Highway 395, the Silver State, a slippery small block, and other good stuff…

So my girlfriend and I are in northern Nevada tonight…we’re staying in Minden, which is in the Carson Valley.   We rode up in the Corvette on Highway 395.  It’s the same road Arlene took on her California Scooter ride last month, and it’s one of the great ones.   Actually, it’s also one of my favorites.

Carson Valley is a nice area with wonderful roads.  I first became familiar with it when doing some work with North Sails, an outfit that manufactures sails for ocean racing yachts. 

Sylvain, outrunning the serpents while setting the 150cc world speed record

Carson Valley is also where I met my good buddy J, who you all know well from the Baja trip.  J is a friend of the CSC family, and in addition to providing super support in Baja, J helped CSC at the MSILSF speed trials (when Sylvain Binau set the world 150cc speed record on a California Scooter) and at the International Sportsmen’s Expo in Sacramento.  He’s a good guy.

We just got back from a great dinner at Saletti’s with J, Cathy, and John.   I go back a long way with John and Cathy, too.  John and I worked together at a company that manufactured aeriel refueling equipment, and then at another company that manufactured main rotor blades for the Apache helicopter.  Cool stuff.

Susie and I arrived a little earlier than I had planned, so we stopped in Genoa.  Genoa is the first recorded settlement in all of Nevada, and it’s specialty is antiques.  Lots of photos in that town, folks, and the photos that follow show just a few of them.   

First, though, check out how I spent my day…tooling up to Minden on the 395, skirting the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada Mountains…and yep, that’s snow you see off in the distance…

Arlene had the right idea when she made this run last month on her CSC motorcycle.  I want to do it on my California Scooter.  It’s on my list.

My car averaged exactly 28.0 miles per gallon on the run up here, which ain’t too shabby for a 12-second, 405-horsepower, 173-mph rocket ship.   American engineering.   It’s still the best in the world.  Just like my California Scooter…designed and built in the USA.

On the way up, Susie and I stopped in Lone Pine for a cup of coffee, and then again in Bishop to check out the Galen Rowell gallery.   Galen Rowell’s skills with a camera are still almost incomprehensible.  He was one of the best nature photographers there ever was.  If you happen to find yourself in Bishop, folks, you gotta stop in to see the photography on display in the Mountain Light Gallery.  

I’m no Galen Rowell, but I grabbed a few shots today, and here they are…

This poor butterfly and the critter next to it caught an inadvertent Corvette ride up the 395

A bike taking a break in Genoa, Nevada, earlier this afternoon

A former Genoa resident, perhaps? This was on display in an antique shop in Genoa...

Hmmmmm.....

This was in front of one of the Genoa antique shops

Genoa hats...

The scenery on the way up was great.  In addition to the magnificent 395, the Marine Corps has a mountain training base up here, and we were treated to an impromptu air show as we saw several Marine combat helicopters being put through their paces.  Cool stuff.

That’s it for now.  Tomorrow it’s on to the loneliest highway in America.  Gonna be fun…