This morning we drove out to Jean Dry Lake, 15 miles south of Las Vegas, to set up camp for a while.  Last night only got down to about 50 degrees, and the rest of the week is supposed to be sunny with highs around 70, which is just perfect.  M and I inflated his motorcycle tires and oiled his chain.  We also installed a front axle that came in the mail to replace the one that was missing from the original crate.  So far we’ve been using a bolt from True Value Hardware, which worked surprisingly well:

We’re all alone our here:

I had the pleasure of going out for a shortish ride, seeing where the pavement ends on the roads around the lake:

We love the desert sunsets:

We’re looking forward to spending a couple weeks out here!

This morning, for the first time on our trip, we were told to get out of a store parking lot.  While the night manager at the Albertson’s of Ashland had said last night that we could stay until 9am in the parking lot, at 6:30am the day manager knocked on our door and asked us to leave.  Good thing, too, as there were only 50 or so empty spots in the lot when we headed over to the laundromat.

While doing our laundry, we looked at the map and realized that all the roads east to our next destination, Lava Beds National Monument, require tire chains.  We picked up a pair for the rear axle of the truck and a pair for one axle of the RV and headed out.  Rather than make the crossing on Highway 66 as we did on Day 65 when we came through travelling west to Ashland, we took the slightly longer but better Highway 140 from Medford to Klamath Falls.

Right at the summit on Highway 140, the rain turned to snow.  Fortunately, we descended the other side before there was significant accumulation:

We continued southeast out of Klamath Falls, Oregon to end up on this wonderful patch on BLM land near Tulelake, California, just across the border:

Good Shabbos from near Tulelake, CA! See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.