Winnemucca, Nevada: As the dateline reveals, the DrsC are deep into our annual autumnal migration down from the high country to lower (and warmer) climes. Our home in western Wyoming is fantastic in late spring, summer, and early fall.
However, as the year-round residents are fond of telling us, the winters at 6000 ft. are both hard and much too long. An often heard plaint is “Can I go with you?” when we announce we’re about to leave for the winter.
True, our region has a number of winter enthusiasts who love to snowmobile and ski, but it has an equal number who can’t wait for retirement so they too can join the “snowbird” migration to AZ or NV or, less often, CA.
Year-round residents in our part of WY are heavily LDS aka Mormon; and they are great neighbors. A lot of LDS seniors have a winter spot in St. George, UT, or Mesquite, NV, the latter is sometimes known as “Mormon Palm Springs.”
Wednesday we drove across eastern Idaho; the potato harvest is underway and the grain fields are golden. Yesterday we drove south and west across northeastern Nevada. The ragweed is blooming furiously and I’m sniffling with hayfever in consequence.
Tonight we’ll be in Reno, it’s “the biggest little city” no longer. Reno has metastasized, enveloping Sparks and reaching almost as far east as Fernley, south toward Carson City and north beyond the former Stead Air Force base out toward where US 395 crosses into CA.
Tomorrow night we’ll be at our winter place in northern CA, having descended from the chill of high country autumn back into very warm late summer at an elevation of perhaps 300 ft. in the space of 3-4 days. It is a little disorienting.
