Tuesday September 22, 2015 Sunflower Flat Homestead near Mountain City Nevada
I put my chair in the van and was ready to head out this morning. Marty said he was going to see if his gas leak at the carburetor was still fixed or not. He checked it and said it was squirting out a steady stream of gas, so I got my chair back out while he proceeded to repair it again.
I took a picture through his window of him working on the leak.
About that time a big white dog came into our camp which we knew to be part of the sheep operation here that we saw when we arrived yesterday. It sniffed our hands and took off. Eventually we could hear lots of sheep coming down for water and then they headed back up the hill which went right past us. There were over a thousand of them.
It turned out there were two of these dogs and this one was a bit friendlier and eventually came back for a pet and hung around until all the sheep finally left the area.
Marty sealed the leak again with Rector Seal and then started the engine for a test. It held so we took off up the road headed for our next destination, which was Owyhee, Nevada for some gas and supplies at the tribal store.
We went over Maggie’s summit which takes us by the Auto Parts gang which is by one of the houses we pass.
The valley opens up after the gang and it looks like this as we traveled along.
Tribal store
We fueled up at the tribal store and got some supplies and a couple washers at the hardware store that might help fix the gas leak if it starts leaking again.
From there we traveled back south to Mountain City and took the first left, a national forest road just out of town.
We had to wait for these cows to clear the road so we could pass. They acted like they owned the road, but they did finally get it going.
We stopped here for a short break before continuing on.
This is called Point of Rocks where we stopped for a break.
We turned off the main road by Point of Rocks and headed for the old homestead I know about up here which was to be our camp for the night.
Old Homestead
This is the old homestead were we are camped for the night.
And here is one of our views from the homestead looking west as the sun was setting for the day.
The homestead sits on a hill above the beaver pond area which looks like this.
Walk to the beaver pond
Since the sun was going down it was cool enough for a little walk down to the beaver pond. We walked around the edges where we could, where it was dry enough not to get wet.
Sounds like dinosaurs
We couldn’t go very far as things were a bit swampy around the pond, so we went back on the road and walked down it a short distance where we spotted these big birds. I think they are some kind of cranes. They were making some neat clucking sounds. Between their noises and all the cows bellowing to get together for the night, things sounded a bit like what we imagined it sounded like in the dinosaur age.
Three cranes, a family I think. They were feeding in the grasses and seem to like to roost here for the night as I saw them here the last two times I was here.
Our camp for the night
This was our camp site for the night by the old homestead. It’s always fun to think about what it would have been like living here in the old days and going through the winters.
As it got dark, it got cold so we didn’t stay out too long and retired to our vans for the rest of the night.
We will only stay here tonight and then move on to Scott’s ranch sometime tomorrow morning.
The fuel leak
Oh, Marty checked the fuel line leak and so far it’s holding. We’ll check it again in the morning when it’s cold just to be sure.
Nice day.