Jacqueline’s Jaunts

09-25-21 Vina Castellano Estate Winery,  Auburn CA Harvest Host Jeeps in Campground: 5 from the wedding Drive Time: 2 1/2 Hours Miles: 161 Barry got up early this morning and helped Glen feed the alpacas. He got me up after and I dressed and went out to the corrals. Glen haltered one of the alpacas and I walked up and down one of the corrals with her. Glen likes to let people do this because this way the alpacas get use to being haltered. It prepares them for shows. The other Harvest Host couple also walked a couple of them.  Carolyn in the turquoise shirt Glen loving what he does Glen showed us the different categories the animals are judged  for at a show: the crimping of their fleece, quality of fleece, body conformation, brightness of fleece and a whole bunch of other items. Just like dog shows. Sounds so complicated to me. When you split the fleece down to the skin you can see how much crimping of the fleece is different on each breed. This is also where you can see the brightness

09-24-21 Sawdust Alapaca Farm Fallon, NV Fallon, NV Harvest Host Jeeps in Campground: --- Drive Time: 4 hours Miles: 258 We left Ely before 11AM this morning. We drove the Pony Express Trail (US-50) from Ely, Nevada to Fallon. It's also known as US-50,  At times the stretch of the road is straight and goes on forever. No wonder it's also called, "The Loneliest Road in America." If you search Wikipedia for US-50 you'll see this road has quite a history.  Barry says we passed through 6 mountain ranges today and the highest peaks ranged from 7,700 to about 4,400....up and down and up and down.  Fallon is the home of the Naval Air Station Fallon-the Top Gun Navy Training Facility. We did see three military jets flying a formation then they each broke off as we entered the city of Fallon. The Sawdust Alpaca Farm is about 5 miles off US-50. Seemed like we were never going to get there.  When we arrived, Glen the owner, waved us up the driveway and had us follow the grav

09-23-21 Thursday Mt. Rushmore Trip Day 23        Ely KOA Journey-Great KOA with lots of Trees and very clean camp spots Ely, NV Site # 20 Jeeps in Campground: 8 Drive Time: —- Miles: —- Today is Nevada Northern Railway Museum Day. We slept in a bit and enjoyed the nice weather this morning.  We headed for Ace Hardware. Barry needed a bolt for the Jeep. A bracket that holds the break line to the left front tire fell off somewhere. We also were able to find a taller step for getting in and out of the coach. This Ace Hardware was awesome. It had all kinds of stuff and was a pretty large store. I wish our Ace was like this.                                                                                                                                                                                                    Next was the Railroad Museum. It was only $6 a piece. The whole rail yard and area is the museum. It was constructed between 1905-06. The railroad to Ely was built to serve the

09-22-21 Wednesday Mt. Rushmore Trip Day 22        Ely KOA Journey Ely, NV Site # 20 Jeeps in Campground: 7 Drive Time: 4 hours Miles: 240 Some facts we've learned on this trip: Dollar stores are popular across the west, even in the smallest town: Family Dollar, Dollar General, Dollar Store Bales of hay are stored round instead of rectangle. I read somewhere they wrap them in some form of plastic then the rain rolls off easier and keeps them dryer. The things you look up and learn when you're on the road.  Thousands of farms across the west grow alfalfa Cement trucks are built backwards The stars are brighter in the desert                  Our drive today was I-15 south then west on US-6. which took us across the flat desert. Miles of sagebrush and large areas of sand. Once in a while we would see a clump of trees and a house in the middle. It's hard to imagine what people do for a living in the tiny towns across these plains. Seems like it would be a very lonely existence.

09-21-21 Tuesday Mt. Rushmore Trip Day 21  Elderberry Family Farm  Payson, UT I forgot to mention a few things about Rangely, CO in my post last night. I found it to be an interesting place.  Rangely’s motto is “Way outside ordinary!”, which I think is weird. As you drive west out of town you start to notice oil derricks for miles. All the oil fields are owned by Chevron. Per Wikipedia today, Chevron drilled their first deep oil well in 1931. It currently has 406 producing wells. There is rock crawling parks, 9 hole golf course, Kennedy Reservoir, miles of BLM dirt raids , biking and hiking. The town is very run down but the local Mexican restaurant was excellent. There giant margarita is only $8.50.  The beautiful color brochure we received at our camp ground gives you a lot of information for outdoor activities as mentioned earlier. Other outdoor activities include bow and rifle hunting. The brochure is a little misleading but the town needs all the help it can get.  We would not sta