What a year! We travelled to the Arctic Circle and back in 2015.
Be warned, this is a looooong post. But we hope you enjoy a quick tour back through this most wonderful year with some of Hector’s favorite images.
Island Girl traveled a total of 12,345 miles.
We stayed in 88 campsites (29 of them were overnights and 61 were dry camping).
Visited 10 States, 2 Canadian Provinces and 1 Canadian Territory. And 6 veterinarians in 5 states and 1 Canadian Territory.
At the end of the Nevada section of Hwy 50 is the Great Basin National Park, a national park that we had never heard of before we began our drive on the Loneliest Highway in America. We love the national parks, and visiting new ones is always fun.
The Great Basin is comprised of multiple basins, from the Sierra Nevadas on the West to Utah’s Wasatch Mountains on the east, with lots of mountain ranges and few rivers. These narrow basins surrounded by mountains offer no outlet to the sea for their streams and rivers. So the water in its shallow salt lakes, marshes and mud flats evaporates.
Great Basin National Park was created in 1986 and includes much of South Snake Range, a desert mountain island surrounded by desert. This and other mountain islands support species of plants and animals that can only survive on the tall, cool mountains. At these higher altitudes there is lots of diversity – streams, lakes, and wildlife.
There are five campgrounds in the national park, one that accommodates big rigs. But we chose to stay at Sacramento Pass Recreation Area, a free BLM campground. It was just off the road but quite nice. There is an equestrian campground with even lovelier views on the upper level but there was one trailer there, so we chose to be on our own on the lower level. Read my review of the campground here.
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We really admire reinvention. And areas with a rich history. That is why we chose to take a drive on the Loneliest Road in America.
Apparently, in the late 1980’s Life Magazine ran a “very negative article” about Nevada State Highway 50 titled “The Loneliest Road”. Then a spokesperson for the AAA put the nail in the coffin by describing the road as follows “It’s totally empty. There are no points of interest. We don’t recommend it. We warn all motorists not to drive there unless they’re confident of their survival skills.”
That is when some shrewd Nevada tourism officials began to call Highway 50 “the loneliest road in America”, and developed “The Loneliest Road in America, Official Highway 50 Survival Guide” marketing its non-traditional and unique places of interest, most of which were and are still free. Touché.