When Travel Bug and “Love Bug” Meet

You know by now that we suffer from the travel bug.
I also have a “Love Bug” – the Volkswagen type. . .a Herbie, VW Bug.

Herbie, is my loved Bug. So when I travel I am always on the lookout for ‘cousins’ and on this Travel Photo Thursday I thought I’d show you where I found them and what they were up to:



This travelin' Herbie was heading out into the southwest desert after getting filled up at a station in Tonopah, Nevada.



Another hard-working Herbie was spotted in Las Vegas, Nevada’s Town Square Shopping Center.  As the dill pickle on top reads, “We Dill iver”.



This precious purple Herbie was parked on a street near a pile of garbage in Trabzon, Turkey.



Hellenic Herbie came zipping into the parking area to await a ferry on the island of Poros, Greece.



Cousin cool dude Herbie was in the Fashion Show Mall on The Vegas Strip, doing nothing more than being admired by shoppers.



Herbie, the Hawaiian, was sitting in the shade in Haleiwa on O’ahu’s North Shore.



This Baja Bug of a Herbie was in Cabo San Lucas,  Mexico last week.


For those of you who’ve not yet met my Herbie. . . here he is: a 69 VW Bug (stick shift, automatic) that my dad bought used in 1972 to serve as my college car. This photo was taken two years ago; four decades, two engines and nearly 200,000 miles later.

How about you?  Any Herbie’s in your life? Any icons that you seek out when you travel?

Don’t forget to hop in the driver’s seat and head on over to Budget Traveler’s Sandbox for more travel photos.

Tonopah, Nevada - a gem of a mining town

Tonopah, Nevada

The High Plains Drifters spent our second night of the road trip in Tonopah, Nevada, an old silver-mining town in the central part of the state that got its start when in 1900, a prospector by the name of Jim Butler took shelter from a thunderstorm under a ledge. . .yup, he whittled away at that ledge and sure enough struck silver. (Need I say there's a hotel in town that carries his name as do festivals?)

The town's prosperity peaked in 1913 when mining had netted some $9.5 million.  These days the mining still continues.  Turquoise jewelry sold in one of two gift shops in town was mined from the nearby hills, we were told.  In fact Nevada is the fourth-largest gold producer in the world and is responsible for 80 percent of all gold produced in the United States.

Tonopah is but a wide spot on the vast Nevada countryside offering a half dozen hotels (and two shells of what were once vibrant multi-storied hotels), a few watering holes and eateries.  But it is a charming wide spot - we planned this trip so we could spend a night here, having spent a night several years ago at the Best Western.  This time we stayed at Tonopah Station, the Ramada Inn, with an over-the-top Wild West decor. At this hotel you roll dice to see if your room is free -- it is Nevada, afterall -- and they told us that usually twice a day people win their rooms; sigh, we didn't.

                      Cabin at the Mining Park

And the hotel's parking lot lights were so bright I never did do any stargazing.  We may have to go back just for the purpose of Star Gazing now that we have a map of the areas best star gazing trails.  We also plan to visit the sprawling Tonopah Historic Mining Park where we can take a self-guided walking tour of Jim Butler's original discovery sites.  The "Burro Tunnel Underground Adventure," opened in 2004, takes you into the original mine and at the end, you can step into a steel viewing cage, suspended over a 500-foot mine slope.  Maybe we will do that part. . .