Leaving Winnemucca we drove East toward our next stop at Wells, Nevada. Interstate 80 generally ranges from four to five thousand feet, and today the temperature was in the thirties all day. The ground is rocky with sparse foliage and no trees, just rabbit bush, tumbleweed and other dry desert shrubs. (A Ridgecrest friend once told of his first family trip when their child was about three years old. "Look, Dad," the boy yelled. "See the wild trees!" --they were planted by the city). We have seen little wildlife. This country is dry. We have followed the path of the railroad, which in turn follows the path of the Humboldt River. (Alexander von Humboldt never visited Nevada). All along the road one can see for miles in any direction.
We saw numerous steam vents, as this part of the state has considerable geothermal activity; but the power plants of Valmy Engineering still burn Wyoming coal and ship their electricity north to Idaho. But solar plants have been added to the mix.
There are geese and ducks near the river and lakes, and ravens and crows everywhere. Bob spotted a cottontail at the Cadillac range, but we have not seen any other wildlife.
Today, the sky was blue with fluffy clouds here and there. We drove through several small towns, some of which were not on our map. The area near Elko has grown a lot due to an 
Biggest little casino in Elko
increase in mining. The Newmont corporation mines gold here, following one of the longest veins of gold in the world. The Halliburton establishment includes trains featuring perhaps a hundred tank cars - oil has been discovered deep underground.
We took the Route 80 Business Route through a busy town named Carlin. But the air was so smoky we didn't even stop to try our luck at a casino.
Elko and Battle Mountain are two cities which are growing and prospering. They retain the activities popular for the past hundred years, notably ranching and casino gambling. Elko sponsors a Cowboy Poetry convention which we missed (neither of us is a fan of cowboy verses). We stopped today at several casinos, just long enough to sample the atmosphere and leave behind a few dollars. Unlike Reno or Las Vegas, the small casinos here have always had faithful local customers; we hear casino employees greeting them by name as they stop by for an hour or so of slot machine time at the beginning or end (or both) of a work shift. Sometimes there are no visible employees, but the customers take care of each other, minding a machine when someone goes for coffee, or making change. In Northeastern Nevada, casino gambling is a popular activity to help wind down after work. The movie theater is boarded up.
We have noticed that Nevadans do not wear masks much. They don't comment on our black masks, but they don't tend to adjust their own masks which hang around their necks.
We are staying for three nights in a newish Hampton Inn, with bright young workers to check us in and welcome us. When the young woman who checked our reservation finished her shift, she left to go home to work the cattle, moving them to a new field. She says that cattle don't mind the cold so much because their body temperature is about 120 degrees: when she feels really cold she just goes to an animal who looks especially fat, and leans against her to warm up.
Wells, the city where we spending a few nights, will be the jumping off spot for excursions to Wendover and Jackpot, followed by a shift south to Ely. Evidently there are no commercial mineral resources nearby to Wells, because the main drag looked like a ghost town; all the activity is based on the crossroads of I-80 and US 93, where trucks and cars stop to refuel and spend the night.