First stop: Ely, Nevada

We packed the car, made Kiki (dog) cozy and headed out for a road trip. We like road trips. The itinerary was pretty straight forward - drive to Florida and back! We were going to visit family and friends along the way. So we jumped in the Subaru and headed out from Ennis. First stop - Ely, Nevada.

Ely is know for 2 things - the penitentiary and the train museum. We visited one of them. If you are ever visit Ely, don’t. In all fairness, it’s not that bad - we had a great Mexican dinner and the train museum is really great, seriously. If you are a train buff, it’s a must see.

From Ely we drove to LA the next day. Along the way we saw parts of Nevada we had never been to before. Desolate doesn’t begin to describe the drive from Ely to Tonopah. We would drive for miles without seeing another vehicle or for that matter any sign of life. It is quite beautiful in a way that the high desert is really pretty. Long expanses of valley floor punctuated by beautiful mountain ranges mile after mile.

From Tonopah we headed southwest and were heading to the northeastern entrance of Death Valley. What an amazing place Death Valley can be. Windy, hot, cold, desolate, unforgiving, beautiful and kinda scary all wrapped up into vistas that seems to change by the hour. Amy nor I had every been to Death Valley and we would like to go back some time and drive the length and maybe spend a couple of days (in the winter).

Climbing out from the valley floor was a terrific drive as you wound up and over the western boarder mountain range that is spectacularly rugged. The route was simple as we drove the northeast to southwest diagonal through Death Valley on our way to Ridgecrest California and then into the LA Basin.