Virginia City, NV, Pony Express Station & Cold Springs

Virginia City, NV., home of the Comstock load of gold and silver. To bad it's mostly been mined, I could use some to finance these travels. We drove the "loneliest highway" US 50 and 6 Mile Canyon Rd., to get to our destination. When they say lonely, trust them, they mean it! Miles and miles of nothing. A lot of flat straight road that goes on and on and on and......

The drive through 6 Mile Canyon to Virginia City was nice. The road was good and not straight. The scenery was nice also. No pictures though as there was no place to pull off. Arriving in Virginia City was definitely an uphill event, but the ole Ford made it OK.

These pictures show the main street, the first looking south and the second looking north. In the second picture, the building in the foreground are original buildings to the town. The rest of the town was rebuilt after a fire destroyed almost 2000 structures (including outhouses - lol), so they are about 20 years younger.





What's the use of going to a western town if you can't visit the jail - right? There are no side walks in town, only boardwalks and I swear some of the boards are as old as the town. Walking on the boardwalks really gives you a more true feeling of how it was back then.





The picture of the lady in the dress is unique as the dress and outline of the frame is made up of all silver dollars. I didn't count them, but believe me, there were enough that I could retire - wait, I am retired - haha. It was something to see for sure. There was also a wedding chapel in the same building and we were told that Captain & Tennile (not sure of the spelling) were married there. What ever floats your boat, didn't look like much to me. The building in the second picture is the old firehouse, now a museum with lot of old equipment in it.



I recommend visiting Virginia City if your ever nearby. There are a lot of the old saloons still in town with plenty of loose slot machines. Of course that made me happy and no I am not a gambling addict! Just enjoy having a little fun on the machines, especially when I win.

Today we drove east on the "loneliest highway" US Hwy 50 to find the Pony Express station. We found a building that told about the Pony Express after driving about 60 miles. What a big disappointment that was. We continued on to Cold Springs for a cold drink and ended up eating lunch there. When we parked we noticed a Navy helicopter parked in the field behind the building. When we went inside, there were three Navy personnel, having lunch. Well, we figured if it was good enough to fly to for lunch, then we better try it also. We both had very good BLT's and fries. Had we know how big the sandwich was we would have split one. We talked the the Navy guys and they said that they were on a mission. I had heard that a helicopter had crashed on Tuesday night and they confirmed it and said that they were part of the search and rescue mission, but in this case there was no rescue as all five on board died. I asked if they knew the cause and they said that it had run into a power line. How sad...

Here is the "Pony Express" station.....



The Cold Spring Restaurant, Gas Station, Motel & RV park.....Helicopter in field on the left.....



Close up of helicopter....crash site is behind the hills in the background.



Driving to the Pony Express station we drove over a salt pond, one of the largest that we've seen. This picture is coming back looking west and trust me it goes on and on around the bend it the road.....



Tomorrow is cleaning day - the outside of the MS which needs it very bad, and inside as well. Sunday will be get ready to move as we leave Fallon NAS on Monday. It has been a very enjoyable stay here and will certainly keep this base in mind if we ever come this way again.