The Trip Home

It is time to bring this trip to an end.  Since we had no wifi during our travels, I am writing this a couple days late.

We left Tonopah on Monday morning, the 22nd.  We drove all day. The roads were snowy and icy as we travel through Austin, NV on the way to our campsite.  We spent the night at Water Canyon Recreation area, near Winnemucca, NV.  It is in the foothills above the city.  During the night, it snowed and got very cold.  In the morning, we were greeted to this scene.  There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground and the dirt road was solid ice.  Fortunately, it was a dirt road, so as we drove over it when leaving, the tires crunched through the ice to the dirt below.  We did not slide around.  When we got out of the foothills and into town, the roads were OK.

Winnemucca in the Morning

On Tuesday we left Winnemucca and again drove all day until we got to our 2nd campground near Burns, Or.,  Chickahominey Reservoir.  What a difference in the view.  The picture below was taken Tuesday night.  So we started out with ice and snow and ended up with a beautiful sunset.

Chickahominey

We got up Wednesday morning and finished our trip home.  Our route led us along Hwy 26 though Government Camp on Mt. Hood.  It was snowing pretty hard on Mt Hood and driving was a little bit scary.  This is the most dangerous road in Oregon.  It is a nice road but very busy and people drive crazy not paying attention to the conditions. 

One amazing thing to note is that while we were camped in Tonopah, we were at 6,047 feet elevation. Government Camp is only 3,888 feet.  Timberline Lodge on Mt Hood is only 5,942.  So we were camped all week higher than either.  It didn't seem like it.  Maybe that explains why we got so cold at night.  When we drove through Austin, NV the elevation at the peak of the highway was 7,500.

Arrived home about 3:30 Wednesday afternoon.  The new Jeep did OK but it sure cannot pull up the mountains like our old diesel could.

The Drive to Nowhere

 Today we took a long drive to nowhere.  It took most of the day.  Last night I was reading the owners manual for the new Jeep.  Under the heading labeled towing, it had a BIG warning that you are not supposed to tow anything until you have at least 500 miles on the vehicle.  We only had 260 miles on it.  I was very tempted to ignore the warning but then I thought,  "What if I really did damage something."  What if several years down the road I have this nagging doubt remembering how we violated the warning.

So, we decided to delay our departure another day and go for a long drive.  I set my trip meter and we took off down Hwy 95 toward Carson City.  We had to drive 120 miles out, then 120 miles back to make the 500 required miles.  It was a long drive to nowhere.  Rocks, sage brush, lonely desert with a few sights here and there.

One interesting thing... We drove through Hawthorne, NV which is home to the largest military ammo storage facility in the world.  It is huge.  We stopped to browse the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum.  It was closed but they have all kinds of neat stuff outside that you can browse through and you can look through the windows.  I took lots of pictures.

We had packed a lunch for the trip.  After we completed the 120 miles, we turned around a went back to camp.  Did some laundry and hooked up the Jeep.  Tomorrow we will head out.

Taking it easy

 Today was cool and very windy.  Uncomfortable to be outside.  We got around rather slowly and then departed for the grocery store.  We stopped by the old haunted cemetery to look it over.  It was pretty scruffy.  

Nicer view of cemetery

After shopping we came back to the RV and had lunch.  The Nevada Mining Museum was next on our plan for the day.  We spent about two hours at the museum.  They had lots of stuff outside but viewing it all was almost unbearable due to the wind.  They had lots of mining equipment and history.  They also has some WWII Air Force history.  They used to use this area to train pilots and crew for flying the B24 "Flying Boxcar" bomber.  The museum had a big pile of junk found at a crash site.  There were also relics from the first experiments with "smart bombs" that were radio controlled or TV controlled.  These early experiments were developed for WWII but were not very successful.

After the museum, we drove around town to take in the sites.  Then we headed back to the trailer to relax.  We found a nice fixer upper that you can buy and a "great horned pickup."

Buy this fixer upper

Great Horned Pickup

Buying a new Jeep

 Yesterday, I decided that the best solution to buy a new Jeep.  I had to get the Old Jeep to the dealer in Carson City that is about 240 miles away in order to make a deal.

 I called Cal/Nevada towing and they said, "No problem, we can hook you right up, and it will cost $1800 for the tow."  Yikes.  Tonopah does not have a lot of options...they don't even have Uber.  I heard via local grape vine that there was some guy named Tom Adams that gives people rides for a fee.  I called him up and he came over to take a look.  Upon arrival, he said he could load that Jeep up onto his flat bed tow rig and tow me to Carson for $600 cash.  

 Tom is a rough red neck sort of guy that is partly disabled, and volunteers for the local "Search and Rescue" outfit as an equipment hauler and communications coordinator.  He wears a gun and likes to tell everyone that he wears a gun.  He asked me if I would be upset because He wears a gun (he was not offering to take it off and leave it behind.). I told him that it would not bother me and that I packed a gun too, concealed.  He had not noticed...ha.  He said he does not like to carry concealed.  All of the above took place yesterday late afternoon.

 Friday morning at 7 AM, Tom showed up with his fancy Nissan pickup truck and a stout custom rigged flatbed trailer with winch and ramps.  He loaded up the Jeep and we took off for Carson City.

 On the way we talked about a lot of stuff and I managed to give him a short version of the Gospel.  But he adamantly said, "Hey, I don't want to talk religion... I've heard all that and seen too much... not interested."   

 We arrived at the dealer at Noon and they had a new Jeep waiting.  It was the only Grand Cherokee in stock that was factory rigged for towing.  Choices, due to the circumstances, were very limited.  Tom unloaded the old Jeep and I spent the next two hours making a deal for the new one.  Soon I was on my way out of town.

 Funny thing.  This new Jeep has all kinds of electronic gizmos.  I still live in the analog world in some respects.  For example, there is no key.  You don't have to unlock the door, just have the "fob" in your pocket and pull the handle.  Get in and push the button.  This lead to immediate issues.  I drove 3 blocks down the very busy 4 lane road to leave Carson City.  When I came to the very first stop light, there was a pile of traffic behind me and the new Jeep just stalled.  I pushed the start button and it was dead.  I fiddled with the fob and tried again.... nothing.  The guy behind me was blowing his horn and flipping fingers.  I could not even find the emergency flasher button, they moved it and disguised it.  Grrrr....  Finally, after about 5 minutes of holding up traffic for two red light cycles, I took my foot off the brake and the car started all by itself.  I didn't even push the button.  I pulled into Wendy's and called the salesman at the dealer to find out what goes.  He laughed with a little embarrassment.  "Oh, I forgot to tell you about that new feature.  It does cause a lot of confusion.  When you stop at a light, the car shuts off and stays off until you take your foot off the brake.... it saves gas."  I said, "Right!  What a bad idea."  He said I could turn the "feature" off by pressing a certain button on the dash that was marked with and "A".  I pushed the button.

 The long drive back to Tonopah went well but the car definitely has a different "feel" to it.  It is a little bigger inside than our old Jeep so that is nice.  I will miss the diesel engine a lot..... that old Jeep was my baby and I hated to loose it.  There was just no practical way to get it home.  Every option was too expensive and too complicated.

Marooned in Tonopah

 Got up this morning still stinging from yesterday's incident with the Jeep.  After breakfast, I went out with my little tool bag and started poking around to see if I could find the problem.  

The battery was completely dead so I called up Napa and had them deliver a new one.  In the mean time I pulled the old battery and put it on the charger.  I figured, if this is alternator trouble, we could use two batteries, our portable generator, and charger and just head for home.  We have done that twice before.  But this seemed different.

When the battery arrived, I put it in and it did not help.  The car was still dead and the battery began to discharge pretty rapidly.

I dug out my little "Blue Driver" code scanner and hooked it up.  Strange!  I could not get it to connect as usual to the Jeep.  It reported, "Vehicle is not responding."  That is really odd.  I called up the Cal/Nevada towing place down the street because I heard they had a diesel mechanic and asked them if they would send him to take a look and please bring his fancy "Snap-On" brand scanner.

He arrive and plugged in.  He fiddled and scratched his head for 10 minutes and finally said, "Bad News!  I cannot scan anything.  The Jeeps main computer is not functioning at all...it is dead."  He did not charge me anything.

No Problem... just order a new computer, put it in and go home....right?  Wrong!  I called long distance to two Jeep dealers, one in Carson City, and one is Vegas.  When I read them my VIN numbers, they said, "Sorry, we do not work on THAT model Jeep anymore."  So I called the parts department and they said that the part is not available anymore anywhere in the USA and that it was discontinued.  Then I thought.  Gee, even if I had a new part and put it in, it would not work because my old computer was reprogrammed with custom software.  So a new computer would immediately start throwing serious errors and put the car in "Limp Mode".  The company that furnished the software is out of business so I could not reprogram the computer to match my equipment, and I left my programming equipment at home.  If I had TIME and had the Jeep at home, I could fix it....it would probably take a month but I could fix it.

I spent the day making calls and trying to figure a way to get the Jeep, our Trailer, and US home within a reasonable amount of time and expense.  Remember, there is nothing in Tonopah and the nearest real help is 240 miles away across barren land and remote roads.

I finally decided that the best answer was to trade the Jeep in and buy another one...a new one.  I called the dealer in Carson City and came up with a workable deal over the phone, but I would have to get the Jeep there and I would have to come tomorrow.

Busted on ET Power Trail

That's right.  Today we broke down in the remote desert.  Here is the story.

We got up and had breakfast as usual, the day was beautiful and we were eager to hit the road geocaching.  We drove the 45 miles to the first cache on Highway 6 near Warm Springs, NV.  Our first cache was to be #851 in the ET Power Trail.  The Jeep was running fine and we were making great progress.  

Shortly after noon, we reached #941 where the cache trail leaves the highway and heads out down a dirt road into the remote desert.  When I say remote, I mean there is nothing as far as the eye can see in all directions.  It was a dirt road, not a two rut trail.

We continued down the road and found ET-#1000.  This was one of our goals for the trip.  Yea!!  That means we were half way through the ET Power Trail.  We continued on until we got to number #1017, and then it happened.

Susie got out to grab the geocache and the Jeep just quit.... totally dead.  I could not even get a click out of it.  It was about 3:15.  I tinkered for about 20 minutes trying different things including my little emergency battery.  Nothing worked.  I grabbed the phone to call a tow truck.... no service.  I walked around the Jeep a little and got some bars, but still no service.  Apparently SmartTalk does not work out here.... not smart enough.  I decided to try 911 because it will work when nothing else will.  On the 2nd try, I finally got a 911 operator although it was a bad connection.

I first had to answer 20 questions and then I tried to explain our situation.  "You are where??" she said!  I gave here GPS coordinates and also directions.  She said "How can we help you."  I ask for the number of a couple of tow companies.  She said we probably could not make calls from out there but she could patch me through to a company.  After a short, confusing, 3 way conversation, I got through to a woman at the tow company.

20 questions again.  She said she could send a truck but, "Where did you say your are?"  I gave her directions several times until she got it right.  She seemed a little doubtful, like maybe this was a prank call or something.  Finally she said she would send someone right out but it might be 2 hours.  We waited.

About an hour latter, I saw a big truck coming.....too early for the tow truck, I thought.  It WAS the tow truck.  He pulled up in front of us and the driver got out of the cab.  A young man in his early 20's.  I told him we were so glad to see him and surprised he got here so fast.  Then he confessed...  "Well I did hurry, BUT, I forgot to get fuel and I don't think I have enough to get back."  DOH!!!! I told him that I had 5 gallons of diesel in the back of my Jeep...would that help.  He was amazed.  What is the chance of that.  He just couldn't get over it.  I explained that my Jeep is a diesel and that I brought the extra fuel due to the remote roads on our trip.  He said that he did not know that Jeep made a diesel.

We poured in the fuel, loaded the Jeep onto his truck and then made tracks for the campground.  It was about 47 miles.  We were way out there.

On the hook

On the way back we talked to Zack, the driver,  about the Lord.  He was somewhat interested but played the religion card since he was from a Mormon background.  We explained salvation to him best we could as he drove.  I explained the difference between Ephesian 2:8,9 as compared to 2 Nephi 25:23 in the Book of Mormon.  The Book of Mormon says you are saved by grace AFTER the best you can do.  Ephesians 2:8,9 says you are saved by Grace and it is the GIFT of God, not of works.  Quite a difference. 

We arrived by at camp and he unloaded the Jeep in front of our trailer.  I paid the bill, $269.00 and gave him a big tip.  He tried not to take it but I insisted.

Tomorrow, I'll dig into the Jeep.  This may bring our geocaching trip to a conclusion....we will see.

One last alien artifact found on ET Highway

We finished geocaching ET Highway and were saying goodbye to the Area 51 valley when we came across this strange thing.

It is some kind of pot that was apparently used for heating up some kind of glue or goo.  It was still filled with the hard black substance.  I'm thinking the aliens sustained some damage to their space ship when they were fired on by an Air Force jet years ago.  It had to to land, cloaked of course, and make repairs.  When they were done with the repairs, they left the pot in the desert where it has remained all these years.  The black substance is like nothing I have ever seen before and it is very hard when cool.  I imagine it liquifies into a gooey gel when heated.  It could be used to patch holes in the alien ship.

What do you think?

Completed ET Highway Geocaches!

 After braving yesterday's blizzard, we arose to 24 degrees and light snow and ice on the ground.  The roads were clear.  We got fuel and did some grocery shopping.  It looked like geocaching would not be possible today because of the snow.  After a little discussing, we decided to drive 70 miles to where we left off and see how it looked.  After crossing the mountains, it was a whole new world.  Sunny skies, no snow and 40 to 56 degrees.  We dug in to do some serious caching.  

Around 4:30 we pulled into warm springs and found the last geocache that is on ET Highway and is part of the ET Power Trail.  #833.  We cached the whole highway from #1 to #833 and found every cache over the last 12 days.  In addition, we followed a lot of side trails.  We had to replace a lot of containers and logs because a lot of the caches were in bad shape.

The ET Power Train continues on and on until you reach #2000. We will continue that tomorrow.

Our trailer this morning

Cache at the end

That white car is on Hwy 6 at Warm Springs at the end of ET Highway.  ET Highway runs East through that valley and over 3 small mountain ranges.  Warm springs is a ghost resort with a nice swimming pool that is always full of clear, warm water.  It is all fenced off and all the buildings are abandoned.  What a waste.  

Caught in a Blizzard

 Today, after much deliberation, we decided to move from Alamo, NV and drive to Tonopah.  We decided that remaining in Alamo would require too much driving each day in order to reach all of the ET Highway geocaches that are West of Warm Springs.

 We hooked up the trailer and packed up all our stuff.  The owner of the RV place gave us a nice refund for the unused portion of our reservation.  We headed out, confident that we had made the right decision.

 We stopped in Rachael, in the middle of the Area 51 valley, to fix a quick lunch and take a last look at the alien capital of the world.

 When we were about 30 miles from Tonopah, as we crested the final mountain range, we were amazed to see a very dark weather system ahead.  We motored right into it.  The wind increased to 20 mph and it began to snow.  When we were 10 miles from our destination, white out conditions occurred.  Suddenly visibility dropped to about 50 feet.  The road was coated with a combination of snow and small balls of hail.  We had to slow to 20 mph and drive very carefully.  Fortunately there were very few curves.  Our Jeep has Quada-Drive II, the best 4x4 system available on a stock vehicle.  That and the weight of the double axel trailer helped us to keep tracking true.  

 When we finally arrived in Tonopah, the roads were coated with light snow and traffic was light.  Visibility had increased to several hundred yards.  We eased through town and found Tonopah RV Park.  We got signed in and parked.  It was 22 degrees, snowing lightly, but blowing pretty hard.  That made it very miserable out but I managed to hook up the power.

Pickett's RV, Alamo, NV. Review

 We are geocachers and decided to come to Alamo, NV to find caches along the ET Highway.  We needed a place to camp with our 18' Trailer.  We wanted water, sewer, showers, laundry, and wifi.  After a lot of figuring, we decided that Pickett's was the ticket.  My overall rating would be 4 Stars - * * * *

 We arrived Friday, March 5, 2021, having pre-registered for a full month.  The monthly charge was $515, very reasonable.  You would not call Pickett's a luxury RV park but it is pretty nice and it is the best deal for over 160 miles around and the only deal in Alamo worth looking at.  The park is a large lot about 800 feet from the highway.  I didn't count the number of spaces.  The lot is a mixture of rather old pavement and gravel but it is all level and well kept.  We took a "back in" space, #23, right next to the little stream that flows along the East side of the park. On weekends, the park is very popular and filled up to capacity. During the week it was less than half full.  All of the sites, both "back in" and "Pull through" were very accessible.  

Back In by the Creek

Noise - You can't say it was real quiet.  We do a lot of "boondock" camping so we are used to dead silence.  Behind our trailer was a row of trees and a creek....that was nice.  But then there was this 24 hour gas station that is popular with truckers.  Some truckers would park there for the night and leave their refrigeration units running and sometimes, their main engines.  You could hear them pretty good if you were parked anywhere along the creek.  If you have a RV big rig and take one of the pull through spots in the middle of the park, there would be no problem.  After the first night, we got used to it and it did not bother us.  So I would give it a 3 star rating for noise.  There were no trains, not even any tracks.  So that was good.  We had no problem with noisy guests... everyone was very well behaved during our 10 day stay, even on the weekends.

Showers - There are two showers, tub home style, with curtains and they are built into the same building as the office and laundry.  The bathrooms containing the showers look brand new and the showers worked great.  The hot water tank must not be very big because I did manage to run low on hot water once.

Laundry - The laundry consists of one washer and one dryer.  Both for $150 per load.  There is no change machine but we found a nice change machine about 2 blocks away to the N. on the highway.  It is at a "spray it yourself" type car wash.  The wash and change machine work very well.  The washer and dryer worked well.  There is also a small laundromat 2 blocks to the West.  It has 5 washers and 4 dryers.  The dryers are brand new.  The RV Park's washer and dryer adjoin the two bathrooms and also has a lending library with books and puzzles.  The bathrooms and showers are not handicap accessible.

Office, Showers, Laundry

Staff - The couple that manage the RV Park are super nice.  The made us feel right at home.  When we first arrived, I noticed that the wifi did not work.  I told Ryan about it.  He said that he had not noticed and immediately worked on it.  We determined that the guest router had died.  He dropped everything and drove all the way to Las Vegas to buy a new router.  Then he returned and hooked it up.  The result was the best wifi that we have ever had at an RV park.  We originally signed up for a full month but we discovered that finding all the geocaches west of Warm Springs would take way too much driving if we stayed here.  So, on the 15th, we told Ryan that we needed to check out early and move our little operation to Tonopah.  Ryan recomputed our fee and gave us a refund of $200.  

Overall, our stay at Pickett's RV was a very positive experience.  They have a large dumpster and they sell propane.  We would definitely stay here again if the need arose. 

Pano of the Park

Intact UFO finally discovered

 I just can't believe we found this!!  We were out hunting geocaches in the desert along ET Highway and stumbled upon this big thing.  It is definitely sort of saucer shaped.  I wish I had parked my Jeep next to it so that you could get an idea of the size.  The picture just doesn't do it justice.  You could probably haul it on a flat bed semi-trailer, but there is no way that it could have gotten here that way.  This has got to be proof positive that UFO's are real..... this is one of them!!  I hope it doesn't fly off before other people see it.  I could not see any damage so I'm sure they just parked it here for a while.  I didn't hear anything inside but they could have been in there.  I almost called 911 to try to get someone out here to document this but then I figured they would not believe me anyway.  We just got outta dodge.

Two more alien artifacts

 While wandering the desert today we came across these two UFO parts just laying out in the middle of nowhere.

Radio transmitter out of an older UFO model.

I'm not sure what this is but it had to come from a UFO because it is so shiny 

and consider where we found it.

New Geocaching Record

Sunday... Daylight Savings... Spring Forward..... Yuk.  We go up wanting to sleep more.  After breakfast, we attended online church services at Eastbay Calvary Church in Michigan.  After church we loaded up the Jeep and headed out down ET Highway to do some more geocaching.  It was 75 miles to the first cache....whew....its gonna get worse.  We found caches all day and by 4:30 we had found 200 geocaches.  This is a new record for us.  We also found some alien artifact for which I will make a separate post.

We we finished our last geocache, we were 101 miles from the campground.....long drive home.  I guess this is an adventure, something to never do again....ha.  It is fun, but we are having to replace a lot of busted up caches.  The scenery is beautiful.

This picture is a special memorial geocache dedicated to Mike Adams.  He was speeding by one night and hit a cow.  His Jeep was found off the highway, right about here.  Sad deal. There are lots of cows wandering around.  They have the right away.

Looking West Above, Looking East Below

ET Highway

More UFO Evidence Discovered

Today while exploring the desert around Alamo, NV, we discovered several pieces of alien space craft.  We did not see any aliens.  They are so elusive.  My daughter says that if you are looking for them you will never find them.  They find you when you least expect it.  Here are the items that we found today.  The parts do not appear to be from the same ship.

Probably an engine cowling from a UFO.  Notice how shiny it is after years of laying here in the desert.  The UFO must have be damaged by an air force jet.

This is a rare find.  It is a mini-thruster off of a UFO.  They use them to make small adjustments to their speed and vector while approaching Earth.  Then they are jettisoned.  I was amazed to find one.

Possibly an escape hatch cover from a damaged UFO

High Frequency Antenna Part

3 Unidentified UFO Parts

You can see that today we had a real bonanza when it comes to finding UFO relics.  Some of these are really old.  How else could this stuff get so far out here in the desert?  It must be UFO's.

Geocaching in Alamo

Saturday.  That means waffles for breakfast.  My favorite waffle has cheddar cheese melted all through and then topped with butter and peanut butter.  Yummy!

After waffles, we headed out to do some geocaching.  We decided not to head over the mountains to Rachael.  Instead, we decided to cache the Alamo area.  Since the caches were scattered all about, the going was slower.  We had to Jeep down some pretty bad roads but at the end of the day, we had logged 72 caches for the day.

Caching in the Rocks

Caching in the Clouds

It snowed last night and rained some too.  It was 39 this morning and the ground in camp was clear.  We almost decided to do no caching today.  I bought some propane and we twiddled around until about 9:30.  Then we decided to go over the mountains toward Rachael and see how the caching trails looked.

We bought some diesel fuel and headed out.  It was snowy in the mountain but when we descended into the valley near Rachael, the snow cleared.  Visibility was low because there were low hanging clouds that encompassed all the land.  We headed down a dirt road to the north.  It was started snowing to our left and to our right up in the mountains.  We cached for several hours.  It really was quite nice because the rain and snow kept the dust down and there was hardly any wind.  Around 12 it started snowing lightly on us and we continued on the trail.  As we neared the end, the elevation increased and the snow increased too.  We decided to stop early and headed back to camp arriving here about 3.  We found about 78 caches for the day.

When we arrived back at camp, we decided to find the local hardware.  It is very small and rather unorganized.  We found it and purchased a new electric heater to replace the one that died.  It cost almost $28.  That is a bit high but we needed it.

We did not see any aliens today.  We did not see any UFO's either.  The Air Force was out again today.  We did not see any planes but we could sure hear them as they zoomed around above the clouds.  There was one sonic boom that rattled the Jeep.

Flying Saucers Discovered Near Area 51

I had almost given up on the whole alien thing for this trip.  We have not seen a single alien nor a single UFO.  Today was no different.  We heard loud Air Force Jets flying in clouds most of the day but we did not see any space ships.

Small UFO about 14" Wide

We DID find more evidence though.  Susie found a small abandoned flying saucer.  Maybe it was just part of one. 

Later in the day we found the remains of two UFO's just laying in the desert.  They must have landed here long ago because they were short on fuel or something.  Then the harsh environment of the desert caused the top portion of the ships to waste away leaving only the bottom frame.  We found two of these side by side about 10 feet apart.  What else could it possibly be?  In the picture below, that is a rock in the middle of the UFO frame.  The rock is covering a geocache that someone left there.  The Silver thing in the background is not a UFO.  That is my JEEP.

10' wide each.

Snow caching today on ET Highway

The title is a dumb pun.  We left a little earlier today because we are anticipating a long drive to our 1st cache, #506 on ET Highway.  We drove through Rachael and headed up the long incline toward the mountains and then we saw it.  SNOW.  About 2" of it, although we did not actually measure.  We were only at 5,290 feet and had to go over the pass which is over 6,000 feet.  Already there was so much snow on the ground you could not see a geocache if you tried.  Not only that, the clouds were shrouding the peaks of all the high hills and it looked very ominous.

Abandoning the ET project, we turned around and headed back toward Rachael where there was no snow and the the temperature was a little warmer, about 36 degrees.  Just west of Rachael, we headed South on a dirt trail to pick up a string of caches that cut over to Lincoln Estates.  After lunch we headed North along a pretty nice dirt road to pursue a long string of geocaches that just went on and on into the desert.  By the time we go to the end of the string it was 4:30 and we were 20 miles from the highway.  

There were mountain peaks on both sides of us and you could see that it was storming to the right and to the left.  All afternoon, the storms persisted on both sides of us, ranging from 5 to 10 miles away on each side.  We were in a neutral zone right in the middle.  It was partly cloudy where we were with occasional sun but still sort of cool.  It was strange seeing storms all around while we were safe in the middle.  No snow.

We ended up 75 miles from the Camp.  On the way back, we drove through more snow that was not there this morning.  So that storm to the East of us we packing a punch.

We found an old abandoned wind mill today.  It still spins but does not pump water.

More UFO Evidence on ET Highway

UFO landing marks

After a hard day of geocaching, we were driving the 70 miles back to our RV and I noticed this burn mark off the side of the road right in the middle of a turn out.  Notice how the center area of the turnout is all scorched.  What else could have burned the gravel in such a dramatic way?  It had to be a UFO.  Right?  This is so obvious I don't know how we could have missed it before.  It is clearly visible from the highway.

Snowed out on ET Highway

 We got off to a slow start today because we had to do the laundry.  The dryer took two 40 minute cycles to get our heavy load dry so that put us a little behind.  We left camp about 9:45 and made the 60 minute drive to our first geocache along ET Highway.

The caches today were in a flatter part of the desert and we were able to drive off road with the Jeep alongside the highway.  We did not encounter any problems with the caching but the weather proved un-cooperative.  It started snowing lightly and the temperature was around 36.  The wind was also blowing about 20 MPH so it was very unpleasant to get out of the car and fix up the caches.  Most of the ones we found needed attention, new logs or new containers, or both.  For containers we are using shotgun shells.  If you take an empty 20 gauge, put the log inside of it and then slide it into an empty 12 gauge, it makes a nice weather resistant  container!  We used a lot of them.

We found 90 caches and then decided that it was time to head back to camp.  The picture below shows the stormy looking clouds hanging over a nearby hill.  It was pretty in a blustery sort of way.

When we arrived back at the RV, we discovered that the portable electric heater had died and that we were also out of propane.  I switched tanks and then we started using the built in heater to warm up the RV.

Elevation is about 5600 or so

More UFO parts found off ET Highway

 Today we were touring the desert west of Rachael, NV, near Area 51.  We did not see any aliens but we did find some things that they left behind.  This first picture is obviously part of one of their rockets.

Rocket nose cone

Susie is holding the bottom part of an exploded flying saucer.

Part of a small UFO

I found this strange shiny object laying in the desert.  I'm not sure what it is, but it had to get here some how.  Could be it was thrown out of a UFO, or maybe a part that fell off.  The fact that it is still shiny after laying here in the desert for many years testifies of it durability.

Part from a UFO??

We did some more serious geocaching today but we got off to a slow start.  It was 45 miles to get to our first cache.  We found 119 and then drove back to camp.  The weather was threatening all day and on the way back to camp we encountered a very small amount of rain.  We stopped in Rachael today and visited the gift shop there.  We also found all the caches in Rachael.

UFO Landing Zone

 Today we drove by Rachael, NV near Area 51.  The whole valley here is considered Area 51 by some, others refer just to the AFBase that is near Rachael.  We came across a UFO landing site.  Take a look at this strange gravel like circle that is out in the middle of nowhere.  Who would put this here? And for what purpose?  

UFO Landing Site

We came across this warning sign painted on a rock.  It sort of made us shutter when we saw it.

We stopped at a gas station on the edge of Rachael.  It is open some of the time.  While there we saw two aliens who were driving an old 1953 Plymouth when then must have expired from heat exhaustion.  Aliens can gas up at the station.

Again, we saw no aliens today.  

Fixer Upper Discovered on ET Highway

Fixer Upper

We were geocaching again along ET Highway and made it to Rachael, NV (Google it).  From there we took a dusty dirty side road that has a lot of caches heading back to the East.  I think it was called Tempiyut Mine Road.  While on this road we found a very remote fixer upper that is probably available for a low price.  Nobody lives there but the birds.  Bird poop was piled up about 3 feet high under the front porch and there is a large nest up above.  There is a nice Kawasaki Ninja there too that goes with the house.

We continued on until we got to the old mine.  It was a very large one with some big buildings still standing and an open shaft leading into the mountain that descends at a slant and is lined with concrete.  We explored a little but it was getting real late and we wanted to find our way back to pavement before sundown.

In the photo below, the town of Rachel can be seen in the distance.  There is not much there but aliens have been known to visit in their UFO's.

Oh!  Oh!  Earlier in the day, while we were searching for a geocache, an F15 fighter roared over head.  He was doing at least 300 Knots and zoomed by with no warning about 100 feet off the ground. The sudden noise and vibration of the air scared us a little.  Then I looked up and here came his wingman, hot on his tail.  He too was flying about 100 feet off the ground with his wings banked so he could see us.  We could see him too.  I think they did that on purpose.

UFO Parts Found

Strange Part

We found this strange looking thing out in the desert today near Area 51.  We are not sure what it is, but obviously it was discarded by an alien spaceship.  Perhaps they threw it out after doing some repairs.

Geocaching on ET Highway Day 2

We attended online church this morning at 7.  We attend East Bay Calvary Church in Michigan.  Check it out.  We also attend Brush Prairie Baptist in Vancouver, WA but we skipped this morning.  We will catch up tomorrow.

Found the Car Keys

We hit the road caching and found 100 along ET Highway and then we headed off on a side road to find more that were placed by a different team.  Boy was it dusty.  The road had recently been graded and dust was piled over a foot deep on each side of the dirt road.  The road led up and down some very steep, but small hills.  We found 168 total caches today.  

In addition to caching, we found an interesting info sign all about Joshua Trees.  I also found a nice steel chain hook laying next to the road.  Interestingly, we found a set of car keys laying out in the desert.  I wonder who lost that?  We stopped caching at sundown and then made the 45 mile drive back to camp.  Before going to the camp, we stopped at a car wash and blasted all the dust off of the car.

The Dusty Road

More Alien Evidence Found on ET Highway

 While geocaching today, we came upon an abandoned alien space craft.  Why do people always assume that they are big.  This one was smaller than a basket ball.  See photo below.

We also found another cow head.  Someone has been cutting the heads off of cows and taking their bodies, leaving the heads to rot.  Why would anyone do that.  Aliens might.

Small Alien Space Craft

Cow Head