West Coast - Day 6

Last night was pretty rough for me, but everyone else slept well. I pumped myself full of drugs, as it appears that is the only way I will survive a vacation, and we took off down I-80 towards Reno. Our plan was to go to Virginia City, as it looked interesting from the brochures in the hotel, and possibly finish off the day in Carson City, where there is a railroad museum.

As we traveled along, the landscape became more and more desert-like, until pretty much all the plants disappeared. After lunch, Evan was tired but would not go to sleep, so he started screaming. Around that time we came upon a rest stop, so we stopped and let the boys run around and burn off some energy. I think we are reaching Evan's travel limit, as he barely lasts two hours in the car before he starts screeching, and nothing in the car will calm him down. Anyway, the rest stop was fairly interesting, as it was a bit like an oasis - green grass and trees surrounded by a desert.

It wasn't far from the rest stop to Reno, and both boys fell asleep in the middle of Reno. The road from Reno to Virginia City is absolutely insane. It is a nearly constant grade that snakes back and forth up the side of the mountain. The drive was crazy enough in a car, but we saw a couple of people riding bikes down it. We soon arrived in Virginia City, which is a old mining town that is now a big tourist attraction. We found the visitor information center and a place to park that was near the school. As the town is built on the side of the mountain, the one direction of streets have quite the grade to them, which meant we had to work hard to push the strollers up from our parking spot to the visitor center.

There, we learned that the rail excursion had been running during the day, despite the fact that the Internet had told us it did not start until May 23rd. I guess there were a couple of school tours and after they were over, they ran an extra train for anyone in town that wanted to take it. Something similar may occur tomorrow, and since Xander is very excited about trains, we're going to find out if it is running before we leave.

We then took a tour of town on a trailer with benches pulled behind a tractor, which pointed out all the main things there are to do. After that we went into a bar that had a large painting of a lady and her entire dress is covered in over 3,000 silver dollars. Our next event was a tour of a mine that had managed to discover $438 worth of gold and silver in it (and that is in 1880s dollars). The tour was cool and I think Xander liked it, but Evan spent the entire time picking up rocks off the floor and trying to shove them in my mouth. We then found a museum with a restored 4-4-0 railway engine in it, but it was closed for the day. As that museum was right beside the Ramada, we walked over to it and got a room for the night.

We returned to the main tourist part of town and went through a couple of shops, bought some fudge and some ice cream and then headed back to our hotel room for supper, as we had brought leftover pizza with us from our supper in Battle Mountain. The regular pool and bed routine followed.