Working My Way East Across the Nevada Desert

Wednesday September 20, 2023 Nevada Desert

Beaver pond camp

I was sitting in my van having a cup of coffee looking across the beaver pond when a big bird landed and flashed a wing that caught my eye on the other side of the pond.

It looked sorta like a golden eagle, but.

I got another shot at it when it landed. Looks more like some kind of big hawk. It sunned there until I left a bit later.

Janesville

I drove on out of the forest to Janesville CA. and gassed up and posted my blog when I got some cell service.

Then I  headed up highway 395 a short distance and turned east on a gravel road going that way called Smoke Creek Road.

I had to slow down for these critters that were on the road.

I stopped here at this intersection to check the map and take a short break

Not far from there, I crossed the border into Nevada and the gravel road improved a lot, so my speed picked up to forty or so from twenty in California.

Shortly, I ran into this nice little pull off by a creek with running water in it, so I had another short break and something to eat.

Big bird

Just up the road from there, I spied this large big bird land up on the hillside above the road, so pulled over to try to get a picture. It took off and this one sure looks like a golden eagle.

Go east

I was trying to go mostly east, but none of the back roads really went just east, so I did a lot of map studying  and decided to change my plans and head a bit south instead of north which would save me a lot of time and a bunch of gas, so I changed direction.

When I saw this mostly dry lake bed with lots of green grass, I thought it would be a good place to camp. I can see some donkeys out in the grass there.

And these deer were watching me as I pulled in to find a camp spot.

I found a nice camp spot in the trees which was good as the wind was really blowing and it wasn’t too bad in the trees.

I was closer to the donkeys and they were watching me.

I studied the maps some more and eventually the wind got to me, so I decided to  drive on some more for about another hour which dropped me in this big valley, heading south now and soon to be a paved road.

I’m thinking I can find a camp spot up along the bottom of that mountain range. I pulled off on a dirt road that went over to some power lines for maintenance and found a camp spot for the night. I’m just above the Black Rock desert where they have the Burning Man thing.

And this was the sunset that finished up the day.

Plans

Tomorrow I hope to make it across the desert to highway 95 at McDermott where I will get gas and then start heading east again through some boonies type roads.

Nice day.