I didn't know when I woke up that we would be embarking on a journey, of extreme dedication and perseverance. No it was just another day at the KOA. Like many of our KOA's before this Ely had all of the amenities closed (including the bathrooms) as we traveled in a trailer fine whatever, still a bummer cause that shower game. We got their early enough to explore, only I didn't because with everything closed there was little for me to see right? I did take some pictures, because I wanted to document it for all of you, and I'm sure it is a nice place to visit when not in the middle of a pandemic.
The next morning we had our breakfast and was off, it would be a long road back and we needed to hit up a museum, because culture is important and also we love museums as you may have noticed by now.
HELLO NEVADA NORTHERN RAILWAY MUSEUM!!!!!! So I really like trains, there's a train museum in Sac that I like, I also have traveled by train and It's something I really enjoy, so I was really looking forward to this stop.
Even though the town was small, the museum isn't really advertised by signage, which was odd to me. It was still relatively easy to find. We arrived bought our tickets, and discovered that is was a self guided working museum, which means we needed to be careful and not get run over by a train lol.
First stop was the offices, which held and interesting story. I believe in the 80's at the end of a work day, they sent everyone home as normal, and then just never opened up again. The people all figured they'd be returning to work but they never did and the offices remain exactly as they did on the day they left. Crazy right?
It's really cool to see history so well preserved in this way. It really does give you a peak into the lives of those people.
After the offices we went out to the train yard where we had a look at several of the buildings, and also discovered our drive home was dubbed The Loneliest Road in America by Life Magazine. And that we would soon be counted as the Brave, and the Few to endure the Route 50, exciting!
This museum not only was cute, it was also fun to be mostly outside where we didn't have to wear our masks. And I really enjoyed the freedom of exploring.
We finally made our way to the very last building which is where they house the trains, and also restore, and perform routine maintenance. I should probably mention my outfit of the day was a grey crop top, paired with a black and white polka dot mini skirt, and my white mules.
Not the best outfit for wondering around a train yard but it was all I had left at the end of our journey.
Anyways we met a young man who talked to us about what they do their (restore trains) in great detail as well as answered all our questions. He also told us he had been interning their since he was 14, and was hired after graduating high school. This guys was really living his dream❤
You can actually take a train ride on one of there locomotives, which I really would have liked to do, but unfortunately we hadn't the time. They do a big festival in the winter called Trains in the Snow or something like that, that I would very much like to return for. Anyways our time was up and adventure was calling, on The Loneliest Road.
I'm sorry if I got you excited about some grand adventure, but I found Route 50 to be exactly as described by Life Magazine. An empty road through mountains and desert with little to know attractions on it. Eureka and Austin are cute little towns nestled in the mountain sides, but that mountain driving stresses me out so I couldn't really enjoy them. The Pony Express Station Site, is either very poorly advertised or just a plaque off the side of the road (which is what it looked like to me) most disappointing is Middlegate home of the Monster Burger. Oh how I wanted to stop their so bad, but again so poorly advertised that we missed it completely, by the time we realized it was an hour behind us and their was no turning back. Instead we stopped at the first city we came to (who's name escapes me) we refueled, had dinner and continued home. Home we made it and that concludes our Tour of America.
Definitely the Trip of a lifetime and to have done it in the middle of a pandemic, I know, we crazy. Anyways tune in next week, hopefully we'll be back to our usually Fashion Friday posts about dystopian fashion, but if not I have some other travel diaries to share!