Running late to the Smoke Creek and beyond 2

This is the third part of a multi-part post. To go to the beginning, go here.

The overall feeling of this part of Nevada – maybe all of Nevada – is vastness. Overwhelming vastness. From the top of every pass, the view is of a huge valley and a couple more mountain ranges. But, I think that is deceptive. I think it would look alot smaller filled with trees and houses. It is the emptiness that makes it look so huge. BTW, all the wide-formate photos are double clickable to enlarge.

We had been over this pass and into this basin about five years ago. Mike said that a mining area about two mountain ranges over, the Seven Trough Range, was very interesting. We didn’t have any maps that went that far east, so Mike loaned us his. Michele made sure we didn’t get lost even though, often, we seemed to be in the middle of nothing.

When Mark Twain got to Nevada, some Chamber of Commerce type told him If this place had water, it would be paradise. Twain answered You could say the same thing about hell. Actually, I think the Chamber guy was on to something. Where ever there is water, a spring or a well, there are trees and ponds and grass.

The great majority of the roads we drove on were official county roads with numbers and everything. When I asked Mike how good the roads were, he told me OK but not as good as the road coming into the Smoke Creek. The Smoke Creek Road was in Washoe County and they have a huge tax base with Reno and we would be going into Pershing County with alot less money for road maintenance. But the roads were great and Michele – who drove most of the time with me riding shotgun only with a camera – never had to shift into low range, even when we got off the county roads.

We drove by scenes that looked like paintings – here photoed by Michele and painted by Mike – who I think of, here, as Michael Moore, as in Michael Moore paintings.