September's Big Adventure -- Nevada Overnighter

For Labor Day weekend we headed to eastern Nevada for a quick overnight adventure. There were two main events of the trip. First: 

"Champagne & Stars" Train Ride
One of the main reasons we headed to this area of Nevada for the weekend was because I had heard amazing things about the Northern Nevada Railway rides.  They are generally sold out a whole year in advance, and it's considered one of the "railroad rides of a lifetime."  It's so close, we had to do it.  So...

 

We booked it and headed out.  The name really explains it all.  It's a train ride out to see the stars, with complementary champagne to make it a bit extra special. We took off at dusk, and rode in an open car on a historic passenger railroad pulled by century-old steam engines. It went very slowly, but that's okay because we were there for the scenery, not to get somewhere. AND we were drinking champagne on a moving train.  

Here's a panorama shot of our open train car en route:

 

The ride was kinda fun, kinda overrated. This part of Arizona has some of the darkest skies in the United States, so we did get to see A LOT more stars than we ever do back home. Truthfully, I probably enjoyed the ride and star-gazing more than Jac did:

 

But it was still fun nonetheless. And both of us really enjoy roaming the railyard before the ride started (including some cool but accidental trespassing into no-go areas!)  Here's some shots of our railyard explorations:

Great Basin National Park
The second big event of our trip was visiting Great Basin National Park (a first for both of us.)  While there we went on a cool cave tour:

Then drove up the main mountain -- Wheeler Peak...

...stopping part way up to have one of Jac's delicious canister lunches, with a view:

On the way down, Amelia hit an all time record (so far), recharging her electric batteries up to 80% just by capturing the downhill energy.  We were very, very excited about this...maybe our favorite part of the trip, lol. :)

In addition to these main sites, we squeezed in a few little extras:
I saw the salt flats for the first time. (Jac has seen it maaaaany times).

And we visited the historic Ward Charcoal Ovens, located just outside Ely.

There are six enormous, kinda-pretty beehive shaped charcoal ovens in total. They were built in the 1870s to help process silver ore that had been discovered in the area.

But, they weren't used for long though, because once the mining ended, the ovens were no longer needed (other than occasionally sheltering travelers or serving as a hideout for stagecoach bandits).  Now it's a Nevada state park. This information sign explains more about the what and why of the site:

The ovens were surprisingly large and kinda interesting to explore inside.  It was a good side trip to keep us occupied while we waited for our train departure. 

And that was our trip.  A good little weekender not too far from home. :)