Summer Vacation: Day 1

Over 2000 miles in a car with a toddler. What were we thinking? Ryan was probably wondering that same thing by the time we made it to Delta. It was one of the many planned stops along the way to our first destination in California. We picked Delta because we knew they would have a park that Ryan could run around in. He is just at that stage where he can walk around fairly freely and we knew that sitting in a car for a day would be challenging. Surprisingly he handled it quite well. He loved it so much that when we got to the park he wanted to look at the plexiglass on the playground equipment to simulate looking out the car window. Crazy kid...

Next we stopped in Ely, Nevada. I have nothing to say about Ely. We just stopped and got gas. It was cool and windy and we were not feeling the love so onward we went to mysterious Tonopah, Nevada. I was not really sure what to expect. A co-worker of mine, Nick, mentioned that his dad almost detests Tonopah when he has had to visit there for his job. One thing is for certain and that is there really is not much going around in the region. It's really isolated. The drive across Nevada to get to Tonopah was more scenic than we thought. Tonopah is apparently one of the best places to gaze at stars. I wish we could have seen that. I miss seeing all of the stars in the sky that I used to see when we sleep outside at night for sleepovers with friends. We saw a few interesting things in town. The high school mascot is the "Mucker." Click on the photo to find more of what that means. There is a classic McDonald's there. It looks like it was stuck in the 60's or 70's. Those both interesting and disturbing at the same time. There is a cool cemetery in the heart of town. Tracy snapped this photo. You can tell life is harder here. We snapped this picture of the liquor store next to the gambling establishment. All we need now is a payday loan place . This is the strangest gas fill-up I ever had. Usually prices are pretty close with gas stations but here one gas station was like $4.29/gallon and the other was $3.70. That was a head scratcher. We went with the cheaper gas and made it to our next location so WHEW. There is not much vegetation in Tonopah. I guess only getting 6 inches a year of rain helps promote desolation. The scenery was interesting. Even this little neighborhood park that we found was interesting and Ryan enjoyed it. As we left the sun was setting and we snapped a picture of the beautiful sunset while driving down the road on our way to Mammoth Lakes. Since the sun went down, Ryan got a chance to play with Daddy's sunglasses. Anything to entertain....anything to entertain...