Another trip for home

Today we arose, one the one hand wanting to stay longer but on the other, yearning for home.  I hitched up the car last night so all we had to do was have breakfast, tidy up the ship and set sail.

Fixer Upper with a view

On the way out of the camp ground, we pause to take pictures of all the painted stones that the owners had placed about.  Then we took one final glance around and headed down the road.

It was a beautiful day for travel....not a cloud in the sky.  The mountains were out in all their splendor.  We stopped at the "Stonehenge" WWI memorial for lunch.  After lunch, we made the final beeline down the Washington side of the the gorge toward home.  We arrived home about 4 PM and unloaded all our stuff in record time.  After parking the trailer, we ordered take out supper from Ranch Veijo.  Tired.

Geocaching in Vantage, WA

 After breakfast, we headed out for another day of geocaching.  This time we headed East to Vantage, WA. and beyond.  We crossed the Columbia River on the freeway bridge and then found caches along the old Vantage highway.  The scenery was very "canyon" and beautiful.  There were some caches that we simple could not do because they were on difficult terrain.  We finished up this side of the river by replacing a very old cache that had a busted container.

 We ate our lunch and headed back to Vantage on the West side of the river.  There we paid a long visit to the Ginko Rock Shop where we handled and oogled lots of petrified wood.  Petrified wood is the WA State Gem and there is an abundance of it here.  Vantage is home to the Ginko Petrified Forest State Park.  The Park was closed but we have seen it before.  We purchased some stones and petted the old cat that lay on the counter.  Then we headed West on the old highway to find a string of geocaches on the way back toward camp.

After finding all the caches along the old highway, we made a fast stop at a Mom & Pop grocery to buy some bread.  I paid a visit to the local gun shop in Kittitas, WA where nobody wears a mask.  They had lots of cool guns but almost no ammo.  I bought a magazine loading helper that helps you when loading my high cap mags.

Back to camp....supper.  Afterward we headed out to find two more caches that were 14 miles away.  Way out in farm country.  Turns out that these two caches were the best two of the day.  One featured an out of place old phone booth with the cache inside.  It was also home to a nest of swallows.  The other cache was an ammo can.  You had to walk a plank bridge across an irrigation canal to get it.  We made it back to camp before sundown.

Yakima Canyon Road

 After breakfast this morning we loaded up and headed down Yakima Canyon Road to do some serious geocaching.  The road is very scenic and runs along the canyon bottom from a point near our campground all the way to Yakima.  A RR track runs along the opposite side of the river.

 About half way though our trip we pulled into a wide shoulder in the road to find a cache.  At the same time a Mercedes Benz sedan pulled into the same shoulder from the other direction.  We found the cache quickly and started to continue down the road.  A man in the sedan jumped out and started waving his arm.  We pulled up and he said that he had just hit a big rock and popped a tire.  He had a spare but no tools.  He asked us to help.  I dug out my tool bag and he dug out his spare and jack.  I had a power impact wrench in my bag and just happened to have the correct size impact socket to fit his metric lug nuts.  I almost left that stuff at home but threw it in at the last minute.  Good thing.  We had that tire changed in minutes and he was happily on his way again.

 We cached on until 4:30 and then headed for the RV.  After supper we found two more caches that were near by.  We are tired and very wind blown.

On the road again

Arrived at the park

 We left Battleground this morning about 9:30 to hit the geocaching trail again.  Using the new Jeep to pull our RV trailer we headed down the Columbia River Gorge and then across to an RV park North of Yakima.  Yakima River RV Park.  I will write a review about it later.

Tomorrow we are going to drive up and down Yakima River Canyon road and find geocaches all along this scenic drive.

There are no aliens

We spent about 20 days exploring the desert in the so called "Area 51" valley.  Although we saw and heard a lot of Air Force jets and even had a close encounter with two of them, we saw NO aliens. We went to the Area 51 research center, and to the Lil Alien cafe in Rachel.  What we discovered in rubbing shoulders with the local folks is that everyone talks about and jokes about aliens, but very few people out here really believe in them.  In my previous posts, I highlighted some of the alien "artifacts" that we found during our adventures.  Here is a explanation of what these things really were.

 Explanation of my discoveries in the desert...

Click on ET Highway in the right hand column of labels to view all my posts in reverse order.  Then scroll down through the various posts to find the pictures of the objects in question.  You will have to scroll down a ways before you find the first one.  When you get to the bottom, click on "older posts" to see more.

The mysterious pot - We actually found this near the highway.  It is old, but it is filled with hard, dry, asphalt.  It was probably left behind by a road crew.

Intact UFO - This is not an entire spaceship as I claimed.  It is really one of those "stick up" type room deodorants about the size of a 50 cent piece.

Radio Transmitter - This is actually an old battery charger.  60's vintage may be.

Shiny Pointed Object - This is the decorative cap off of a semi-truck lug nut.

Shiny Engine Cowling - This is actually the front bumper of a car.

Mini-thruster - I'm not sure what this is, but it is not a thruster because it is solid, not hollow.

Escape hatch cover - This is the top to a round cooler.  An ice chest.

High frequency antenna - This is the frame part of a car headlight.  It is the part that surrounds the bulb.  It looks like the kind used on the 1991 Jeep Cherokee.

Unidentified UFO Parts - Most likely old wagon parts.  Maybe a manure spreader or other such thing.

Small 14" UFO - This is a plastic tire, maybe off of a fertilizer spreader or garden cart.

10' Metal Wheels -  These are the remains of irrigation wheels.  The kind that you see in long lengths connected together by a central pipe with sprinklers.

UFO Landing Marks - This looks like a burned area but is most likely an old oil spill.

Rocket Nose Cone - I don't know exactly what this is but it is made out of injection type foam and is very light.  At one time it had a thin chrome skin on it.

White part of UFO (Held by Rebel Scum) - This is the lid to a round cooler.

Shiny part of UFO (Held by Rebel Scum) - This is a Stanley Thermos cup.

UFO Landing Zone - This is made of concrete, obviously man made.  I don't know its purpose.

It is only about 16 feet in diameter and right by a crude dirt road.

Strange Part - This is indeed a strange part but unless the aliens buys their parts in China.... it is man made.

Small alien space craft - This is actually the glass insulator from a big power line tower.  There was a row of towers near by.

Cow Head - The cow was probably not eaten by aliens but rather got hit by a car.

Alien Remains (bones) - These are bones from a cow that I arranged a little.  There are dead cows of various ages all over near the highway.

Tall Alien Statue - This is the "Area 51 Alien Research Center".  It is a large and interesting gift shop.  The alien is a popular photo op for tourists.

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