The Merry Month of May

Is quickly slipping away...

No, don't go...

Not yet.

It seems as Spring has just arrived here in Nevada

And now Summer is lurking over the horizon. 

We still have one more short trip planned this month for Reno.

To celebrate a special birthday with some shopping, gaming and dining...

But in the mean time our days are full of work, homeschooling, 

Cooking, netflixing, dreaming and stargazing...
We are in a good cycle right now of living where we have a
Healthy balance of work and play.
My sweetheart finds satisfaction in his nursing career out here in the desert
As time seems to stand still...

We plan more magical adventures and

We celebrate a special milestone with our son

Who has now joined the ranks of official teenager! 

I love this kid so much! 

Happy 13th Birthday Spencer!

Wild Horse State Recreation Area Day 2

The Wild Horse State Recreation Area was such a good camping trip
 that it deserves 2 blog entries.
After a good nights sleep in the cold dry desert we woke to another beautiful day.
The morning brought another campfire with coffee, bacon, and pancakes.
There is no water or electricity at the camp sites,
but they have these water spigots located through out...

After breakfast, we ventured off to the visitor center.

I had my Nevada State Passport Booklet stamped

and we were given some good advice for wildlife viewing.

"Drive across the highway...
then drive 1 mile on a dirt road...
turn left on the next dirt road...

 then go 17 miles til you reach the hwy... ok?"
So, we followed the directions and we drove through some hills
 and came to a stop in a lush green valley. 

where we encountered 2 playful antelope...

They ran toward us and stopped, ran across the road in front of us...

And stopped, lol...

Back and forth...

Such beautiful creatures, so wild and free... 

Then they galloped away across the meadow...

We drove into another summit and stopped to take pictures when we noticed the tracks...

Coyotes...

Following the antelope...

Our drive took us all through the desert and finally to the highway...

Then we drove through Mountain City, NV

Such a sad forgotten small town.
no pictures... just too sad.

Then onto Owyhee Nevada and the Duck Valley Indian Reservation

Home of the Braves

Here's their grocery store and gas station...

We stopped and refueled and drove on into Idaho!
Just for a few miles we were in mountain time, lol

We turned around and headed back into Nevada. 
We stayed on the highway all the way back to the campground making a few stops along the way...

to see the amazing rock formations...

And to get a better look at the wild horse dam...

Such a good camping trip! 

This crazy travel life never stops amazing us.

We cherish these good days and we are so thankful for our adventures in Nevada.

Wild Horse State Recreation Area Day 1

Oh my goodness we are crazy campers right now!

We loaded up our gear and headed out to the high desert north of Elko, NV

Wild Horse State Recreation Area

http://parks.nv.gov/parks/wild-horse-state-recreation-area/
This state park has great clean facilities even though we are right in the middle of no where.
Literally, we were the only campers here.

Where do I even start to describe this area?

 It's like a scene from an old Wild West movie...and we are in it!

We enjoyed our stay and would definitely return here someday.

Our campsite was very secluded with a picturesque view of the Lake and snow capped mountains.

We spent the night alone with only the ducks and geese on the water...

Coyotes howling in the distance.

Rabbits and squirrels scurrying around after dark in the cold stillness of the desert.

We set up our camp and the winds picked up so we took advantage of the situation...

We flew kites!

Steve and Spencer flew a Spider-Man kite for a long time...

Then Spencer played with a batman glider...
which flew pretty well, by the way, lol.

We had a blow up transformer kite too.

The wind was perfect and it was a good relaxing afternoon.

We took a short hike down to the water...

Stopping to smell the wildflowers along the way...

Beautiful desert springtime blooms nestled between the sage...

Then the evening coolness set in and Steve built us a fire...

and of course we made S'mores...

I also made sage bombs for burning...

and we enjoyed a wonderful evening in the high desert, 

sitting around the campfire smelling the wild sage and smoke.

Then darkness came and we settled into our warm tent for a cold night's sleep...

I'll blog more about Day 2 and the wild antelope soon...

South Fork Recreation Area

Well, this is something we haven't done in a while. 

CAMPING

Real tent camping near Elko, Nevada at
South Fore State Recreation Area
http://parks.nv.gov/parks/south-fork-state-recreation-area/
It's a Nevada State Park.

So nice to get out in the wide open and just camp, make a fire, cook, and enjoy the views...

The Ruby Mountains behind and the reservoir in front of us!

We bought a new tent... Super easy assemble.

We also picked up lots of new gear for the cool Nevada desert.

Just what we needed since we wore out the old tent
and the rest of our supplies are in storage in Texas.

Nevada camping is different.

 So much cooler...very few bugs too.

Our site had these cute little ground squirrels running around...

providing some much needed entertainment!
There was also some rabbits that scampered around too,
we referred to them as the elusive "white rabbit"...

I wanted to follow them to wonderland, but it was not meant to be... lol

Saturday morning we drove up to the summit in the Ruby Mountains!

Really beautiful...

And we found SNOW at the summit!

in May...

This area is breathtaking, especially since it is in the middle of the desert...

and very peaceful...

The campgrounds in the ruby mountains are still closed for the season...

 but we would like to make another trip out here this summer.

We continued on a lazy drive through the Lamoille Canyon.

We stopped along the way at some of the lookouts.

beautiful views one

after the other...

Then we picnicked...

Near a river...

Went on a nature walk...

breathed in some sagebrush...

found some caterpillars...

and this interesting moth.

Back at the campground we had a storm come up that cut our trip short.
We were just getting ready to start our campfire
when 35 mile an hour winds blew in so we decided to pack up and leave.

But the night before we built a fire...

We enjoyed it and it brought back lots of memories of all our past camp outs.

We talked about them together...
the differences in camping in Nevada vs Texas

Reminiscing about Texas and all those we have camped with through the years...

Good memories my friends!