on the road we saw scenery that was becoming familiar as this was our third trip along this way. I knew when I saw the sand dunes next to the highway that we were getting close to Winnemucca.


Sand dunes next to Highway 95 north of Winnemucca

There is a small community north of Winnemucca that has a street, with a familiar name, that comes to a "T" intersection with Highway 95. The street is Lambert Drive. The street goes down a gentle slope into a community of mobile homes and manufactured housing. At this point it took us only a few minutes until we were crossing the Interstate Highway and heading into downtown Winnemucca.


Here we are back in Winnemucca about to turn right to Boomtown

We stopped at the west side of town at the Flying J Travel Station to fill the fuel tank for our final leg of our trip for today. The plan was to get to Boomtown by early evening. The drive on this last leg was routine and uneventful, so we were able to get to our destination by about 5:30 in the evening. It helped us to have left Idaho in the morning where it was Mountain Time. We gained an hour as we crossed into the Pacific Time zone.

When we arrived at the Boomtown RV parking area, we found that several of our friends from the Venture Outers RV club already had their motorhomes set up. I pulled into a position that would not require the leveling of our motorhome. When we got out to say "Hi" to everybody, we were told we had arrived at a good time. They were getting ready to go to one of the restaurants for dinner. This was a very nice way to end our vacation trip and begin our RV club outing.

As usual, this had been another RV Fun Trip.


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