Reno, Nevada

Good morning, my friends. We're two days from home now, and we'll be back in our home state of Oregon by the end of today. For the first time this trip, we drove in the rain yesterday. Thick cloud cover made it a dark drive, and it rained off and on most of the day.

We started out following another long and straight road. Happily, the route got more interesting in just a few more miles.

This part of Nevada is filled with structures like the one below. There are so many towns that began as mining towns, and then turned to ghost towns once the minerals were mined out.

About halfway through our journey, we passed through the small town of Hawthorne. We stayed here a few years ago so that we could visit the Marietta Wild Burro Range.

The nearby Hawthorne Army Depot is the primary economic base of Hawthorne. You can see the depot from the road in the form of the bunkers you see in the image below. 

The depot began its existence as the Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD). It was established after a major disaster occurred at the Lake Denmark Naval Ammunition Depot, in New Jersey, in 1926. The accident virtually destroyed the depot, causing heavy damage to adjacent arsenal and the surrounding communities, killing 21 people, and seriously injuring 53 others. The monetary loss to the Navy alone was $84 million, just over $1 billion today (mostly in consumed explosives). A court of inquiry investigating the explosion recommended that a depot be established in a remote area within 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the west coast to serve the Pacific area.

Construction began on Hawthorne NAD in July 1928, and NAD received its first shipment of high explosives in October, 1930. When the United States entered World War II, the Depot became the staging area for bombs, rockets, and ammunition for almost the entire war effort. Employment was at its highest in 1945. By 1948, NAD occupied about 104 square miles (269 km2) of the 327 square miles (850 km2) area under Navy jurisdiction. Subsequently, excess Navy lands were turned over to the Bureau of Land Management. The U.S. Marine Corps provided security for the 3,000 bunkers at NAD. In September 1930, and during World War II, 600 Marines were assigned to the facility. In 1977, that number had been reduced to 117; security is now contracted to a private company.

Just north of Hawthorne is Walker Lake. Remember I told you that Nevada is a large basin, and Walker Lake is a natural lake. It is 11 mi (17 km) long and 5 mi (8 km) wide, and is fed from the north by the Walker River. It has no natural outlet except absorption and evaporation. The community of Walker Lake is found along the southwest shore.

Throughout the 20th century, Walker Lake supported over 50% of the economy of Mineral County through tourism and recreation. From fishing derbies to boat races, water skiing to an annual Loon Festival, the lake was a key part of Mineral County and Walker River Paiute communities. Sadly, more than a century of upstream irrigation diversions of the Walker River have left Walker Lake in a state of ecological collapse. As inflows have decreased and more water evaporated, the concentration of salts in the lake has increased dramatically. Walker Lake no longer supports fish life. Since the 1850s, Walker Lake has declined by 90% in terms of volume and more than 50% in terms of surface area.

On a positive note, Walker Lake is the focal point of significant restoration, conservation efforts, and litigation. Through the Walker Basin Restoration Program, former irrigation rights are being acquired and protected for environmental benefit. The program delivered water to the lake in 2019 for the first time and aims to restore Walker lake to a state that supports fish and bird life. 

Just a little farther on, we passed through the city of Yerington. 

During World War II, one of many Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs launched at the United States landed on the Wilson Ranch near Yerington. The ranchers, not knowing what it was, attempted to notify the authorities by mail, but did not receive a response until after they cut it up and used it as a hay tarp. And if, like me, you don't know what a Fu-Go balloon bomb is, just know that it was an incendiary balloon weapon deployed by Japan against the United States during World War II. It consisted of a hydrogen-filled paper balloon 33 feet (10 m) in diameter, with a payload of four 11-pound (5.0 kg) incendiary devices and one 33-pound (15 kg) high-explosive anti-personnel bomb. The uncontrolled balloons were carried over the Pacific Ocean from Japan to North America by fast, high-altitude air currents, today known as the jet stream, and used a sophisticated sandbag ballast system to maintain their altitude. The bombs were intended to ignite large-scale forest fires and spread panic.

Between November 1944 and April 1945, the Japanese army launched about 9,300 balloons of which about 300 were found or observed in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. The bombs were ineffective as fire starters due to damp seasonal conditions, with no forest fires being attributed to the offensive. In May, 1945, six civilians were killed by one of the bombs near Bly, Oregon, becoming the war's only fatalities in the contiguous U.S. The Fu-Go balloon bomb was the first weapon system with intercontinental range, predating the intercontinental ballistic missile.

As we neared our entrance to Interstate 80, we rounded a turning circle where we saw these metal sculptures.

This next one tried to hide behind one of our side mirrors.

And there's another barn! As you might guess, this isn't a big agricultural area.

Just after leaving the turning circle, we drove a short distance on this highway. You can read more about it at this link.

What caught my attention was this: Within the first mile is Electric Avenue, which leads to the Tesla gigafactory. In 2014, Tesla purchased 1,000 acres in the park and its new battery production plant lays claim to the world’s largest building at 10-million square feet. We didn't turn off on Electric Avenue, and so we didn't see the building, but we did see other well-known warehouse namesakes, such as Walmart, Amazon, Zulily, and tech giant Switch. 

Nearing the interstate, we saw some wild horses a distance away.

And, finally, just before reaching Reno, the sky cleared, and we were able to get set up without getting rain soaked.

And here we are.

It rained a good part of the time since we've been here. The temperature has cooled significantly since leaving the Lake Powell area. Just a couple of days ago, we were running our air conditioner. For the last couple of days, we've been all about the furnace.

We're ready for the next leg of our journey that will take us to Klamath Falls, Oregon. We'll be happy to be home by tomorrow. We'll be traveling north on US Hwy 395, and that's always a pretty drive. Just now I checked road conditions for any snow in the mountain passes. It looks like smooth sailing. Breakfast is next, and then we'll be on our way again. 

Before I go this morning, I want to thank those of you who have traveled with us and left kind and supportive comments. It's always more fun to travel with friends.