Thursday, March 13, 2026
Well, we might peak over our shoulder a time or two, but we are leaving Reno for good.
We have been coerced, er, asked nicely by our kids to move closer to them. We understand as we are pushing old age pretty hard. Most kids live in Kali-Fornia so moving there is out of the question. The alternative is Tennessee to live close to our daughter. We found a nice house and closed escrow last week so off to Tennessee we go!
It’s not easy leaving good friends and neighbors. We’ve done so much with them over the 12 years that we lived in Reno. We’ve invited all of them for a visit to our house and a short jaunt down to Nashville.
The movers came 4 days ago to pack everything that Jil and I didn’t pack. We had a lady help pack the house and the garage. She’s employed by our realtor and she was so good at helping us. On March 10 the movers came and loaded everything into the van. That part was both frustrating and comical. Jil was cleaning the house as the mover were taking everything out to the van. Jil would turn her back on her cleaning supplies and it would disappear. This happened multiple times. The house got cleaned in spite of the movers!
So we packed up our coach and left our home of 2.5 months, the Gold Ranch RV Park. We had a good site to walk the dogs. I checked the liquids and tire air pressure.Jacks up, air up, hoses disconnedted and stored, power cord stored- check. The Cummins is fired up and off we go. The ramp to I80 is close. We head east and before you know it we’ve passed downtown Reno and Sparks and head out into the country. We head south zig zagging over hills and near row crops in the flats near Yerington. We leave highway 95A and join highway 95, the main north/south in these parts. We pass the Paiute Rez at Shurz and head south towards Hawthorne. We are very much in the desert yet water is very much available.
We pass Walker Lake which measures 11×5 miles. Its a hangout for mountain sheep with steep cliffs on the west side of the lake. A little farther south signs warn of wild horses.
We come to our destination for the night, Whiskey Flat RV Park in Hawthorne, 3118 souls. The town is guarded by 11,239 Mount Grant. Hawthorne is the seat of Mineral county and the Hawthorne Army Depot is the primary economic base of the town.
The depot covers 147,000 acres and has 600,000 square feet of storage. It’s the world’s largest depot. The munitions are to be used after the first 30 days of major conflict.
Tomorrow we’ll be heading off to a place we’ve never been, Caliente Nevada and nearby Kershaw Ryan State Park.
Beautiful sunset over Mt. Grant
Travel With Jil and Mike 