DUDE! You went to all my favorite places! Where did you stay in Ely? It looks like the place across from the city park. Did you eat at the Siver State Restaurant? They have the best chicken fried steak. Were the "Turn me over" rocks still at the Black Mailbox? I know it's white now but I still call it the the Black Mailbox. There are a zillion great places to explore in the area around Area 51, even if you don't care about the little green guys. I grew up not far from the Shoshone Ice Cave and when I was a kid we would sing that Alley Oop song almost every time we drove by and saw him from the highway. Do they still have the glowing rocks in the cave? Mammoth Cave is pretty cool too. And you went to Craters of the Moon! Awesome! As a kid that was my favorite place to go for hiking and exploring. And Zion! My favorite place on earth, so far. I love the Emerald Pools hike. The last time we were there we hiked to the upper pools and it was 105 degrees. My fellow hikers dubbed the hike "The Death March". Big babies. My older son and I also did a hike through the back country out to Observation Point. We saw some big horn sheep on the way out to the drop point. Way cool. Anyway, it looks like you had another wicked cool adventure. Keep it up!
Funny that you're familiar with all of the places I went. I had always wanted to go to Rachel so I felt the little detour was well worth it. Of course my conspiracy theory mind freaked out a little when just outside the base my GPS says it can't locate my position even though I was still on the main highway.
I still call it the black mailbox too. I didn't see any turn me over rocks, but I didn't explore that area much.
In Ely we stayed at a motel just across from the Silver State restaurant and that's where we ate dinner. I had a burger and it was really good. There isn't much to the town but the national forest looks really nice there. Unfortunately, I was just passing through and din't get a chance to explore at all.
If you grew up near the ice caves it looks like it was a very rural area. The cave tour is a little cheesy, but worth doing once. Yes, they have the glowing rocks but that was kind of cheesy too because some of them were just painted with a glowing paint. Haha.
