Twenty-two hours of driving in four days!

That's us! I didn't have time to blog about it as it happened, so I'll recap over the next couple days.

My Mom recently moved up to Fernley, Nevada and we wanted to bring her some stuff and see the new place. So the boys and I drove up there! We left at 8:30 on Sunday morning. The first gas up was on Landers near our place. I had hoped to get an earlier start...but that just didn't work out. I've never been much of an early riser and the boys are even worse!

So out across the desert we went, listening to Beatles album after album.

Next stop was for breakfast and gas at Kraemer Junction. My Mom lived up in Reno before, so I've done this drive several times. I love PILOT! Clean bathrooms, plenty of places to get gas without waiting, souvenirs, and SUBWAY!

And then more desert! Not much to see. But we did see lots of old mine shafts and stuff near Randsburg. We had to detour for just a bit to see that. We have to come back and camp there. It looks promising.

 I wanted to pull off and look at the mines but they frown upon that. And there were lots of antique shops there that the boys wouldn't let me stop for.

The boys were planning on getting into trouble!

And then into more desert with the Eastern Sierras looming ahead.

This sign is a lie. I've stopped there before and it's not "fresh" at all. Good though.

We stopped and had lunch at Coso Junction rest stop. Much fun was had here. Pretty much anywhere the boys and I go, we have fun though. They were starting to get punchy by this time. They found just about everything very funny. I was getting tired of the Beatles. 

This is one of our favorite picnic lunches. Sausage, cheese, apples, grapes, and crackers. There were no soda machines here though, so we just had water so it wasn't perfect, but still good.

This is the rest stop. It's a pretty nice one with a gas station across the street.

Then we got to Lone Pine! And they have a very nice visitor center now! I didn't realize that we were passing between Kings Canyon and Death Valley. This relief map was really cool to see. And they had a big book store. If I had known it was there, we would have stopped here for lunch.

There was a display about the California Aquaduct and a big piece of it that you can walk through. Tom found it fascinating. 

 He read all the signs, as usual, and told Jake and I all about it.

But we really needed to get moving. Not having Dan there with us was hard on us. I'm a bit ADD with my driving and want to stop at every historical marker and visitor center, not thinking that every ten minute detour adds to our 9 hours of driving time. Dan is our task master and only stops at a few of the most interesting spots. Some day, I will stop at them all! 

 

So on we went! When we got to Bishop, I got more gas. We were taking what the map called a "shorter route" and I wasn't sure about gas from here on out. We got ice cream and coffee too! Then into uncharted territory.

                                                This truck slowed us down for a long time.

And then more desert. The map should have said "the boring way".  

We did get to drive through Hawthorne. Why is there a Navy Training Center way out here?! And then there was Walker Lake. It was very pretty after all that desert.

Corn fields! Fallon was the last city before my Mom's house. Jake took this picture and posted it to Facebook saying he was going to "wish you away". 

The whole drive was fun. Tom and Jake were singing and laughing and making faces at people. We drove through a field of butterflies. We saw lots of horses and cows. I love doing things like this with them. Jake said driving like this reminds you how big the country is. And we got all philosophical about being a farmer or a rancher. Lots of deep thoughts and conversation on the drive like that.