| The next day we left the lake and headed east to Virginia City
via Carson City, which is the capital of Nevada. Virginia City was a silver
mining town with a major population in the 1880s. The old buildings now
house tourist shops. Note that this building has a plain wall which has been
painted to make it look more impressive. |  |
 | Not that there aren't
some real impressive buildings like the court house on the next road up -
the town is built on a steep hillside, so the streets are like terraces, one
above the other. |
| There are also inevitably several churches,of which this is the
most obvious and picturesque. |  |
 | There is a small train
which travels a short distance to the old mine workings. Originally there
was quite an extensive railroad carrying bullion to Carson City and lumber
from as far away as Truckee. They are now working on rebuilding the line the
whole way, following the original route as fr as possible. |
| This was the old schoolhouse, now used as the local museum.
Another impressive building in what in some ways was just a shanty town. |  |
 | The landscape becomes
quite desolate as soon as you exit the city limits. City is a bit of a
misnomer for a town with no more than 2,000 inhabitants. This is only about
a quarter of a mile away. |
| There are actually remains of about seven mines in the immediate
area. This is just an example. One of them still offers tours during the
summer season. Over $400 million of silver was extracted over a 50 year
period making this once a very wealthy area. |  |
 | They would have used
substantial amounts of water to help processing but it was unclear where
this would have come from. Just a few ramshackle parts of the workings
remain. |
| The surrounding landscape makes one wonder about the impact of
greed on man. The temperature out here is well over 100°F
all summer and you are miles from anywhere. |  |
 | Climbing back up out
of the valley and peering down into the next valley gives an amazing view
reaching for miles. The city in the distance is Reno. |
| Using the 400x zoom on the video camera you can see the
skyscrapers of Reno. A real desert city at an elevation of over 4000ft. |  |
|