Inside America's WILD WEST | Van Camping Nevada i80 Part 2

How's it going everybody? I'm Nikki Delventhal and these are my dogs, Rodney and Camper Delventhal. For over three years we lived in a Toyota Prius, but now we're in a 4x4 Sprinter. And we're here to take you along on the wild ride. So fasten up your seat belts and let's have some fun. Don't forget if you like what you see, like, subscribe, comment, share with your friends and turn on notifications. We would be so thankful. In case you missed last week, we started our journey along Nevada's Cowboy Corridor. This is a 400 mile route along I-80 from Reno to West Wendover. So far we stopped at Lublock, Unionville, and Winnemucca. From the sand dunes, we went through Battle Mountain. We ended up camping at this beautiful canyon, which honestly was a win because the rest of the area was covered with Mormon crickets. And then made our way to the heart of cowboy culture, Elko, Nevada. Welcome to Elko, Nevada. Today we are visiting J.M. Capriola. They are known for their saddle and leather work, not only all over the West, but all over the world. So let's go check it out. You guys, this is Julie. She has been working here for 30 years. She knows this place. And we got Alan. Hi. And they have agreed to take us around and tell us all about the history of this place. I am so excited. Where should we start? Okay, you can start with the bits first if you want to. Those are world famous. Basically, G.S. Garcia started back in what the 1800s, about 1890, I think. And these are handmade bits that are all built right here in our shop, all hand engraved. That is beautiful. And when we sell one of these, we give a certificate of authenticity that it is a G.S. Garcia bit. So people come from far and wide to come here, huh? Right. And this is kind of a background of the Garcias. This was Mr. Garcia. This was he and his family. And in his heyday, back in the 1920s or 30s, he was making $50,000 a year. Wow. That's amazing for that time. He was quite an entrepreneur. Yes, he was. That's right. And this is Barbara. Hi, Barbara. Hello. How are you? So good. Thank you for showing us around today. This is the workshop at Capriolis. So this is where the magic kind of happens. So Oscar's out at lunch right now, but he's the head honcho around here. He just got finished with this saddle. It's gorgeous. The craftsmanship is incredible. Yes. This is all hand done. Everything. So it starts like this right here. All these up here, the base. So you take a little bit of this, take a little bit of our leather, which we have over here, and combine them together and it makes a beautiful saddle. So here's the drawing. He draws it with the pattern. And then from there, just start stamping away and putting all the little fine work onto it to become that. So it's pretty, pretty amazing. All the ins and outs and things. A saddle can cost anywhere between $5,500 all the way up to $20,000 or $30,000 depending on the intricacy. Now this is super cool. This is an old side saddle. So you can just imagine the women sitting on their side on their horse. This was so cool. Thank you, Barbara. You're welcome. See ya. Hopefully we see Oscar on the way out here. Hey, let's check out the museum. Thanks for the private tour. We're so lucky. No problem. What you're standing in is the original shop for G.S. Garcia when he started building saddles and spurs and bits in this area. And then also in California, he went back and forth. These are some of the examples of saddles that has been built either by Garcia or by Capriola, who bought the Garcia business back in the 30s. And you can see this particular building actually faced in that direction when it was built. And Mr. Garcia wanted the business to be centered toward the center of town. So the building was cut in half and with mule teams, they pulled it around to face where it's looking right now. I think we made a good decision. Ladies Lib, this was a lady that was a silver engraver. He put her right in the middle of the shop with the rest of the guys and she did a lot of the silver engraving on his saddles. And that was back in 1904. Together with the saddle that they built won the 1904 World's Fair. And for those that aren't familiar with branding, they build a fire, stick this in the fire and stick it on the cow. Yeah. So that's some of the branding tools. Thank you for the tour. That was such a treat. Well, you could spend a whole lot of time, you know, but that's the dog and pony show. Okay. So while we were doing the tour, everybody was out to lunch, but everyone's starting to come back in. I'm really excited. So first I want you to meet Susan. Susan owns this place with her husband. She is a joy, a ray of sunshine. I love you. I love you too. And thanks to Susan, I'm getting these boots because she got them for herself, but they were too big and they're perfect for my big Shrek feet. And we have Oscar over here. Hi Oscar. This is Oscar. He is the artist, the master. Oscar, you do incredible work. Thank you. Of course. All right. So how does this work? Wow. I was not meant to be a cowboy. That was so stupid. Thank you. Thank you for everything. All right, y'all. Bye. Thank you. Look at this. Not only my sport and Alan's favorite sweatshirt, but we are getting escorted to our car by a true gentleman. We're getting ready for you to leave. Mind, this is after they offered to hose me down in the back to take a shower. Amazing. Thank you so much. That was one of the best local experiences of my lifetime. And I am 99.99999. You know what? Not 99.9. A hundred percent sure these people are going to be lifelong friends. All right, let's continue our way down Nevada's Cowboy Corridor I-80. But first we're going to take it 15 minutes south of Elko into the famous Lamoille Canyon, questionably the most beautiful spot in all of Nevada. Lamoille Canyon lives in the heart of the Ruby Mountains. It was carved by glaciers and is also known as the most beautiful part of Nevada. This 12-mile scenic byway is a drive that nature lovers cannot miss. You will be surrounded by peaks rising over 11,000 feet. The rubies are also the wettest range in the state, which could explain the lush green landscape that you would normally not expect here. You will see meadows bursting with wildflowers in season, abundant wildlife, waterfalls, rivers, avalanche chutes, and so much more. So is Lamoille Canyon really the most beautiful place in Nevada? We're about to find out. Oh wow. You guys know I am always traveling and on the road, and one thing that I always do, especially when I'm connecting to a public Wi-Fi network, is use a VPN service. I've been using NordVPN for the past four years, so I am so excited to announce them as today's video sponsor. In case you don't know, a VPN is a virtual private network. So essentially when you're on different Wi-Fi networks, especially public, your information can be compromised. So that's passwords, information that you essentially just don't want other people to have. So a VPN service helps protect you. Three reasons that I chose NordVPN and why I recommend them is one, you can auto-connect or connect in one click. Two, they are the fastest VPN service out there. And third, they're also a cybersecurity tool offering threat protection and dark web monitoring. To try NordVPN for yourself, just go to nordvpn.com slash Nikki. With a two-year purchase, not only will you get four additional months, but you'll get a 20 gigabyte data voucher for Saily. By the way, Saily is a new eSIM service by NordVPN. It's risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Oh, wow. We are hitting a lot of snow here. For reference, it is the end of May, so it's before season. Some of the campgrounds aren't even open, but there's a lot more snow than I expected. So the last half of a mile of Lamoille Canyon to Rhodes End is pretty deep in snow. I'm tempted to check it out. I think we're going to turn four-by-four on here. So I'm kind of just getting a lay of the land here and seeing how deep it is and how manageable it is and kind of just to see if it's worth it. So let's go a little bit in. I don't know. This is actually pretty darn deep. Do we want to risk it today to just get right up there? Yeah, we'll park on the side over here. Yeah, we're gonna check this out. Just at the beginning here, we're looking at like one or two feet deep. Oh, yeah, and this guy even stopped up here, and he's got a fully capable vehicle. It's pretty muddy on the sides, pretty deep over here. All right, let's reverse out of here. If there was a reversing race, I'm just saying, I'd probably get recruited for the team. Instead of playing possible recovery, although that sounds a lot of fun, I'm just kind of not feeling it today, we are headed 20 minutes back down Lamoille Canyon to Thomas Campground. There are three campgrounds that you can stay at in this canyon. That is one of them, and it's the during season, you usually need to reserve ahead of time. So this seems like a really great option, assuming things are open. Also, there is a trailhead at the south end of the campground, so it sounds like a win-win to me. But what do you guys say we hurry up and get there? Here we are. Site 16, right on the river. Let's go. First thing we're doing here is making sure that this spot is actually available and paying for it so no one else can get it. All right, we're good for the night. Home, sweet home. Gosh, look at this view. Got the sounds of the river. This is good. Perks of being in a campground, trash disposal. This was starting to smell not the most beautiful. Now, when the sun is poking out from behind the clouds, it is so good. But it is windy and chilly today, so let's get changed and then go for a walk. All right, boys, you ready to get hiking? Yeah? All right. Let's go. Judging by the snow in the mountains here, we may not make it very far today. But normally, Thomas Creek is about a four and a half, five mile trail with waterfalls and even a lake. And it's really, really beautiful. So if you can't do the whole thing, definitely do it. Today, we're just happy to be out and taking a walk. What they said. Thank you. I brought my hiking filter so I could drink from the waterfalls and rivers instead of having to carry a bunch of water. This is my favorite hiking accessory. More waterfalls. This entire hike is just waterfalls. Amazing. Obviously, this place is super popular in the summer. But apparently, in the winter, heliskiing is really big here. That's when you get a helicopter, they bring you to the top one of these, and you find your way down via skiing. Now, I'm not a skier, but imagine if you were, that is so much fun. In case you're wondering what true peace, serenity and happiness looks like, this is it. Who's got the zoomies? All right, we made it to snow. We are going to sit here and enjoy for a bit and we'll see you all back at the van. Home, sweet home. All right, you guys, we have an hour before the sun sets and I kind of want to do an outdoor shower. So I want to do that before the sun goes down when it dips down to like 40 degrees. So with that being said, let's get to it. Wow. I love it out here. So beautiful. but first we want to make sure the boys get enough activity. So we're going to hit that hike from yesterday and to spare you the repetition, we'll see you when we get back. That was awesome. I feel like we're doing this a lot today. For the sake of repetition, because we literally passed this place yesterday, let's hurry up and get to Elko. From here, we continued down I-80, of course, stopping to get some of the cheaper gas since we've been in California for a few months. We went through Wells, finally making it to the end of I-80, West Wendover. Camper, it's your street. Uh, nobody can have my street name. And ended up camping at one of the few places on the planet that you can actually see the curvature of the earth. But don't worry guys, we'll explore around here on next week's episode. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe. We'll see you next week.