More from Ely…

It was July and on the 4th was the parade; I made sure to bike down the few blocks I needed to go to find a spot along the parade route to enjoy it. Chose the city park with all it’s shade trees to hang out at. Kind of your typical small town parade with antique vehicles, HS band, some town locals like the mayor, local businesses sponsoring small floats…but few fancy floats. It was in the mid 70’s so very comfortable. Lots of candy was tossed to the kiddies…

Kinda fun watching all the older vehicles parade by…

There were lots of the quad type vehicles around the area so not a surprise to see an entire club with a 100 or so of them parade by. And there were the motorcycle clubs too. I think many of them were from out of town.

Well, that was fun. I found the after parade staging area but boy it cleared out fast so I didn’t get any closeup pics of the antique cars.

And here’s a shot of my nice RV parking spot…shade was great for much of the day, but one of the tree’s big branches over the front of the RV sort of blocked the satellite. Especially when the wind blew. The park owner told me he’d paid $10,000 to have the trees trimmed the year before. They did do a good job, it’s just that one branch could have been whacked off a bit more.

A few days later, decided to head out to the Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park. It’s 30 miles SE of Ely and though most of the way is paved highway, the last several miles it’s gravel. The car needed a bath when I got home. It was a bit overcast but certainly warm enough for sightseeing.

As you can see, this area is a high desert but there were many thousands of trees here in the valley at one time, but they were all cut down to feed the charcoal ovens. I’m not exactly sure how much of the valley was covered by trees, but this area was at one time. They’re encouraging them to return of course. The mine these ovens assisted was way up on the hilltop. I didn’t go up there. But it was a large town at one time. It’s over there in one of those saddles where the snow is on those peaks in the picture below. I could have driven up there to take a look at that ghost mine and town, maybe I’ll do that the next time I’m in Ely.

Kind of interesting. There were some trails to hike too so I did that while I was there.

It is fun here. Enjoyed hiking around the place. Like I mentioned before, that ghost mine and town is up there somewhere. I think in that right saddle where the snow is.

Started running into these blossoms. Seems the desert was in bloom in JULY.

Started following the trail above the ovens but it seemed to meander around aimlessly.

Way off in the distance was a small community of people who settled here in the past. I decided I’d try to visit over there on my way out of the park. I’d seen a cafe sign along the road as I came in and I love old out of the way cafe’s.

Then took the other loop trail that headed down to the stream…

More flowers…

Here we go. A nice little stream. Has water all year round I’d wager…based on the fact that we’re at 7,000 odd feet here and there’s still snow up in the hills. In July.

I could tell that this little stream sometimes over tops the banks.

There’s fish in here, or so they say. I thought I took a better picture here where the stream makes a sharp left turn and has cut and eroded most of that dirt hillock away. Guess not. I was standing on the small bridge that crosses the creek. The trail heads up to the campground. I was thinking of going up there to check it out for future reference but decided my knees needed a rest instead so headed on back to the car.

The creek meanders off into the valley. Leaving a line of trees along it’s banks.

And off in the distance, another rocky valley. Probably another stream over there.

Enjoyed the visit and the hikes I took. Was feeling a bit hungry after the hiking so was ready to stop at that little cafe and have some pie maybe? Or soup? Or cheese sammich?

And here’s the cafe with a Bud Light sign in the window. When I drove up there was a guy sitting on a log looking all dejected near here. I talked to the old lady and she tells me that because her husband was battling cancer she didn’t have the time to run the cafe and care for him too so she’d had to close. They hadn’t taken the street sign down yet.

And then as I pulled away the dejected guy came over to talk to me. Turns out he’s from Europe and was hitchhiking and backpacking around the US. Seemed as though the trailer behind this gals property had meth heads living in it, but was home to someone the traveler had met on the road and they became pals. And traveled together for a while. The friend of the traveler had brought him here to rest for a night or two and it seemed normal at first, and then the guy left. The traveler was suppose to leave the next day and head north. When he went outside for a smoke, the meth heads locked him out. His backpack with all his stuff in it was inside and they refused to let him in to get it. He’d been trying to get them to let him have his stuff so he could leave for several hours when I showed up. He asked and I agreed to give him a ride up to Ely, but first we drove back to their trailer (grungy, probably 40 years old with trash everywhere, painted blue) and wait while he tried one last time to get them to let him in for at least 10 minutes to gather his stuff. I heard him loudly talking to them through the door. They just would not open the door or give him his stuff. He tried front and back of the trailer. The old lady came by and banged on the door while yelling at them too. Wow. Meth heads.

The sheriff was on his way, but he’d already told the guy it would be better if he waited over in Ely while they took care of it. Because they knew what and who they were dealing with and didn’t want him there interfering, and he didn’t want to just hang around there in the desert standing by the road or sitting on a cactus. Plus they’d likely have to break down the door so there would be a bunch of them and gathering them all together out here in the boondocks miles from anywhere was going to take some time.

He and the sheriff already had a plan that the traveler would head for the Motel 6 in Ely and wait for the sheriff to bring him his stuff. At least that’s the story as I understood it. The old lady vouched for the guy so I gave him a ride to the Motel 6. Don’t know if he ever got his stuff back but he would be in a world of hurt if they ruined everything. Which I wouldn’t put past them. They likely stole all his money and IDs. His passport was in his backpack too. He is from Europe somewhere and was just traveling around the US checking it out. Not a good impression.

BTW, the cafe from the outside really looked like a wreck…I would not have eaten there even if she was open. Yuk.

So that’s all for today. Hope you enjoyed your tour of the ovens. Thanks for reading!