Anything interesting to see along 80 or 50 through Nevada?
 

We're taking a road trip from Carmel to Yellowstone and back next month and will drive across northern NV twice. I have most of the route planned but am not sure what there is to see along the way. On the way out we'll be coming from Incline Village and heading to Ketchum and I was thinking of overnighting in Elko for Lamoille Canyon. On the return we'll be coming from Park City and heading to South Lake Tahoe and I was planning to stop at Great Basin NP. Looking for anything else that may be of interest along these routes or if my ideas are terrible and I should be looking at something different altogether ;) Our primary interests are hiking, photography and wildlife but we also enjoy historical sites or even kitschy roadside stuff. We've been to southern UT and did a South West road trip in December and January. And oh yes, I've been diligently practicing how to pronounce NeVADa correctly :P

When we drove Highway 50 a few years ago, I found it an enjoyable experience. It wasn't nearly as "lonely" as Highways 305 and 376 going north and south down the middle of the state.

The only part of I-80 I've driven in NV was between Winnemucca (about which I remember nothing interesting) and Battle Mountain (about which I remember nothing).

HTtY

My best advice is to stop at the Love's Travel Center in Wells and fill the tank and stock up on anything you might need. Just outside Wells on US 93 you cross a cattle guard and for the 100+ miles you may see more cows than cars.
Try to see Craters of the Moon NM instead of detouring to Ketchum. The town of Arco ID was the first in the US to have nuclear power electricity.

Nothing can be as lonely as parts of TX we drove through ;)

We do plan to see Craters of the Moon. We also plan to drive up to Stanley. Ketchum seemed like a convenient place to sleep.

I haven't been, but the Star Hotel in Elko is famous for it's Basque American food and atmosphere. Have a Picon Punch before dinner!

http://www.eatdrinkandbebasque.com

We're back. Lamoille Canyon was definitely worth the 30 minute detour south of Elko. The road wasn't open all of the way but we still got to see some of the beauty of this glacier carved canyon. We stopped for lunch at the Martin Hotel in Winnemucca and were too full to go out to dinner that night.

Overall we found the drive on Hwy 50 back more enjoyable than the drive on 80 out. We stopped at Great Basin where the road was open as far as Mather Overlook but the weather wasn't cooperating. Didn't have much of a view due to the low cloud cover and then it started sleeting so we cut our time there short. We missed the Ward Charcoal Ovens east of Ely but that looked interesting. The scenery heading west from Ely was snow covered mountains and then turned more desert like toward the Carson City end. We saw many pronghorn along this route.

Neither of us had ever been to Idaho before and we really liked the small part of southern ID we saw.

Here are a few of my photos from Lamoille Canyon, Idaho and Hwy 50 share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZNnDlk5YtmbMrg

Thanks for sharing. DH really wants to explore the wilds of Nevada.

We haven't been to that part of NV, so I was interested to see what was there. The pictures are great. Thanks for the report.

Updating photo link for cmstraf pix.sfly.com/7SD4TrC6

Well, it seems like the captions are all missing. The first two photos are from Lamoille Canyon, the last 8 photos are from the Hwy 50 drive and everything in between was in Idaho (Ketchum to Stanley and Craters of the Moon).

Wow! These photos are stunning, thanks much.