Pop and Meemee on the road: Virginia City and Lake Tahoe

We left Santa Rosa on Sunday and arrived here at Tahoe Valley Campground in South Lake Tahoe, Ca. Sunday afternoon after a long drive of about 6 hours that including crossing the scenic Sierra Mountains. We had to deal with traffic issues because of road construction and detours near Santa Rosa, but once we reached Interstate 80, we had clear sailing. We did see a low temperature of 34 degrees and a few snow covered peaks at Donner Summit on I-80. This RV park is a large Encore/Thousand Trails park that is very wooded and scenic. There are about 25 rigs here in the park that has a capacity of around 400 sites. I'm certain the park is very busy in the summer season. We are enjoying the lower Passport America rate while here. The park is located very close to the California Nevada state line. Diesel prices here are surprisingly lower than expected with the lowest prices I've seen being $3.79 in S. Lake Tahoe to a high of $4.49 in Tahoe City.

Monday morning we headed out to explore the area north, including Carson City, Silver City, and Virginia City in Nevada. This part of Nevada is well known for mining, especially silver and gold, but have pretty much played out, although there is still a small amount of mining still continuing today, including of all things, kitty litter! Virginia City is the better known town of the three due to silver being found there in 1859 and sprung up overnight as a boomtown and had a population of 25,000 in the mid 1860's due to mining. There was so much wealth gained there that it contributed heavily to the construction of San Francisco due to entrepreneurs investing their newly gained wealth in real estate and business. Today, it's mostly a tourist attraction due to it's colorful history as a wild west town. Silver City is very near Virginia City and is pretty much a ghost town today with old mining equipment and buildings in a state of decay. Carson City is named for the mountain man, Kit Carson and is the capital of Nevada. Carson City developed as a result of mining in the area and has prospered in today's economy with a population of about 50,000.

We explored the west side of beautiful Lake Tahoe yesterday including a visit to the site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley. We had hoped to ride the tram to the top of the mountains, but we were disappointed to learn it only runs in the winter season. We did enjoy a nice picnic lunch overlooking beautiful Lake Tahoe. One interesting fact about Lake Tahoe is that the lake is at an elevation of over 6,000 ft above sea level and has some of the clearest water found anywhere. According to a sign at one of the observation areas we visited, the bottom of the lake can be seen to a depth of 60 to 70 ft.

Tomorrow, (Thursday) we're back on the road with our destination being Las Vegas. It's about 450 miles south of here, so will be a two day trip to get there. There are not many RV parks on our route, so we're hopeful we can find accommodations somewhere down the road.