Continuing on Highway 395 through Nevada and California

We were warned by owners of the trailer park which we stayed in Thursday that we would not reach Reno by Friday.  And they were correct.  That highway is not one to travel very fast on - especially with our 37 foot motor home towing a car and not powered by diesel.  As we left Burns there were signs indicating that for the next 90 miles there would be no services as gasoline stations for 90 miles.  Signs also warned us that there may be cattle on the road.  We passed a town named Wagon Tire, population of 6.  And a road called Poverty Basin Road.  At least someone had a sense of humor.  After miles of sage brush plains dotted with black rocks and cattle we had a surprise.
We first saw large sand dunes and then what looked like a dried lake bed.  Checking our AAA tour book we learned that we were at the base of Abert Rim, one of the highest exposed fault scarps (steep slopes) in North America.  The 2000-foot-high escarpment is great for hang gliding.

And pictured below is Lake Abert.  A very remote lake, with no signs of recreational water activity.

Highway 395 also brought us through the the Goose Lake recreational area, into California.  That lake, as well as other lakes in the region, were vestiges of prehistoric Lake Chewaucan. That probably explains the dry sea beds and alkali flats which we had been seeing.  We had no choice as to where to stop for the night, there was only one trailer park in Likely, California.  The town  had a couple of buildings; "Most Unlikely Cafe" and a community church.   The trailer park was out of town a distance, in a remote area surrounded by cattle ranches.  The travel guide said it was a golf resort, besides a park for trailers and motor homes.  How likely was that, we wondered, as we drove up to the park and saw no golf courses, or the presence of a restaurant  that was supposed to be there.

 

 After we had parked our rig and got settled for the night, I walked the perimeter of the park.  Found the golf course and the restaurant which was closed for the day.  No activity anywhere, however.  I still wondered if the "resort" part of this park was a thing of the past.  But no, as I was again hiking around the park the next morning, a parade of golf carts passed me heading to the links.

I thought we were going to have the same scenery on Saturday as the past two days, but the land along the highway started greening up with plant life other than sage and juniper.  What a beautiful sight to see fields covered with black-eyed susans!   We started now seeing fields covered with a variety of crops.  We also noticed that the highway was following a creek.

We also started seeing what we thought was the backside of the Sierra Mountains, covered still with small patches of snow on top.  We passed up Reno and went 30 miles further to Carson City, just for the reason that we wanted to see the capital of Nevada.  It is a few degrees cooler there, also.