The first stop on our recent trip was an overnight stay in Ely, Nevada. We stayed at the Bristlecone Motel for a reasonable rate of 57$. It is on the route out of town towards Las Vegas so is a bit noise, but not bad at all. The new owners have done a very nice job of remodeling and sprucing up. The rooms were nice. Good buy for the $. Oh, is Ely ever growing. No recession in that town.
Oh yeah, we paid 4.279 for gas in Wells, Nevada. That was the most expensive gas. We paid as low as $3.799 a gallon three times. For the entire trip we averaged 23.34 mpg in the 2003 Dodge Caravan. It was pretty well loaded with camping gear. We now have 105,000+ miles on the van. We traveled 5.91 miles per dollar of gas. In 2006 on our trip to Ventura, CA, we were able to travel 7.14 miles per dollar of gas, but did not have nearly as heavy load as we did in 2008 because we did not have camping gear onboard in 2006. We did get 1.02 miles per gallon better gas mileage on this 2008 trip. The better mileage might be explained by the nitrogen I had put into the tires. With nitrogen we had more consistent tire inflation. That is a savings of 4.6% on fuel mileage. I think that is significant in this day of high fuel prices. It cost $39.95 to have tires inflated with nitrogen. Our dealer guarantees free refills for the life of the car.
At Ely I found a statue of a Shoshone Indian woman in front of their public library. The title was something about the good things in life are provided by mothers. I thought it was cool that the people of Ely had chosen to honor an Indian woman. There is a very small Shoshone reservation just south of town.
The next stop was El Centro, CA. That is way down nearly to the Mexican border. We stayed two nights there. (motel courtesy of my nephew Don--Thanks Don and Roberta!) Enjoyed visiting with the whole family. Had not seen Chelsea and Cynthia for a long time. Cynthia is just finishing her first year at the local community college. She intends to major in psychology and be a school counselor. Chelsea likes horses as you can see by the picture. She just finished the seventh grade. Both girls are sweet hearts and do very well in school. Don and Roberta have parented well.
While there Don took a day off from chasing the Mexican drug smugglers and took Jane and I to the local museum. Roberta's father and mother are of the first families in the El Centro area and have given much to the museum including her Dad's first house. They have a very nice museum there. We especially liked how they have allowed each of the cultural groups that have settled in El Centro explain their story. Those displays were really well done and makes it pretty obvious that there were a couple dozen cultural groups in the mix.
Roberta works as a lactation consultant out of the local hospital. She is really an expert on the whole subject. I am sure Rasjane would love talking to her.
It is Fiddle Festival time in Weiser this week. I took a picture of one of the old timers. He looks a little dessicated, but some of the senior fiddlers are really old timers. Well, this guy was in the museum at El Centro. I could not resist.
More about the trip in the next blog, but one thing. I was in New Mexico at the wrong time for fishing. The streams and rivers were running full as if we were in a chocolate factory. Could not fish the rivers. I tried one day to fish a lake, but that day made the headlines in the New Mexico papers for the snow storm. We just happened to be in the snow storm and howling winds on the day I had purchased a license. Bummer. Pretty hard to fly fish a lake covered in white caps in a howling blizzard.
Papa Coyote has some books to read about Chaco Canyon. He loved that place. A great place to howl at the full moon. The skies are so clear there.
Love you all,
Papa Coyote
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