We Need Warmer Weather

When we got up Tuesday, May 16, we discovered there was ice on the bikes but it had warmed up to 34 degrees.  We figured we’d not be leaving too soon, but we did have a plan.  We were getting out of these mountains, hopefully ahead of the rain, and going somewhere that had a better climate.  Our plan was to go to Virginia City, Nevada. 

It's so much nicer to have the snow in the distance.

It was cold riding and we were watchful for ice.  We were lucky.  All we saw were some wet spots that we avoided.  I’d dug my electric jacket liner out and found that it still worked.  I don’t have electric gloves, but at least had the warm ones that I’d worn yesterday, although they’re not as warm as I’d have liked.  I also discovered my rain pants had melted together, or at least it seems that way which was why I couldn’t wear them yesterday.  But the jacket helped. 

We went through some more high passes, 7,626 feet for one of them, but there wasn’t any rain.  I was certainly grateful as we came down to Hawthorne, and motored along a beautiful, winding road.  It warmed up some, and there was a bit of sun.  It still wasn’t warm enough to take off any of our gear.

We rode through some farm roads that had some major flooding.

I thought this was interesting.  I'm thinking they cover up the plants or seedlings to help them grow or help protect them from cold weather.  And I can tell you, it's not been warm, so I'm figuring the little plants need all the help they can get.

There don’t seem to be many animals either.  We’ve only seen a few hawks and a Jack rabbit that crossed the road.  Pretty slim pickings.

We made it and got checked in to our hotel.  It was blowing like crazy but we wandered downtown to get a bite to eat and do some meandering around.  There were some cool things we found along the way, surprisingly cool, in fact. 

Who would have thought.  An old car with a tree in it ... with a chicken hanging from it.  Ya gotta love
 anything with a chicken.

And a tardis.  I didn't even know what one of these was until last October, and now I've found one in Virginia City.  I did not step into it as I did not wish to be transported somewhere else ... although somewhere with a little warmer weather would have been mighty nice.

We also found a store that had a dog greeter, a black lab named Puma Brown.  She wears a bandana (pink) and has her own Facebook page.   

Puma Brown, store meeter and greeter.

I do love a little tourist town, though.  Especially when there are hardly any tourists.

I have to say that staying at about 4,000-foot elevation is way better than being at 8,000 feet with snow, even if it was cold and we had to wear jackets and hats when we walked to dinner.

St. Mary's in the Mountains was built in 1868, burned in 1875 and rebuilt in 1878. 

 

It's a beautiful setting up here.

The Fourth Ward School was built in 1875.  The cut stone foundation is anchored in solid granite.  There are 14 classrooms and two study halls.  It was built to accommodate 1,025 students, from grammar to high school.
 It's last class graduated in 1936.

This donkey engine/steam tractor is from old Virginia City.

The little mountain bluebird is quite colorful.

We’ve done Virginia City and were now going to Portola, California, where we’ve made plans to drive a locomotive at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum. 

We hit the road on Wednesday, May 17, and arrived in Portola.  We’d thought our hotel was in town, but there really isn’t much in town, or even much of a town.  We walked around a bit checking it out.

The town is set in a very nice place, a stream and hillsides. 

And there are a lot of my personal favorites ... pine cones.

The place we were staying was about three miles out on a very nice winding road … a fancy resort with a golf course, pool, hot tub, spa, restaurant with linen napkins and a bar with ginger beer.  Wow. 

It's a pretty upscale place, but there weren't many people here yet.

The Nakoma Lodge.  It’s very nice, with fountains and a fancy golf course that we promptly tested.  There are plans for gated subdivisions, some of which are already started, and they’re even building a new activities building. 

Testing out the golf course, or maybe the practice putting green.  No hole-in-one here.

The rates were very reasonable; maybe it’s not quite the season yet.  We were pleased to stay in such a nice place.  And happy to park a couple of motorcycles next to a Jaguar to step up the neighborhood.

Then we got the bad news.  A phone call came in from the WPRM saying we couldn’t drive the locomotive tomorrow.  Well, we’ll just go on down there and find out what’s going on.


So, off we went.  The young lady at the WPRM was only able to say no one could drive locomotives until probably June, but there was no real explanation.  That didn’t set too well, so we set off to find someone, anyone.

As we wandered around there was an engine coming in and a guy got off and kind of came near us.  We chatted him up.  And we told him we’d come all the way from Alaska to drive a locomotive.  Well, the problem was that a train had derailed so the track they use for the thing like we wanted to do wasn’t open.  Okay, could we just drive it a little way?  We charmed our way into driving the locomotive the following day, maybe not as far as we would have, but we’d be on that thing for an hour, running it and blowing the horn to let everyone know we were there.