A little more travel

We're in Fernley, NV this week. I helped Mom drive to Shawna's, her grandaughter. We drove up through Pahrump, Tonopah and Death Valley. It's an amazing journey, kind of a walk back through time. The layers peel back to the 50's, then the 30's, and into the 1880's mining culture. Strip down the land to the bare bones, literally. There are no trees, very little vegetation. The colors of the mountains range from subtle cream to orange, rust, yellow, blue. There is nothing on them to mask the geology, the creation of the world here. As we drove along, the mountains are raw, rough and look like the land was just yanked up from the ground, the rocks run vertical from the ground straight up into the sky, too new to even be broken down by the wind and rain. Well, wind, there really isn't rain here, or water. The little mining towns have rough shacks that are falling into total disrepair. Many of the small towns are abandoned, the ones still surviving are rough and dry. I'm so impressed with the people that manage to make and a living and survive there.

Fernley is much more stable, they are heavily influenced by the mining industry but right on the interstate, so there's more work here. Shawna and Roger have a beautiful family, home and life, it's so much fun to hang out with them.

Saturday Shawna drove us to Sacramento to see Aunt Barbara, her kids Jerryne, Keith, and the other Haines cousins, Steve and Dan. It was awesome! Barbara is doing OK, we visited her Saturday afternoon, then went to Jerryne's. Keith brought his family over and we had a great visit all afternoon, then went to Black Angus for dinner. Our cousin Dan works there, so we got to see him and his brother Steve there. We had a big, noisy dinner with 4 kids and 6 adults.