Mar 19th,2006

I have been trying to do at least one trip a month. I have so many places I want to go and not enough time. Besides every once in a while I need to get out of the house. All of this and the fact that storm clouds make for better photos, its Time. Today we are going to find the Brick Kiln Springs, I figure the name means there is or was a kiln there, I found it on my Topo Map Software. It also has a place called Seymour and one call McDonald as historical sites. The campsites are Troy, Irwin and Grant City all together right close. Plus I figure to do Rachel, the best-known Alien site in Nevada, and the world for that matter.

When we left home the clouds were socked in over Vegas. By the time I went north to I-15 and 93 it started to down pour rain all the way to almost Pahranagat. I topped off the tank in Ash Springs where the sun finally came through. We turned on the Extrterrestrial Highway (375) and made our way up over Hancock Summit on the Irish Range, which turned to snow. As I looked down over the Sand Springs Valley it was all white for as far as the eye could see. We did stop at Rachel for a few good shots. Rachel is not a town of long history, it is only 26 years old, but it does have popularity with the alien crowd and well know all over. I thought it might be worth posting. As we continued on to Queen City Summit the snow faded away and everything was dry again. As we approached the Echo Canyon Reservoir, just before the Twin Springs Slough I turned east on the Railroad Valley Road. It would be thirty miles from here to the Brick Kiln Springs Site. The farther I looked the whiter everything got. The mountain range was all white with the clouds hanging low over them. The Valley floor was white as well with a low haze hanging down which made it hard to see. The haze turned out to be a snowstorm, which we drove through for about ten miles.

Brick Kiln Springs was a good idea, I think, but there was nothing to be found. Not even the spring was left to see. With the floor of the Valley flat for miles and very little sage to hide anything, I found nothing. Makes you kinda feel stupid at times, but there was always plan b. Troy is right above the springs. The mountain was one big cloud; all we could see was the base. Why not! We got most of the way up, I crossed the creek twice and figure we were about a half-mile from it. The snow was really coming down hard and it was already a foot or better deep. Then we came to the place where the road was washed out, the spring run off was deep, and we were caught besides the creek and a ten-foot drop plus the wall of the canyon. Surrounded by brush and nowhere to turn around with the slant of the road toward the creek. I had to do a Missouri about face. Everyone knows that if you try to back uphill, you will only dig in and get stuck. So I rammed the truck uphill into the brush and goosed it. We spun around almost in place and slid back into the road heading down hill now. Wesley almost lost his lunch and was not happy with my bright idea, He said something in reference to commitment papers, but it worked. We will have to come back this summer for new photographs.

Seymour was one of those historical sites that really were there. It was an old log cabin dug into the ground for about one person, not very big. I will post it and hope to find out something more about it later. Irwin Camp was almost as much fun as Troy, but I did not get far and turned around and gave up. Grant City too will have to wait till summer. We drove on to Butterfield Springs our next stop. It seems to be a ranch now but we did find a dump off the road and a few old bottles. Next stop north would be McDonald's. This is a clump of thick trees that surround a spring, not much to see.

Now we are back on highway 6 just a few miles west of Currant. Now comes the part of our trips I hate, that long drive back home. Since there are only two main roads of travel north out of Vegas, you have to drive the same ones every time. It has been a most interesting day and I got a lot of good photos of snow-covered mountains. At least I have Seymour and Rachel to post. The best part is, we had a great time, or at least I did, Wesley is still upset. Through rainstorms, snowstorms and finding a little sunlight to boot, only in Nevada can the weather change from hour to hour. And still we will have to return again to get updated photos.