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Heading East Apr 27, 2007

Packed up from Escapade and headed east on I-80.

Traveling east on I-80 was another whole CA from that we had experienced. The road goes thru tall pines and wild flowers bloom all along the sides of the road. As we pass the small towns we see roses of every color and shape. The tree roses impress me the most. Some of them are over 10 ft. tall and all in full bloom. Every color from pure white to a red that is so dark it is almost black. A lot of them are bi and even tri-colored. Quite a sight to see.

Sunday - April 29. One of the gals I talk to all the time on a forum I frequent lives in this area. I post our route so if I am coming near any of them we can meet - so meet we did. She and her husband came over this afternoon. He is a forester so we took a walk around the campground and he told me the name and some background of all the trees. He says that the huge trees - about 100 - 150 feet tall - here are only about 60 years old. We also found some trees that only grow after a fire so the thought is that this area had been logged and also a fire had gone thru. Now if I can only remember all he told me.

We then went to lunch about 20 miles west of here. It is a restaurant that Windy had gone to as a young girl. Great food. Then came back and took some pics and they headed off to home. It was a great visit.

We left Dutch Flats on Monday morning and continued east on I-80. The scenery was spectacular. As we traveled we went up in grade and the snow-capped peaks became snowdrifts near the road. We were only able to catch glimpses of Donner Lake, a beautiful, long, blue lake set high in the mountains. Then it was time for the down slope of Donner's Pass. It was only 6% but why do I ALWAYS have to be on the outside curve going down mountain?

After we go over the Sierra Nevada Mountains we skirted the Lake Tahoe area and then on to Reno. Traffic was no problem and shortly we started across the salt flats. They were very interesting as people have stopped and taken the black stones from along the road and written things on the salt mounds. Saw lots of college name, some "Class of" and a lot of initials "hearting" a lot of other initials. We pulled into Winnemucca at the Flying J for the night.