If we had planned out the messenger relay stops between San Francisco and, say, Denver or Chicago, would we have put one in Winnemucca? It doesn’t have the feel of “oasis” or “tavern” — it barely feels like an elongated rest stop.
Winnemucca is 2.5 hours–as the Subaru cruises–from Reno, which is 2 hours from Sacramento, which is 2 hours from the Bay Area, which is our starting point. There are effectively only two ways out of California. You bomb south on I5 to Los Angeles, then either go “up” through Las Vegas and maybe the Grand Canyon, Zion, or Bryce and head up to Utah or “down” south of Death Valley, toward Flagstaff and Albuquerque.
Or, you head north and go through Donner Pass and down into the wide, wide, wide plain of Nevada, which is not even as interesting as the deserts of Arizona and the hills that bracket the central valley of California.
I suspect that no one has Winnemucca as an ultimate destination.
Continue reading “Summer Road Trip: Winnemucca”