Tim and I drove through the town to take photos and have a look at the historic Hotel Nevada and Gambling Hall, which was opened in 1929. It is 6 storeys high and, until well into the 1940s, was the highest building in Nevada, with one more storey than the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah. Famous guests at the hotel over the years include Ingrid Bergman, President L.B. Johnson, Evel Knievel and Tennessee Ernie Ford, the famous singer of "Sixteen Tons".
As we drove out of the town, this hoarding made us both laugh.
The road we took was typical of Nevada - long straight roads, where we could see ahead for over 20 miles at a time. We passed through very few settlements, but saw the "ghost town" we had seen on our last drive here. There are many ghost towns in Nevada, former mining towns, now mostly abandoned and in various states of dilapidation.
The road passed through deer migration routes and, to ensure the deer were not injured or killed by traffic, bridges had been built specifically for them to cross.
Jackpot, the last town in Nevada, was a most unattractive place full of awful looking casinos, such as Cactus Pete's Hotel.
There were huge hoardings trying to entice you to visit a particular establishment. This one is for the Pony Express Casino on Poker Street.
Shortly after leaving Jackpot, we crossed into Idaho.
Many cars had licence plates proclaiming Idaho's famous potatoes.
From the state line, we had about 50 more miles to go before we reached Twin Falls and the Red Lion Hotel.
Once again, it was extremely busy when we tried to check in. We realised a large proportion of guests were "eclipse-seekers". Tim and I went to a large local supermarket, WinCo, which is open 24 hours a day. In spite of stories in the news about towns close to the band of totality running out of food, water and even toilet paper, we found WinCo to be very well stocked and we bought supplies for our drive tomorrow.
We were the first to arrive, followed by Daniel and family, then Ed and Kate, who had come from Tahoe. They had driven all the way from Malibu with the 3 dogs in Ed's van. They must have been pleased to arrive! Next were Samantha, David and the girls and then, finally, Matthew, Karin and Mia, who had driven from Salt Lake City in a rented Toyota 4Runner.
The hotel on Blue Lakes Boulevard was quite basic, but absolutely fine for a 2 night stay.
We were grateful to have arrived safely and to have all the rooms we had booked. Everywhere appeared to be completely full. When we looked for a restaurant to have dinner, we realised how busy it would be, so decided to eat in separate groups rather than try to make a reservation for 16 people. As it turned out, most of us ended up in the same place, Jakers.
We were at separate tables, but most of the family seemed to enjoy their dinner. Tim and I had a very pleasant waitress called Pam, who told us they had to limit their menu to cope with the extra numbers of visitors. They seemed to manage pretty well.
We decided we should all leave the hotel at 5am tomorrow, as we have heard that it is not possible to stop by the roadside and view the eclipse. There are so many pessimistic predictions that we feel we must try to get ahead of the crowd and find our perfect spot for viewing what we hope will be a wonderful spectacle. Nobody wants to get up that early, but it has to be done. We just hope it will be worth the effort!