Vamos! Through Yosemite to Tonopah, Nevada

We progress along the Yosemite speed-controlled roads with unencumbered views of the forest.  Everyone behind us has a charming opportunity to see the Bonkersmobile suspension in action.

At a viewing point we get chatting with a woman sporting a T shirt celebrating the 150 anniversary of Mendeleev’s periodic table. We will come back to this.

We do the Yosemite Valley Thing and take the obligatory photos of El Capitain.  The iPhone 12 works its usual magic on pictures taken from a moving car but in order to realise how very BIG it is you will need to look at the pictures in full-screen view with your nose pressed against the screen.

The car is not climbing well and we pull over to let traffic by. Once on the 120 we are on our own which is both comforting and un-nerving as we stagger over the Chinquapin Pass at 6,000 feet. We are in Unexplained White Stone Country.

Onwards into Unexplained Dome Country with big bald curved rock surfaces and now there are unexplained high altitude lakes and meadows.  We should really have invested in a Geological Guide To The Yosemite Park but we are cheapskate fools sometimes and so look at them and try to think intelligent thoughts.

At the lakeside photo opportunity stop we were mobbed by a couple of Steller’s Jays who know that tourists mean free food.  The Wawona Hotel was very clear that tourists are accidentally de-wilding the wildlife by offering cheap calories for less work, and indeed bears now regard coolers as handily colour-coded food containers.

Our next obstacle is the Tioga Pass which is a lovely feat of engineering as we reach 6,995 feet with no very steep slopes, although a pretty peculiar place to put a toll booth. (“The good news is that you have got a job which is half a mile from here as the Steller’s Jay flies.  The bad news is that it is 9½ miles by road.”)  We are now climbing at about 35 mph and relieved that it’s all downhill to lunch at the Tioga Pass Gas Mart.

 

At this point Sid and Doris debated going to the nearby town of Lee Vining for a garage. Sid reckoned he could nurse the car to Tonopah. That did not always feel like a good decision, and perhaps it wasn’t but, spoiler alert, we got away with it.

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A sign urges “Caution, Narrow Winding Road for next 46 miles”.  It is not narrow and by British standards it does not wind.  It goes on and on through bleak unforgiving barely-vegetated countryside with the distant hills obscured by some sort of haze.

 

[I have lots more pictures of roads disappearing off into the distance if you would like to see them – D.] And then we are in Nevada. Our new map book shows states one to a page. All the roads in Nevada are shown though the state is fourteen times the size of Wales. Just one state.

To add to the unhappiness of the palsied climbing we crest the Montgomery Pass at 7,167 feet then zoom down the other side with so much zoom that we hear clatter, tinkle, tinkle and the other front hub cap is off at about 60mph. Sid’s view is that it is gone forever. Doris goes back to look for it. There are many other hub caps but no 14 inch Fords. Sid spends the time thinking about the power loss and comes up with not enough fuel and not enough spark.

We buzz along flat roads well enough though have problems with Dips. These are sharp enough that if you try to keep up speed in a car that will not accelerate then you will bottom out the rear suspension.  They are exaggerated to a point that is inexplicable – surely they are dippier than the surrounding earth banks?  Maybe they have been pounded lower over the years??

 We see a new countryside: Columbus Salt Marsh. The whole area was once underwater and later we will see signs to to trilobite mines or some such attraction, which oddly Sid manages to resist.

Sid is very relieved to see Tonopah which had boom times mining Cu, Pb, Ag and Au. There are museums of mining and buildings from the boom times. We are going to stay in one of them but not visit the other.

Even more important the town is home to Tony’s Tonopah Garage and Hot Rod Shop. His shop has many hot rods and he is averse to working on anything after about 1980, so we are well in.

When Tony jacks up the front of the car we can see that the inside edges of the tyres have been doing all the work, which might explain why the handling is quite so poor and the steering requiring constant attention. Still, that can wait. First the going along, then the direction.

We start with the fuel filters. He knows the Fram part number off the top of his head and we go down to the factors in his wife’s car. When he finally gets the canister off we scrape out a 1/4 ounce of what look like red coffee granules. This is a pig to get at but all is put back gas tight. Happily we find a couple of loosened jubilee clips on the fuel lines and power steering. We try to insulate the fuel line from the main radiator hose which is giving us pre-warmed fuel.

Next up are the points, which have closed up from an optimal 17 thou to about 11. We take the opportunity to seat the coil wire more securely. All in all a bit over two hours, including a guided tour of the 15 or so rods and originals in the shop.

Sid goes to fill up and test the car by driving away down hill, turning around and coming back up. It is much better though we still have the weird dead spot. Something for a rolling road later on.

We are at the Belvada Hotel, newly converted from the Nevada Bank Building, decorated as for mid 19th century, and owned by the owners of the Mizpah Hotel and the brewery. This might be the town that Bob Dylan had in mind when he wrote the story and song of Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.

We share a half of ribs in the brewery and the town shuts by nine o’clock except for a few lorries trying to drive in cooler air. Sid thinks Lily and Rosemary worked later hours than that.