{"id":12455,"date":"2019-12-27T19:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T03:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/?p=12455"},"modified":"2020-01-01T08:14:07","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T16:14:07","slug":"airplanes-sheep-t-shirts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2019\/12\/27\/airplanes-sheep-t-shirts\/","title":{"rendered":"Airplanes, Sheep &#038; T-Shirts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After missing out on my <a href=\"\/journal\/tag\/man-trip\/\">annual post-Christmas road trip last year<\/a>, I managed to procure a week off to embark on what Audrey calls the &#8220;man trip&#8221;.  These trips are always spontaneous, and since Aaron and I wanted to get lunch together the day after Christmas, this year&#8217;s trip started in Sacramento and continued to just outside of Reno before day one came to a close.  Today was day two, and things really got going:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I woke up at about 6:30 and made my way over to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tesla.com\/gigafactory\">Tesla&#8217;s Gigafactory<\/a> where I got a view of what will eventually be the world&#8217;s largest building.<\/li>\n<li>From there I headed southeast and saw what I assume were wild horses up on a ridge.  I have no idea how to distinguish wild horses from domestic horses, but if this was a domestic herd then they were roaming unfenced grasslands miles away from the nearest ranch.<\/li>\n<li>A dot on the map had caught my eye when I set out &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnic.navy.mil\/regions\/cnrsw\/installations\/nas_fallon.html\">&#8220;Naval Air Station Fallon&#8221;<\/a> &#8211; and after detouring to see what was there I got to watch fighter planes take off and land from just beyond the end of the runway.  Since it makes perfect sense that a naval air station would be located next to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Grimes_Point\">5,000 year old petroglyphs<\/a> I also got to see prehistoric rock art in between fighter launches.<\/li>\n<li>Continuing south along rural Nevada 95, I hit <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walker_Lake_(Nevada)\">Walker Lake<\/a>, the remnants of 8,500 square mile prehistoric Lake Lahontan.  It was at this point that a herd of desert bighorn sheep showed up near the road, so the next hour was spent making their acquaintance.<\/li>\n<li>Just south of the lake was the massive <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hawthorne_Army_Depot\">Hawthorne Army Depot<\/a> &#8211; apparently the world&#8217;s largest ammo depot.  There were literally miles of bunkers across the valley floor.<\/li>\n<li>By this point it was only noon.  It was inevitable that the day would slow a bit, and most of the remainder was spent meandering south through old mining towns that littered the wide open expanses of Nevada.  I passed a herd of what I assume were wild burros at one point, and arrived near sunset at Death Valley.<\/li>\n<li>After arriving at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center to buy a new park pass I saw a kid standing outside with a shirt that read &#8220;I paused my video game to be here&#8221;; it&#8217;s unclear if he was just a cool kid or if he has parents with an awesome sense of humor.<\/li>\n<li>Sadly a storm came through Death Valley yesterday and made many of the more interesting roads impassable, so instead of spending the night alone up on a ridge under the stars, I&#8217;m in a campground sharing this incredible view of the Milky Way with a hundred other folks who I can only hope will recognize that quiet hours start at 9.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-main\" src=\"\/photos\/images\/2019-12-A\/0800-walker-lake-nevada-desert-bighorn-sheep.jpg\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" alt=\"Desert Bighorn near Walker Lake, Nevada\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption\">As always seems to happen with bighorn, I was looking at every tiny detail in the high cliffs on the west side of the road when a herd popped up ten feet from the eastern side of the highway.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After missing out on my annual post-Christmas road trip last year, I managed to procure a week off to embark on what Audrey calls the &#8220;man trip&#8221;. These trips are always spontaneous, and since Aaron and I wanted to get lunch together the day after Christmas, this year&#8217;s trip started in Sacramento and continued to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2019\/12\/27\/airplanes-sheep-t-shirts\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Airplanes, Sheep &#038; T-Shirts&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,30],"class_list":["post-12455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","tag-man-trip","tag-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12455"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12502,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455\/revisions\/12502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}