Washoe County

We both woke up late, the excess’s of yesterday had caught up with us. Still slightly jaded, we decided to have a relatively relaxed day. After helping ourselves to free coffee from the KOA shop, arranging to stay a further night & getting ready, we tumbled out of the campground at about 10.30am.

Our journey took us onto Geiger Grade Road & up into the mountains. 30 minutes later, we arrived at our intended destination of Virginia City, an old historic mining town, dubbed ‘The Richest Place on Earth’. The narrow High Street was busy with tourists & parked cars. We saw signposts for parking spots for $7, but decided to explore a bit further.

We went to the end of the High Street & then on a bit, where we found Fourth Ward School Museum with an empty car park. We parked in the ‘free’ car park, then I went & got permission to leave our RV there as we would be visiting the museum later.

We strolled down into Virginia City High Street & browsed the touristy, but fascinating historic buildings. We resisted the urge to get breakfast at Virginia City Jerky Co & Smokehouse BBQ, but my resistance was broken at the prospect of a ‘World Famous Pondo Dog’ in the Pondarosa Saloon. We both had that World Famous large hotdog.

The Pondarosa Saloon was a functioning bar, but it was also effectively a museum stuffed with artifacts. It was same at all the other bars, namely The Washoe Club (the oldest saloon in Virginia City), The Original Bucket of Blood Saloon & Silver Queen Hotel & Wedding Chapel. We were able to wander into each & everyone of them to look at all the items of interest. Sadly, due to an unexplained explosion in March 2019, the Delta Saloon was closed. It contained The Suicide Table (3 of it’s owners committed suicide) & the $100,000 globe.

The Silver Queen Hotel had actually had a wedding take place in their chapel at 11.00am that morning. The Silver Queen is depicted as a huge painting on the wall & her dress is actually made from silver coins. It was also a brothel frequented by the notorious prostitute, The Wild Rose.

We also visited the excellent Storey County Courthouse, which housed 10 cells, each with a display about life in Virginia City in the 1800s. There were numerous other buildings we visited, but too many to list. Finally we stopped at Virginia City Mercantile, a great little shop full of American memorabilia. We bought a weird flavoured assortment of chewy sweets & Jackie insisted on gold Sheriffs Badge with her name on it.

We walked back to the RV & sneakily drove off, without paying $6 each to visit the Fourth Ward School Museum. I wanted to drive through Gold Hill & Silver City, but RVs weren’t allowed down the road. I believe it was too steep & windy, so we made do with the truck route to Carson City, named after Kit Carson. We drove around, but didn’t see anything too interesting, so we went to Walmart for further provisions.

Next we drove out to Washoe Lake State Park & pulled over by the lake shore for lunch in our camping chairs. It was baking hot & surrounded by snow capped mountains, all very nice. We headed back to Boomtown & our RV park to get some mundane chores done. Jackie had planned to get a bag of washing done, but the washing machines were out of use until the morning.

There was nothing for it, but to sit in the sun & catch up on my blog etc. It was all very pleasant until out of the blue we heard some bloke shouting & swearing. We looked round, but couldn’t see anything. Every so often he would start up again, which was totally out of keeping with the rest of the campground.

During a lull in rants, I decided to go & investigate, so I walked to the end of the park & looked out over the river & soaring eagles above. I waited about 5 minutes, still no sound, so started to walk back. Then suddenly all hell broke loose, a big fat bare chested 60 something year old man burst out of his caravan & screamed at me “Don’t you go f**king looking in my windows”. I asked him what he was talking about & he screamed “I saw you looking through my f**king windows”. I told him he was being stupid & that I had been looking at the river. He continued to scream & shout, so I turned my back & walked away from him, praying he wasn’t going to shoot me! Where is a Sheriff when you want one?

On the way back to our RV, two, let’s say long term residents with an armchair outside their caravan, ladies called me over & asked what his problem was. I told them what had happened & they said they were nervous, but it should be alright because their neighbor was a cop & her partner was an ex-cop. I accidentally blurted out that so was I, damn. They then told me that they had access to guns in their caravans if they needed it. Great we were going to get caught up in a shootout!

I believe security sent him packing not too much later. The remainder of the evening was fortunately uneventful, although it did make us realise there are some right oddballs at RV parks, probably more so in Reno. The man next door to us has spent 2 days polishing his truck & careful coiling up all of his cables & pipes in concentric circles on the ground. I know someone who would be very proud of him!!!

FITBIT = 10,653 steps / 4.94 miles??

Song of the Day - Sheriff Fatman by Carter The Unstoppable Machine.

Bonus Songs of the Day :-

Buckets of Blood by The Offenders
The Madman by The White BuffaloRead more