Pioche - A Silver Town

Flowers still blooming in the high desert.

Time flies when you get to enjoy all of your summer days with great weather. We visited Pioche on July 11.  It is located 180 miles from Las Vegas  and we only passed through 6 towns to get there. Coyote Springs, Alamo, Ash Springs, Crystal Springs, Caliente, Panaca and Pioche. I'd have to say Coyote Springs, Ash Springs and Crystal Springs were barely towns at all.  In between the towns was a lot of state or federal land (high desert).

A few shadows on the road.

Breaking Bad?

Trees in the mountains.

Caliente was a railroad town and named for hot springs in the area. We didn't have time to explore here today but will put it on a list for another day.

Train Station

Knotty Pine Casino

The next part of the journey took us through the farming community of Panaca. Interestingly Panaca was originally in Utah until state borders were redrawn. It was southern Nevada's first permanent settlement, founded by the Mormons in 1864. It is the only dry town in Nevada and you can't gamble there either.  

Irrigation

Corn

Tractor

Hay

Finally we arrived in Pioche. Nearly a ghost town now it was a booming silver mining town in the late 1800's. 

Leftover mining gear.

Abandoned Silver Processing Plant

Evidence of mining. 

Pioche

We visited the Million Dollar Courthouse built in 1872.  Lots of town and Lincoln County history inside.

1,000,000 Courthouse

Postmaster Dan. 

Makes us think of Mrs. Berry.

Courthouse drama.

We visited the old jail right behind the courthouse.  Dan is pretty sure he saw a ghost in this cell. It was pitch black in there until you used a flash.

Hard time!

Main Street

We were in Pioche for an Eastern Star friendship event.  It was held at St. John Lodge. This building is badly in need of repair and there is a big fund raising push.

Masonic Lodge said to be the 3rd oldest building in town.

Apparently during silver mining days this was a real wild west town.  72 deaths were caused by gunfights before one death from natural causes occurred. We saw one woman's grave in boot hill.  We weren't sure why she was the only one laid to rest facing in the opposite direction form the men. Hummm?

Boot Hill

After a very long day we headed home and caught this sunset just east of Las Vegas.

Sunset on our way home.

Sorry it took so long to get this blog updated.  My knee is healing well and I have been doing physical therapy at a clinic and on my own.  I have been doing exercises in the pool and riding my bike.  Next week I can return to yoga.  Yay.  Hiking in September I hope.

It's all about the journey!

Nancy and Dan

Summer NBA and Nevada State Parks

Lots of tall young men in town for a couple of weeks.  Las Vegas is hosting the NBA Summer League.  This is the time when this year's crop of NBA rookies get to strut their stuff ... or not!  We saw three games.  Kings vs The Raptors, Timberwolves vs the Lakers, and Golden State vs the Cavaliers. The NBA's number 2 draft pick D'Angelo Russell for The Lakers went up against the NBA's number 1 draft pick Karl-Anthony Towns for the Timberwolves.  Of course one is a guard and one is a forward so they didn't really have that much to do with each other. Las Vegas is like home court advantage for the LA Lakes.so the Thomas and Mack Arena was full for that game.  The Timberwolves won 81 to 68.

Fascinated by fancy kicks!

Towns #32

Russell #1

Free throw

Full house at Thomas and Mack

UNLV Rebel Cheerleaders

Saturday was a road trip.  We headed to what Dan called the Northeast Kingdom of Nevada.  We headed 180 miles north and east of  Las Vegas to Pioche. Along the way we stopped in at four of Nevada's 23 State Parks. We have a State Park Passport booklet which we are trying to get stamped at at least 15 different parks this year.  If you get 15 stamps you can earn an annual pass to all of Nevada's state parks. (7 done so far after this trip.) The title of each park below is a link the park's website.

Kershaw Ryan Sate Park

Real Trees!

This juvenile Cooper's Hawk had just fledged.  He was doing a lot of hopping and short flights!

Cooper's Hawk

Cathedral Gorge State Park

Old water tower built in the 1930's.

The view from above. Some call this Nevada's Little Grand Canyon.

Spring Valley State Park

Water!

More water!

Lunch break.

Blue-green algae : (

This small lake is created by an earthen dam.

Echo Canyon State Park

Bridge to nowhere.

Another of man-made body of water.

We had to backtrack to the Kershaw Ryan park on our way home .  We hadn't gotten our Passport stamped there because the gate wasn't manned.  But the ranger at Cathedral Gorge told us where to find a stamp we could use.  This mule deer was grabbing a little dinner in an irrigated field on our return trip.

Mule deer.

We had a great trip.  The next post will be about all we saw in Pioche.  Dan is pretty sure he saw a GHOST!.

It's all about the Journey! 

Nancy and Dan