October 4th.  Decided to forego another hike at Great Basin and headed for Ely where we showered, did laundry and watched Ryan’s sermon on Facebook.

October 5th.  Drove straight through to Winnemucca Nevada.  Had a wonderful dinner out and did a lot of grocery shopping.
October 6th.  Left for the Royal Peacock Mine to do some digging.  We stopped on the way at the diner in Denio Nevada for the most delicious hamburger.  The diner in Denio is just about all there is in Denio.  There are a lot of huge ranches in this area.  After lunch we headed for the mine which is on a dirt road 15 miles off the main highway.  It 15 miles of washboard.  So, it was a long very slow and bumpy 15-mile ride.

October 7th.  Got up early and prepared to find the motherload.  The motherload escaped us but we did a lot of digging, got very dirty, dusty, and tired.  Lauresa found some gems, now if we only could find out what they are!
October 8th. Drove out to the campground, I think it is called Virgin Valley.  It was only 15 miles on the washboard dirt road, and it is free camping.  There is also a hot spring and hot spring showers.  It is just a really nice place to camp.  Last year we went on several hikes here.

October 9th. Drove down to Denio and had another delicious hamburger and drove into Oregon to the Steens Mountain Campground for a few days of exploration.  Rude awakening!!! Oregon is still under Kate Brown’s silly covid scare and everybody wears masks.  It was such a relief to spend times in other states where common sense was more prevalent.

October 10th.  Woke to a brilliant sunrise, which sometimes means a change in the weather.  We haven’t seen rain the whole trip with the exception of 4 drops in the Wind River Canyon of Wyoming.  I spoke too soon.  Rain drops started and when we were through with breakfast it was pouring.  So, instead of exploring we drove into Burns Oregon and got groceries and fueled up and got DEF for the truck.  That finished we took a long about way back to camp.

October 11th.  Had breakfast while watching Ryan’s sermon, then headed up Steens Mountain.  The road was in good shape until we hit snow at the top.  Helped some people who were stuck and then headed down the south side.  After reaching level ground with 20 miles to go to the pavement, I have never driven a more horrible road.  4 miles an hour was a good average if you didn’t want to bounce off the road.  I have never seen wash boarding that bad.  I think it didn’t help that vehicles were traveling very fast on it.

October12th.  Left Steens and headed into Burns for fuel, groceries, and propane.  Took the highway east towards Ontario Oregon.  What a beautiful drive.  Canyons, ranches, and then towards Ontario farms.  Onions, sugar beets, corn, and of course alfalfa.  What beautiful ground when water is available.  Turned up the snake and stayed in Weiser Idaho.

October 13th.  Drove up along the Snake River and down into the canyon and crossed the river just below Brownlee Damn and drove several miles alongside the river on Grant County PUD owned road to just before Oxbow Damn and then drove into a small town called Halfway where we fueled up and Lauresa found a cute store that made interesting knick knacks.  Then backtracked to a road that went up to the Snake River Canyon Overlook.  After climbing for a while, we came to the overlook and it was so socked in that we didn’t see much.  While dropping down we found a side road that wound down through a valley for 30 miles or so to Imnaha, Oregon.  This valley had several ranches and beautiful green pastures and irrigated fields.  From there we ended up in Joseph Oregon and the Oregon State Park at Wallowa Lake.