Good afternoon, Campers! It’s Silver Cliche’ with you again. Today from... wait for it... the Showgirl State!... Nevada! What? That’s not it’s nickname? Is it’s real nickname even more honest but less flattering? I hope not. This is a family-friendly blog. What? The “Silver State”? Really? No, that can’t be it. That’s like shooting for second place, isn’t it? Have you ever seen an athlete being interviewed while boarding a plane say “I’m going to the Olympics and I’m bring back a chest full of silver!”. Oh well, it’s their state. They can do as they please. Anyway, we called it a day at about 2:00 in Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada. This little town is close to three states which are... oh... you figured it out already. I wanted it to be a surprise.
I promised regular updates on our “state count”. Here’s today’s:
States visited this trip: 9. New states camped this trip: 1 (Nevada)
States camped lifetime: 33. New states to go this trip: 15
(In all candor, I’ve enthusiastically jumped the gun...we haven’t “camped” in Nevada until we wake up here. We’ve only “parked” as of this writing.)
So... first, Flagstaff and our trip out of Arizona. It was chilly... 40 degrees... when the rooster crowed. That’s an expression. More accurately, “when the golden retriever mix walked in circles on the bed because he was done sleeping”. We drank coffee, read, chatted, performed dog care and left about 10:30. We started the day at 7,000 feet in a forest crowded with ponderosa pines. The ground throughout the campground was covered with copper-colored needles 6-8” long. The accumulation absorbed the sound of footsteps. At Fort Tuthill Campground, everyone walks like a ninja. As I write this at 4:50 PDT it’s 68 degrees 182 miles away in Flagstaff. Thanks, Flagstaff... we made a request... you delivered... we are in your debt.
For the first hour we lost a bit of altitude but moved along I-40 westbound at about 5,000 feet above sea level. The change in vegetation was subtle but clear if you looked. The trees were shorter and grass more burned out, clear signs of a dryer, hotter ecosystem.
Then the pace of change accelerated. At points we lost altitude like a skydiver. There are warning signs aplenty on I-40 about long, steep grades, brake check areas, runaway truck ramps, lowered speeds for large vehicles. We pressed on!
I’m sure a meteorology student could give you a precise count of the number of climate zones we passed through between Flagstaff and Cal-Nev-Ari. I can’t. But fortunately, the USDA can, and with the help of Google, now so can I! The map below shows Flagstaff in the upper right, I-40 across the top and the place where Cal-Nev-Ari would appear (if it was “map worthy”) in the upper left. My count shows that we passed through 11 USDA hardiness zones in 182 miles.
That’s... oh... let me see... anyone?... you’re not going to make me switch from prose to math are you?... ok... one new zone every 16 miles for 3 1/2 hours! I think we should propose that Arizona drop its unofficial weather motto “yes, but it’s a dry heat” and replace it with “if you don’t like the weather here then drive 16 miles”. Here are some random shots along the way, all taken today by either Mrs. C’ or me (starting with the first, full motion “Silver Cliche’ passenger experience” video shot by Mrs. C’ just outside of Flagstaff):
There were some incredible and horrifying sights on the way. Most horrifying was “Golden Valley”. Those of you who know me IRL, know I spent 35 years in the corporate world, mostly in sales and marketing. I can recognize a pile of “bull sheep” when I smell one. I’m not sure how and I’m not sure when, but I’m certain that the name “Golden Valley” is the second name of that place between Kingman and the Nevada border. The honest, God-fearing settlers who first crossed that place and gave it an English name most certainly called it “Dusty Hell Hole”. After all, they named “Death Valley”, just 200 miles away. Marketing was not their craft. If we were playing “Clue” I’d offer to solve the case right now. The real estate developer did it with some palm greasing in the county courthouse. Case closed.
At one point just outside of Dusty Hell Hole, AZ... Er... I mean Golden Valley we ran directly through a dust devil. That’s a first for me. We’ve seen them all over from west Texas to here but always at a distance. They are basically small twisters that are visible because this whole freakin’ place is covered with a light dust that they suck up like a Hoover... no... better... like a Dyson! It turns out that when you are really close to one you don’t see the dust. What you do see about 200’ in front of your 7 ton rig moving at 70 miles an hour is an airborne black, plastic wheel well liner from a Ford or Chevy pickup fly out from the dead sagebrush on the shoulder right into your path. “Uh oh!’ you say (as reported by family-friendly editors) this is going to be BAD for me. That’s a 5 or 6 foot long piece of plastic about 18” wide and shaped like a scimitar that’s airborne at windshield level and I’m doing 70! Then, with about 100’ before impact it reverses course, still airborne, and literally flies at the same speed with which it emerged back over the sagebrush. 1.12 seconds later, the truck is sandblasted on the right side and the whole rig moves a foot to the left in the lane (maneuvered with authority and deft precision by the experienced pilot who did not yet realize that his pants deserved equal attention to the sandblasting and lane-shifting). I didn’t check the rear view to see if the missile returned for a go at the 18 wheeler behind me. It was a unique (as in “never before, never again”, I hope) experience.
So we pressed west and got lower and lower. Eventually we crossed the Colorado River which forms the boundary between Arizona and Nevada. It was 96 degrees at 560’ above sea level. We had the option to check out Big Bend of the Colorado State Park on the Colorado River just south of Laughlin, Nevada. We opted to move 20 miles and 2,000’ vertical to Cal-Nev-Ari for a head start on tomorrow’s drive and cooler weather.
So, here I am, chasing my dream. 3 1/2 weeks of driving. 3,783 miles since Vero Beach. I’ve just reached the first state we haven’t already visited. As for Cal-Nev-Ari, it’s an oasis in the desert... except it doesn’t seem to have the flowing water and lush vegetation one usually associates with their term “oasis”. Here’s a Google Maps satellite view of the town. We are precisely at the blue dot.
And here’s the same view of Death Valley, about 180 miles from here.
Notice any similarities or differences? Right. There are no hyphens in “Death Valley”.
The last few miles in here were punctuated by “Oh my God” and “I’ve never seen anything like this”. Mrs. C’ and I agreed that this place looks like another planet. I suggested that Elon Musk’s Mars team could train here. That way, when they got to Mars, they could say “Oh, this is nothing. You should have seen Cal-Nev-Ari.”. Mrs. C’ had a different reaction. She imagined aliens landing here, getting out, looking around and flying back to Zorcon9 to report finding an uninhabitable planet.
Fortunately, I have a supportive partner. We’ve been doing this 6 years now. About 50,000 miles and 32... I mean 33... states. Somewhere along the way this went from being “our dream to see America” to “your dream to see America”. Oh well, call me a starry-eyed dreamer. So for one night, that dream brings me here. I just took this panorama looking north toward Las Vegas.
Then this one looking south toward our campsite.
None of the other rigs here are transients like us. These people appear to live here. Sometimes, the healthiest response to someone saying “Darling... I have a dream...” is to throw a glass of ice water in their face.
Oh well, tomorrow we move from the Silver State to the Golden State and Joshua Tree National Park, California. We’ll be skirting the Mojave Desert to get there. It’s one of the more difficult National Parks to get campground space in. We will be at Jumbo Rocks Campground for two nights then into giant Sequoia country in the southern Sierras. If you don’t hear from me for a couple of days, don’t worry. The reports are zero cell service at Jumbo Rocks. I’ll keep writing and post later. If it goes more than a few days, you can assume the ice water had an effect and we’re looking for a buyer for the Airstream and tickets to Disney World.
Later...
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