Tuesday Sept 30 2019 to Elko

There are two goals to achieve on this road trip: go to the Barrett-Jackson Car auction in Las Vegas, and visit Sedona, AZ.

We left Boise late this morning, lunch out of the cooler at "Cove" on CJ Stryke reservoir, and arrived uneventfully in Elko about 5:00. Dinner at the Stockman and movie to see "Rambo". (This is our typical day heading south, stopping in Elko).

Weather today was clear, but chilly.

Wednesday to Beatty

Spectacular weather today! Cloudless, bright blue sky, still cool in the 40s and 50s. Its a long way across Nevada from Elko to Beatty - 350 miles. Great road, no traffic. Pit stop at Petroglyphs - its a nice little park.

We're staying in Beatty at a real old fashioned motel called El Portal, but its fine. After a brief rest we headed into Death Valley and out to Stovepipe Wells for a nice dinner at the "Saloon".  Its much warmer down in the valley - 88. Feels good!

By the time we finished dinner, it was dark. We stopped on the way back to Beatty to stare at the stars! Its really dark!

Tomorrow through the park on our way to Las Vegas.

Thursday to L.V.

Another sparkling day!  By the time got down to D.V. it would be 90; mid 80's later in L.V. Our day started with a great breakfast at this little diner in Beatty called "Mel's". Highly recommended, along with the el Portal motel.

Our first stop in the park was the gift shop at Furnace Creek. While in that complex we noticed workers demolishing the old cabins where had stayed in a previous visit.

Next stop was a quick walk at Zabriskie Point, one of the most beautiful places on the planet! From there, we drove around the Artists Palette loop then on to Badwater. We headed south out of the park, mile after mile of bleak but beautiful landscape finally arriving in Pahrump. This city has gotten quite large - lots of snowbirds winter here.

As we headed to Las Vegas, we took the loop around the spectacular Red Rock Canyon. We arrived at our LV hotel (Downtown Grand) by 6:00. (Traffic here is bad, too!)

We walked around the wild and crazy Freemont Street Experience. The ceiling show was awesome (and very loud!) Nice dinner at the Magnolia in the Four Queens.

Tomorrow we'll take a shuttle bus and/or Uber to the Mandalay Bay for the car auction!

Friday - Barrett/Jackson

After breakfast from the cooler, we took a LYFT ride over to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and found our way to the Barrett-Jackson Auction. This whole place is enormous! We paid $30 for admission and another $20 for the catalogue (which is like coffee table book!).

The hall is unbelievable! There are more than 800 cars in here! They are all organized in numbered rows which coincides with the docket sheet for the day. So if you want to look at a car that's coming up, you can find it. There are cars of all kinds - daily drivers, restorations, exotic, luxury, you name it.

This is no reserve auction which means that every single car here will be sold! The auctioneers are amazing! They don't waste any time, maybe just a couple of minutes on each car. We wonder how they will get all these cars through by the end of the day. My favorite car was a 2007 Mustang that has 150 miles on it......sold for $30,800. Sam's was a 2007 wine colored Masarati Quattroporte.

(A fews days after the auction you can log into the BJ website and find out what they sold for).

In addition to the car auction, on Thursday they have a Automobilia Auction. There's also have a trade show with companies peddling tools, lifts, workbenches...all kids of cool stuff!

THIS IS AN AWESOME EVENT AND WE'RE SO GLAD WE CAME!!

You can only look at so many cars, so mid afternoon we went back into the Mandalay Hotel and went through the Shark Reef Aquarium which was very cool indeed.

We took LYFT back to our hotel, put our feet up for few minutes, then went out to Freemont Street and had dinner at the Heart Attack Grill....quite a theme!

Saturday LV to Sedona

We left Las Vegas about 9. It was another beautiful cloudless warm day. The Downtown Grand Hotel was a great place to stay. It is one of the Choice Hotel Ascend properties. Just two blocks off the Fremont Street experience. Would recommend to anyone coming to Las Vegas (know that it is a long way from The Strip).

As we headed east out of Las Vegas we passed through Henderson and the Boulder dam area. It is one big rock pile - spectacular in its own way but not very attractive. Heading across the desert until we reached Seligman, Arizona, a wide spot in the road which hangs on only through its historic reverence of the old Route 66.

From Seligman, heading East on I-40, we go up in altitude to about 7000 feet at one point. We suffered a lengthy construction delay which cost us about an hour. This section of I-40 is a terrible road with an unbelievable amount of truck traffic.

From Flagstaff we head South along a winding road down through the Oak Creek Canyon into Sedona. We found our hotel, the Arroyo Pinion (another Choice Ascend collection property).

We explored the town for a bit before dinner but it gets dark by 6 o clock. We drove up to the Airport Mesa Overlook and found hundreds of people waiting for the sunset! We'll come back tomorrow. We had dinner of barbecued pork sandwiches at the unremarkable Olde Sedona Bar and Grill.

Tomorrow we take a pink Jeep ride through the red Rock canyons.