Ely Railroad Station
We were backtracking to Ely to have Carolyn’s rear wheel looked at, at least we hoped were were. Smoke is a prelude to things breaking, we hoped her rig would make it back the hour’s travel to get looked at without an expensive tow bill. But this detour lead to some unexpected finds, including a new awesome camping area near an abandoned farm. Join us on the road back to Ely.
Carolyn started out ahead of me, navigating the pass back down to the highway just fine. But the rear wheel continued to be hot so it was definitive that we were headed back to Ely to have it looked at. She drove on ahead, having arranged a look at her rig at Northeastern Tire & Auto/RV Repair, a shop with good reviews and the advantage of being on the way into town. She was lucky to find a place that could even look at her rig that day, so it was going to be awhile. We hopped into my rig and went off to explore Ely.
Coal elevator and water silo at Ely
Brunch was had at the Prospector Hotel, your typical Nevada hotel/restaurant/casino operation. It was a pretty decent breakfast, and not being Las Vegas, reasonably priced. There was even some interesting decoration in and around the property to look at. Sated, we explored around Ely by foot, finding the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. This place turned out to be quite the railway museum, having preserved most of the original yard with its buildings. I can’t recall ever seeing coal bins and water tanks for supplying steam engines intact before, especially at this size. Ely would have been a major depot for the railway at one point. Now, what remains is a tourist railway with two steam engines. We were lucky to see a steam engine consist arriving at the station (see below). You can tour the inside of some railcars and the passenger station for free, and rides are offered for sale. If you have any interest in railways, I would call this museum a must stop location passing through the area. I took a ton of pictures, see my best here on Flickr.
We drove around a bit afterwards down the main street, passing the Hotel Nevada, which once was the tallest building in Nevada, at six stories. Really, before Las Vegas and gambling became a thing there wasn’t much in Nevada. Ely was one of the biggest centers in the State. We took a quick tour through the Ely Renaissance Village, a group of mostly small houses preserved in a corner of Ely. Unfortunately, the sky had become dull and grey, so I didn’t take a lot of pictures, unlike the railway museum. I’m trying to not just snap mindlessly and end up with a million pictures I have to go through, but this can lead to me not having an example photo to show you what things looked like. I’m still learning this blogging thing even after so many years.
After touring through a few stores, we returned to the RV repair shop, to see what may have been found. It turns out that Carolyn had a leaking wheel bearing seal on the right side; with the bearing having taken some damage. The mechanic was just in the process of replacing the part, but he had been called away on a consultation, so it was a good time to inspect the works. We waited a while for the repair to be completed, but things eventually got done and at a reasonable price to boot. I’d come here if I had issues – while they were busy they seemed to be an honest competent shop.
Remains of the main farmhouse
Being late in the day now we were not going to drive far to camp. We decided to head to a spot I had scouted with the motorcycle back where we were previously, just up another road leading to an empty valley, with a former farmstead to explore! There was a nice spot with just enough room for two rigs to tuck in the trees not far from the former Pony Express / Lincoln Highway. We were camped just south of McIntosh Place, which looked to be a former farmstead. It looks to have been abandoned for a while now, but the main farmhouse is still standing with only the roof having collapsed. You can tell the the field around was farmed at one point. There are the remains of a stockyard setup and fences.
I had discovered the farmhouse when I was exploring around the area with the motorcycle previously. I also found a lot of former camping site remains. I was a bit mystified as to why there would be so many old camping spots off the main gravel road, until I learned that the main road was part of the Lincoln Highway as well as the Pony Express. The camping wasn’t far from Schellbourne, on a ridge you could drive up. I could see many spots that had not been used in forever. In the day, this looks to have been a major stop, probably in part because water was available in the creek running by the farm for at least part of the year.
In modern times, Highway 93 runs north – south a few miles away, there is no need to come way out here just to overnight camp. Now, one spot near the old Lincoln Highway gets used once in a while – very few people come up here. The combination of heavy heavy use long ago with few people coming in now meant that there still was some interesting garbage around, some of which would still be worth collecting for some local bar’s decorations. Yes, most of the really good stuff is long gone – we are not that far off the beaten path.
Cabin remains up the valley
Hiking up the valley, you still see a few hints of the fences from ranching. You eventually come to the remains of a cabin as well. There was water up here too, with the snow melt just finishing off in the hills above. Everything was getting green with the early spring warming. I had never been in the Nevada high country before. It is mostly open pine forest, fairly dry with some meadows and scrubby bushes interspersed along the way. The valley has some mines you can visit too. It certainly made for some pretty rides with the motorcycle and hikes with the feet.
Unused road up the valley
The weather had been pretty good, but we were due for a system coming in that was going to drop a bit of precipitation and a late season blast of cold air. We decided to tough it out at the higher elevation we were at – the area was nice enough to tolerate a couple of cold days to explore it further. That meant my furnace got a good workout, at which point I found out that my issues had returned. I was still getting the heat kicking out intermittently, with the overall heating levels being just enough to counteract the cold. I was annoyed, this being my second failed attempt to fix the problem for good. I’d have to look at that when we got to Twin Falls. In the meanwhile, I survived the colder nights so I would not be freezing right away if the furnace decided to die completely. Remember, I’m in a Class C so I always have the emergency option of running the engine and heating things up inside with the cab heating system. Cab heat is not ideal, but it would get me through a short bout of moderately cold weather.
An old antifreeze can
We left the area only reluctantly, the valley was pretty and abandoned – a good combination. The whole time we were there no one came up the road we were camped on at all. To think, we would have discovered none of this if Carolyn had not faced some adversity with her rear wheel. But it was time to continue north, with me getting closer to my deadline to return to Canada. Join us next time as we hit Twin Falls and points north.
