Flashback Friday

Leman Caves in Nevada and traveling the loneliest highway in America.

The first time I went to Leman caves was with Dad when we were dating back in 1962. We had traveled 150 miles from Murray to Abraham but Emily, his mother, would not let us travel alone out to the caves. She sat in the back of dad's corvair and did word games. She said she was thinking of words that would be in her book that she was going to write. I think that is the only thing Emily didn't do before she died.
I found these pictures on Google earth, rather dad did, and I started remembering all the times we had traveled this road as a family going to Lemans for family reunions, pine nuting, or going on to Ely, Nevada to visit family or for funerals.
This picture is kinda of dark but I loved the sky. It is just outside Hinckley, Utah.
I loved this picture also. It is taken at the beginning of the 105 mile trip to Lemans just outside Hinckley.

That road was so straight and long. One of the sites along the way was the Sevier Lake bed. It was part of the Bonneville Lake that used to cover all of Utah way back when. It was often dry and I don't know if you kids remember driving out on it. When the flood came in 1984, because that is where all the water flowed from the Sevier it had quite a bit of water.

By now kids were restless because of how long they had been in the car. You know, don't touch me, Sid's looking at me, are we there yet? We didn't have TV's in cars, mp3 players to listen to we sang as a family all kinds of neat songs. Dad would lead us in On Top of old Smokey, another song I can't remember ended as "and throw it out the window.

Sometimes we would play 20 questions, find different shapes in the clouds. And are we there Yet? There were quite a few pictures of Notch Peak and I liked this one. Really this is looking back at Notch peak on our way home. Amsey valley is on the east side of Notch Peak.

I think Kings Canyon was the only turn in the road. There were a lot of serious accidents and deaths in this canyon. It is 60 miles to Delta and in the day's I'm talking about there were no cell phones. I think this canyon was so unexpected people forgot to slow down.

When we saw the mountains in the distance we knew we were also most there!!!!!!

Here is the border town. Half is in Nevada and half in Utah. In the Nevada half you could get your beer and play the slots. It was also a gas station. They had some pretty good week-end deals if you liked that sorta of thing. We never went but a few Deltans would head out to the border for a week-end of fun.

Then just before the turn off to the caves there was this sign saying how far it was to the next services.Here is a picture of Wheeler Peak in the distance. It was just above Leman Caves.

We camped up at Wheeler peak once in the Aspens with Grandma and Grandpa Blake. I think if my memory serves me right that we pulled our fifth wheel up that scary road behind our International Truck. When we were there for the Young Reunions we always camped in the lower camp grounds. The first year we were there for a reunion, Sid Jr was just a baby and I couldn't keep him out of the fire pits. I had a sooty child the whole time. I'm just glad they were always cold when he would crawl in.

These are just a few of the rooms we would see in the caves. I couldn't find the organ. It was cold inside no matter what time of the year you came. In the summer you had to wear a jacket to keep warm.

After all the fun of the caves then we would pile back into the car for the long, long, long road home. But it was worth it.