Away

This is Tuesday July 19, 2016.  I was up by 6.  The sunlight had been up for hours.  The morning walk with the boys was significantly different than yesterday.  Yesterday it was a familiar route with tall fir and pine trees.  The lake was in the background, always in the background.
   Today, desert.  As far as the eye can see, far as the mind can wander, desert.  We spent the day crossing and spent the night parked in the Great Basin Desert, the largest of the US deserts.
   We left our site at Tallac almost on schedule, (9:45) and trudged through the traffic lights of South Lake Tahoe.  We finally got past the city and over Spooner Summit and Hwy 50 down the long grade into the Carson Valley.
    We were on 50 all day.  Fallon, east to Austin.  A pathetic little spot.  I was in low gear driving through Austin because it is located in a rather steep canyon and every part of town is either up or down, including the highway.  Going east I had no trouble dropping to the 25 mph speed limit because of the grade.  I never got up to that speed,  either through the town or up the steep grade for the next several miles to the pass.  Boy was I glad to be out of there!
   I was going to count the number of passes we went over during our day, but I lost track.  It is somewhere around 8 or 9.  In a car they aren't very noticeable.  Pulling a 30 ft fifth wheel, loaded to the gills, they are noticed !  But the BRT  ( Judy and David started calling it that. Big Red Truck. ) the BRT performed well.  We had a tail wind which was greatly appreciated.  400 miles under our belts or tires.
   Today we cross over into Utah (which is 50 feet away) and head for Torrey, which is just outside Capital Reef National Monument.  But first, breakfast at the Casino.  :)