Long dirt roads, ghost ranch, turning west

We hate back tracking. We prefer to take a different path out than we took in if at all possible. So when given the choice between an hour’s drive – on asphalt – the way we just came, or two hour’s drive – on dirt – on a new-to-us road, we took the longer way. Just one of those perks of living in a van I guess – no place that I must be by the end of the day. Actually, we planned to end our weekend at yet another hot spring out in the middle of nowhere Nevada, so we were just meandering towards that heading, crossing passes in the most mountainous state in our country – Nevada – with my red vine at the ready.

Between two ranges running north to south lay a valley some 50-ish miles long. Full of ranches, most probably dating back well into the 1800’s, the views straight out of a history book. We continued on our course, stopping only briefly to check out a ghost-ranch and to give the dogs a nature-break.

Arriving in the town of Austin for lunch we dropped in to my regular watering hole for a quick bite. Our supposed hot spring was only another 30 minutes to the East, though our real heading was West. We would have to back track to get  to Northern California the following weekend. Not optimal.

Over the course of the meal we decided to simply scrap the whole idea of the hot spring, just 30 minutes away. As if it were possible, we argued that we have been to enough hot springs in recent months. Hot spring abandoning justified, we set Big Blue towards the Pacific. Only two and a half hours down the road, easily gotten too before sunset, is the Eastern Sierras where it is not only warmer (slightly) than the middle-of-nowhere Nevada, it is closer to our next weekend’s destination of Kerri’s parents place to finalize our full-exit of the state by picking up Kerri’s truck, both our kayaks, and what little is in a small storage unit in Grass Valley. All to be hauled up to Washington to be stored during our season of sailing.