Rolf's 2018 continues

We took a different route back to Highway 50 after leaving Berlin, the loneliest
highway yet.  It was a dirt road that was initially pretty smooth and straight.  

We saw not a sign of life other than the occasional:

After a long straight stretch we came to a Y in the road with no signage.  Hmmm.....?   The way we chose led up into the hills and got rougher and slower the further we went.  We twisted and turned and climbed and descended until we were over the hills and eventually hooked up with the main highway.  Never saw another car the whole way.  

One day Rolf and Sam and I went kayaking on a small man-made lake near Truckee. Prosser Dam was very peaceful place and we spent a happy couple of hours paddling around.  

An osprey

Visit to Rolf Aug 2018

As the title of this post suggests, in August I went to visit my brother, Rolf, in California near Lake Tahoe.  I wasn't sorry to leave smoke choked Victoria at that time.  The air was very murky from the forest fires, casting a dark, apocalyptic pall over the city.  There was a bit of smoke where Rolf lives but not nearly so much.

It is always a pleasure to spend time at Rolf's lovely place on the Truckee River in the Sierra Nevadas.  We spent many hours chatting on the deck overlooking the river, entertained by the flocks of birds drawn to his feeders and soothed by the sound of the river.  

One day we did a major excursion way out into the Nevada desert east of Reno 

to visit Berlin–ichthyosaur State Park, a public recreation area and historic preserve that protects undisturbed ichthyosaur fossils and the the ghost town of Berlin.  We drove east on Highway 50, "the loneliest highway in America" and did a brief stop at Sand Mountain, a 2mi long, 600ft high isolated sand dune on which people like to ride their off road vehicles.  

For lunch we stopped at the notorious Middlegate Station, a roadhouse and only gas station for 50mi in either direction.  It's a funky, quirky bar/restaurant full of kitschy crap of all kinds.  

At that point we turned off Highway 50 to an even quieter road and finally another turn that brought us to Berlin–ichthyosaur.  There to greet us as we pulled into the little town was a herd of antelopes by the road.

 Berlin, the mine in the background

 It might not be the middle of nowhere but you can see it from there.
 

There they mined for silver and gold.

 We explored the town for a bit and then drove to the fossil site, another mile up the road.  At first it was difficult to make out the ichthyosaur remains as they blended into the surrounding rock.  But when the interpreter pointed out how the bones were arranged you could distinguish the shapes of these ancient creatures.  

There were many types of ichthyosaurs of different sizes and shapes found all over the world.  The largest, 17m, were of the type found here (ichthyosaur Shonisaurus) and they were the dominant predator of the oceans 250 million years ago.

More to come in the next post.