Lassen Volcanic National Park, Lake Tahoe, Reno, and the Loneliest Highway in America!

On July 22nd, we made a quick visit to Lassen Volcanic National Park then made our way to our hotel in Reno, Nevada. 

We lived in Las Vegas for the first two years of Brady's life, and Reno reminded us so much of the Summerlin area. We had a rest/non-travel day in Reno. We made a quick trip over to visit Lake Tahoe--it was gorgeous but prohibitively busy with minimal parking since it's so residential. 

Lake Tahoe was a bit of a bust for us, but all was right in our world because we got our laundry done & got to go to Cheesecake Factory for dinner!

On July 24th, we made our way out of Reno via "the loneliest highway in America" also known as Nevada Highway 50, and we can vouch that it was in fact quite lonely! We stopped in Austin, Nevada for a roadside picnic & then made our way to our hotel in Ely, Nevada for the night.

As we made our way out of Alaska and through Canada, Washington, Oregon, California, and then Nevada, not only was the landscape ever-changing but so were the road signs. We started with seeing wildlife warnings for moose, which then moved to bison, elk, deer, and cattle. I think Utah won the award for the most cattle guards on the road! We saw signs to not pass snow plows, signs for areas to pull off the road to put on/take off snow chains, signs for volcano & tsunami evacuation routes, warning signs for floods & dust storms (we actually spotted a few dust devils along the way!)...we have seen so, so much! My least favorite signs are the ones indicating curvy roads, sharp turns, falling rocks, and truck roll-over risk. It's certainly been an adventure!