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Day One

Posted: October 18th, 2009 by Scott

We left Lodi on Saturday at the crack of dawn. There was a decent fog in town when we left but it didn’t slow us down.

Ready for the trip

Ready for the trip

The jeep was packed full of camping gear, backpacks full of clothes, some miscellaneous electronic gadgets and a giant tupperware full of food (mostly snacks for the road).

Our first stop was the Ruby Mountains of northern Nevada. This was a solid 7 hours of driving through Reno, Battle Mountain (where apparently there was never a battle, or anything to do), Elko, home of the annual Cowboy Poetry Festival and the largest Polar Bear ever! And on to our campsite just outside of Wells.

Grrrr

Grrrr

Besides being a good halfway camping spot between home and Yellowstone, our campsite had a second benefit, it was near our first brewery stop, the aptly named Ruby Mountain Brewery. We met Steve the owner of RMB for a quick tour and tasting which turned into a good long conversation about brewing and about the craft brew industry.

Steve of Ruby Mountain Brewery with Scott

Steve of Ruby Mountain Brewery with Scott

RMB is a pretty small operation with distribution only in Nevada and parts of Idaho and Wyoming.

Ruby Mountain Brewery

Ruby Mountain Brewery with Mario the Brewmaster

We were able to taste 3 of their beers, a Pale ale, a Porter and their flagship Amber. They were all nice but the amber was our favorite and we picked up a 6 pack to enjoy later in our trip or when we get back. They also were brewing an IPA for another local brewery who needed extra capacity. This wasn’t my favorite but was well balanced.

After hearing where we were planning to camp for the night, Steve told us about a shortcut through the back part of his property (a full working hay and Angus cattle ranch) which saved us about 10-15 miles of backtracking.

He let us go here, promise!

He let us go here, promise!

Glad we had 4wd

Glad we had 4wd

We were pretty exhausted by then and crashed just after eating dinner and as soon as it got dark.