One of the very few disappointments we encountered during our entire trip was the next day when we went to Wells, Nevada.  For years we have been reading articles and brochures regarding Well’s historic district. 

Earthquake Devastation in Wells, NV

On the morning we turned our RV onto Wells Nevada’s historic 7^th (Front) Street we almost went into shock.  The entire “historic” side of the street was behind a wire fence and had been destroyed.  All of the buildings were vacant with walls and roofs littering the street.  Later we learned that on February 21, 2008 a 6.0 earthquake had struck just outside of town and had left not only the damaged “historic district” but had done extensive damage to the town.  We also noticed that most of the town’s businesses were closed.  It appeared that the town was dying. 

 Before leaving the Twin Falls 93 RV Park that morning, we had made reservations for the 2^nd night ahead at “an RV Park” in West Wendover, Nevada.  We had planned on spending a night in Wells but had not made reservations there, so we decided to proceed to West Wendover a day early.  The highway to the Wendover area, I-80, is basically a “mountain freeway” with lots of ups and downs and several summits in the 6,000’ range.

Enola Gay Hanger, Wendover Air Force Base

Arriving at the RV Park in West Wendover we checked in for that night in addition to the next night, which we had previously reserved and paid for.  Subsequently, we drove the RV a couple of miles over to the site of the World War II Wendover Air Force Base.  Quite a bit of the historic bomber training base is still around.  This was the base where many World War II bomber crews were trained.  The most famous of these bombers were the “Enola Gay” and “Box Car,” the B-29s that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan.

Replica of Big Boy Atomic Bomb

The base’s museum contains a history of the base and includes a model of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in World War II.Tone of the high points of the base, is the original control tower which is open to the sure footed as it looms over the base museum. The museum also has a small gift shop.

One of the things, which we had hoped to do while in Wendover, was to watch the speed runs on the Bonneville Salt Flats that were scheduled to begin the next day.  So, in order to get “a lay of the land” we took a short drive on the road leading out onto the salt flats to the area where the speed runs were to be held.  There is flat and then there is flat!

Bonneville Salt Flats

Since nothing was scheduled until the next day, we headed back to West Wendover.   Shortly after returning to the RV Park, we decided that it might be a good idea to rent a car to take out onto the salt flats the next day.  Upon checking, we discovered that due to the fact that the salt at the Booneville flats did extensive damage to the automobiles, there were no car rental agencies in the area.  And here we are already to take our “baby”, our “home away from home” out onto the vehicle eating salt flats – I think not.  We skipped our day on the salt.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 10:07 am and is filed under Yellowstone Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.