Originally Posted: Labor Day in Pioche NV
Pioche NV is a sleepy little town tucked in the mountains with quaint late 1800′s and early 1900′s buildings & homes from the early mining days about 3 hours North of Las Vegas on the Great Basin Highway (Highway 93.)
On Labor Day weekend the town doubles in size with it’s elaborate Labor Day celebration. This is something I did not know or experience until this year.
I passed on bingo Friday night because I was in super chill mode and we got rocked by a wicked thunderstorm that was amazing and reminded me of a good midwestern thunderstorm.
The weather cleared for the rest of a glorious weekend. Temps are around 10-15 degrees cooler than Vegas so the cooler weather was also welcome!
The weekend was filled with great activities like “chicken chucking”, cake walks, mucking, a golf tourney (Mike’s team won 1st,) 2 parades, street dance, lawn mower races, horseshoe competitions, spaghetti feeds, taco stands, breakfasts and DO NOT forget the funnel cakes!
Sunday we took off to Cathedral Gorge Nevada SP which is filled with caves galore! Nevada sure has some gorgeous sights to explore if you can make it off strip and I never realized this beauty existed!
Pioche then sponsored a fireworks celebration which was absolutely amazing in the evening.
We then went to “Boot Hill Cemetary” late that night to explore Pioche’s bloody early history.
Monday morning we woke up at 6 AM to the “Sunrise Salute”. No one bothered to tell us Pioche Labor Day Virgins what that was all about. Multiple dynamite explosions ROCKED the hills of Eagle Valley!
Pioche only sports 2 or 3 hotels with probably less than two dozen rooms & RV parks with about a dozen spots. If you want to put this one on your bucket list, you either need to know someone with property to park your RV on or stay with – or plan WAY ahead and book your hotel room early. Otherwise you can stay at a neighboring town or state park.
We actually used this trip for our maiden voyage with our little pop up camper and had a BLAST. We were supposed to stay at someone’s house but there was no room withanother pop up camper and two fifth wheels and MANY tents. We ended up getting lucky and getting a spot at the RV park one house away from the party. The park manager Bill and his dog “Sparky” were INCREDIBLE hosts and he even cooked us fried chicken and home made ice cream. This was small town hospitality at it’s FINEST! The bathroom and shower were pretty nice and it was nice that we didn’t have to “share” the one bathroom at the house with close to 40 people!
We will definitely return for all the fun next year. We may even come up to explore more of the area’s state parks and history in between