Hard Rockin' the Loneliest Highway (Day 1 &2)

Our moving adventure begins as we packed out our car with our final load - emptying our Smoketree home of all things Josh & Jenn. We then took it to our awesome friend’s (the Uhts) garage (where the rest of our items are staying until they get moved to Arkansas with us). Here we hung out like homeless people outside their house, sorting our items a more to make our car a little more road-trip ready.
We opted to spend our first night at Tahoe at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. It is a quite fun place as the musical themes of rock and roll are perfectly on display from themed radio and tape room keys to song lyrics in the elevators, on the bathroom soaps and of course at the ice machine cleverly labeled “Ice, Ice Baby” - how fitting. I had the opportunity to attend the grand opening of this place with my friend Michelle a couple years back and it was great to stay here as we wrapped up our day as Nevada home owners. 

We kicked off day 2 with a stroll to Stateline Beach on the boarder of Nevada and California. Tahoe is a true treasure. The cool air today - with a high of only 58 is keeping most people off the summer beach. The guy monitoring the beach let us skip the beach fee with the statement, “No one is swimming today.” The clear waters with the snow-capped mountains was the perfect way to launch into our day of adventure that also came with a nice gift of house-closing paperwork. 

Over the mountain we connected with Highway 50, also known as the “loneliest highway” on our way to Great Basin National Park. This park formed in 1986 and is not the most popular of parks to visit. We will arrive later tonight and will get to see how this one ranks in comparison. For now we are very much enjoying the scenic drive of this lonely highway that is lined with dusty mountains, white sands, windy dirt devils and few cars. So far it is definitely worth the drive and a great reprieve from the busy roads and life that have made up the past few weeks. Fittingly I’m wearing my “adventure is out there tee.” The big decision of the day is do we camp in our tent in 37 degree weather or do we go for the experimental hotel in downtown Baker, Nevada… All yet to be determined. 

After following along two giant mining dump trucks taking up the entire highway for many miles with the average speed of 10! We will were able to make it to Great Basin and secure a campsite before dark. The site was perfect as our little tent fit perfectly in the spot next to the following water. Although we have determined we are too old to sleep on the ground the sounds of rushing water, after a few hours around the campfire lulled us to sleep. The beauty of the Nevada highway was the perfect way to wrap up our first few days of adventure.