Thursday, October 3 Through Friday, October 4, 2019
Taking US-395 south of Susanville California, Honey Lake appears on the left. The highway follows the lakes shoreline for several miles. Without warning, a lone songbird flies into our windshield. It bounced up and then we heard the bird ricochet between the camper and the truck.
At a later stop, my worst fears were confirmed. The poor bird didn’t survive the collision.
US-395 runs along the California-Nevada border. At first, the highway ran mostly in California. Then later, the highway ran in Nevada. At I-80, we turned east and drove through Reno Nevada. Reno traffic was heavy in places but it wasn’t bad. East of Reno, we turned south on NV-439 and climbed past a number of huge warehouses. NV-439 which took us to US-95A (Alternate).
US-95A ends at US-95 where we continued south. Before Hawthorne, as we were passing the Hawthorn Army Depot to the east of the highway, there was a sign on the right announcing that this was the “World’s Largest Munitions Depot.” The depot dominates the desert landscape around Hawthorne.
The Whiskey Flats RV Park turn was within a few miles of the army depot sign. We were impressed by how well the park looked for being in such an arid desert landscape.
A number of trees had been strategically placed in and around the campsite to give the landscape an inviting form. The landscaping hid the barren nature of the surrounding area.
Checking in went quickly. The office staff were friendly.
The paved campsite was spot on level. There was plenty of spread out room between sites. The trees, watered by drip irrigation, were provided some shade.
No cable TV. There were plenty of OTA (Over-The-Air) TV channels including our favorite, ION. The park WIFI worked well early in the afternoon and stopped working at all by 7:00 PM after everyone had arrived.
The on-site laundromat had four top loader washing machines with four matching dryers.
The restrooms and showers were clean and worked well.
Our AT&T phones showed we were on “Extended Network” meaning it wasn’t AT&T’s network. Therefore, no data but the phone and texting continued to work. Verizon, on the other hand, did have their own network. The mobile hotspot data was bursty but we were able to use that for Internet access in the evening after the park WIFI bogged down.
In the afternoon, we drove a short distance to the local Hawthorne Nevada Safeway grocery store. Good store. We were able to find everything we needed.
This is a good overnight park. We would stay here again.
Hope to see you on the road ahead!