well, we made it back in one piece. and, it's hotter than hell in this house. a guy's going to come out on Tuesday to check the swamp cooler, so in the meantime we just have to suffer. brutal!
the trip was very nice. much better than i anticipated. the drive there was long, and felt every bit of the four hours it took us. Ely is a small (very small) mining town in the middle of nowhere, at the junction of Highways 50 and 93 (incidentally, Highway 50 is also known as The Loneliest Road in the America). there's not much to do there, but that was just fine with us as we could use the break from doing too much.
we went to Garnet Hill, but didn't find anything worth a damn. we then went to the Liberty Pit overlook to see the largest open pit copper mine in Nevada. the damn thing is humongous. that was pretty cool. we stopped on the side of the road a few times, so i could take some pictures of the dilapidated and rotting buildings and mine adits that abound.
on both Friday and Saturday night, the wife and i played poker in the Hotel Nevada live gaming room (the only live gaming casino in Ely) and walked away as winners on both nights. wish we could play every night!
and, lest we forget the purpose of the trip, on Saturday evening we took the Nevada Northern Railway for their Wine Train excursion. the wine was fabulous, the food was superb and we met a great couple who shared our table and with whom we talked the night away. it was a great night. the sunset over the east mountains, igniting the low-lying clouds, capped the perfect evening.
all in all, it was a great trip. we even made the drive back in just under three and a half hours. it was much needed, especially with all the stress that's coming up: the closing date on the sale of this house, moving into an apartment, starting a new job.
also, as if all of this was enough, i had ideas for three new poems, and am excited to get some time to myself (maybe later this week) to work them out of their concrete enclosure. it's been a long time since i was relaxed enough to allow the muse time to do her work.
4 comments:
Sounds great! Glad you had fun. You both deserve that. And ideas for three new poems! Yay!
I actually wrote a new one....
And the one you gave me punctuation tips for got accepted at Zygote....
The train thing sounds so fun. Something Bill would really enjoy.
i did have fun. it was a good trip.
congrats on the acceptance, and on squeezing another one out.
you should think about making a trip out this way one day. Utah is gorgeous, and there are plenty of National Parks to make it worthwhile:
Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Grand Canyon all in the same general area. all worth checking out.
Bill has always wanted to take a trip to the Grand Tetons? Did I spell that right? I have been to the Grand Canyon. There is no way to describe it. You see pictures in books and it looks beautiful...then, you see it in front of you and it's stunning...makes you speechless....
we visited the Grand Tetons (a 5 hour drive from SLC) last October. simply amazing. achingly beautiful. the poem "camping in october" from my newest book is from that time.
the Grand Canyon, too, is stunning. it's, well, uhm...grand. i know, i know, a bad joke.
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