road trip USA

the loneliest road in america

Route 50 across Nevada

Over recent years, R50 has been superseded as the principle East-West road route across Nevada by the more modern freeways, which thankfully take the bulk of the traffic that wants to get anywhere fast. This has left R50 as something of an anachronism, carrying a (very) little local traffic, plus the romantics who want to see the vestiges of the old West, including remnants of the Pony Express Trail, and the various wagon trails, such as Oregon and Sante Fe. Curiously, because it IS so empty, straight, and liberal with speed limits, Mr T is able to average 60+mph for hours, and in a pretty straight line. Best of all though is the scenery.

For a driving trip, taking Route 50 across Colorado, Utah and Nevada has to be up there as one of THE great driving experiences. Cruising through the heat haze with mountain ranges on the horizon, some of them snow capped, with the top down (ok, it's a Hyundai, so strictly speaking it's with the sun-roof open) with Feeder, Pink and Tom Petty's Heartbreakers at full volume, singing along at the top of one's voice - well, it doesn't get much better. The astute amongst you will also have spotted why this is best done as a one-man show. Mrs T wouldn't have appreciated this particular element, just as Mr T would have been reluctant to swap Tom Petty at 90 decibels for the soundtrack to Oklahoma at 30db. It's just a boys thing...

Nevada is vast, and made to feel more so because of its emptiness. Over twice the size of England, and with a population of under 2 million, it's the most mountainous state of the contiguous US, with over 300 distinct mountain ranges. The route alternates between long straight stretches through desert, and switchback stretches through a seemingly endless series of mountain passes. Much of Nevada is cold desert, something I hadn't really appreciated until I arose in Austin somewhat frozen, and found that - to some surprise locally - it had rained overnight, and there was snow lying on the hillside immediately above the town. Had to put the shorts away, and get out a vest and a jumper. May 20th, in the Nevada desert. What's going on...?

Right: as I say, they are proud of their servicemen. There is a tribute on every lamppost in Eureka.

SmallVille USA - The good, the sad and the ugly

Baker (The Lights All Went Out In)

Baker is a lovely small Nevada town out there in the desert, which - now that most of the mining has dried up - owes its existence primarily as gateway to the Great Basin National Park. Unfortunately for Baker, this is the least visited NP in the US. The park contains the Lehman Caves, a wonderful and extensive cave system containing the most awesome display of stalactites, -mites, "bacon" (you'll know why if you look at the picture in the Nevada Album) shields, pillars, etc. Also, a scenic drive to about 11000ft, where the road is still closed by snow, and is wonderfully warm at lunchtime, although presumably quite different once the sun goes down.

Baker is adjacent to the magnificently secretive "Area 51", much discussed and speculated upon on the Discovery Channel in the context of top secret government research, aliens, UFOs, etc. Curiously, sitting next to probably the highest tech area in the world, Baker is one of the lowest tech places I've been. Only a couple of places have internet access - one motel receptionist said "Oh no dear, we're only just getting the internet into some of our homes - we don't have it in the motel yet." I was seeking the internet, as it is my preferred method of keeping in touch with Mrs T, particularly as my cell hasn't had any coverage worth speaking of since the other side of the Rockies. Thankfully, my landlady for a couple of days, Reita, has wifi, so I book into the Getaway Cabin. If you like the old Hoover Building in West London, this is the place for you. The sink and cooker are 1940's vintage, and Reita tells me it used to have the old round-shouldered fridge, but that failed. It's huge for me, would sleep 6 at a pinch, although that would be crowded - but would be ideal for a family of 4-5. The best part of it is that it's on the edge of what is a tiny town, there are no street lights and no traffic - so it's very dark and very quiet - bliss!

Reita and Chuck are both late 70s. Reita looks after the lettings, whilst Chuck does the maintenance. He's in the middle of putting in (eight) new windows in their bungalow (having recently replaced the metal cladding on the roof, relaid the patio, and replaced his hip). When he's out of earshot, I ask Reita how old Chuck is: 77 she confirms, and he's annoyed with himself for not getting the rest of those windows finished yesterday. (It must be 90f at midday). She scolds him affectionately as he comes in, and he bats it back with a quick wit and keener ear than the hearing aid that he fusses over suggests. I ask for a photo-op with Chuck and his replacement window, and he reappears 2 minutes later looking as if he's just been to the hairdressers. At my prompting, Reita opens up her splendid organ and gives it a whirl - she is self taught, her father having been a blind piano tuner. It's apparent that the Nevada Desert develops a tough resilience in these folk.

Being the original one horse town, there's only one eatery open in Baker that night: T&D's. I walk down Main Street, where the gas station and T&D's quite literally back onto the desert. In fact, they are just closing as I arrive, but being the good hosts that they are, Terry and Debbie stay open to let me eat. Terry has much to say on Area 51, having been out many times in the bush and says he's seen a lot of strange stuff flying around - hedge hopping from one side of the mountain range to the other, then shooting off at impossibly high speed. Debbie fixes me some nice grub, and tells me about Terry's Grandmother, who was of Shoshone Indian origin, emigrated west in a covered wagon, and lived to age 99. What a pedigree. Meanwhile, Terry explains how hard it is to get young staff who want to work (rather than sit down). (On his "day off" the next day, Terry is driving a milk tanker 200 miles.) I buy them a drink as a thank you for stopping up with me, and then they insist on reciprocating, so the evening lasts longer than they probably would have wished: and then the lights all go out. Much to Debbie's disgust, there is no sign (literally) of the expensive emergency lighting they installed. Terry speculates that it could be an eagle landing on a transformer, or a drunk taking out a power pole (both of which have happened before). We finish our drinks by flashlight, and I walk the 1/4 mile back to the cabin accompanied only by the sound of the coyotes and owls, with only a half moon for company. A surreal and electrifying experience. The entire town is in darkness.


On a Dark Desert Highway: Cool Wind in my Hair....

I learn the next morning that a lightning strike took out the town's substation - Chuck saw it hit from his bedroom window. Supper the second night is more solitary, as T&D's is closed - their night off - and the Silverjack Bar has just closed. I am beginning to learn that advertised closing times are really just a guide to how late they will stay open if they have customers - if they are quiet, they just close earlier, which was the case here. However, Terry (another Terry) the proprietor is gracious, as he sees me roll up, and opens up his deli counter to sell me some grub, so I head home to write my blog and make my own tea.

Baker isn't thriving, it's just about surviving. The owners of the diner work 100+ hours per week during the season, the gas station is now fully automated - heart in mouth moment when I put my card into it, as some of these pumps ask for your Zip Code as a security check against the card record - if this happens, I'm sunk - but luckily it takes me at face value. The Park seems, at least at this stage of the season, to have more Rangers than visitors. On Monday, there isn't a shop open in "town", which illustrates how small this place is now.

But I love Baker - it's full of character, and characters, as resilient as the countryside that it sits in.

Pardon Me Boy, Is That The Chief Exec You Chat To...?

A brief detour to the railway museum at Ely, and the duty manager invites me to wander around the engineering workshop (which looks after the working rolling stock that takes out tourist trains several times a week). What refreshing informality. His only stipulation is that if I fall into an engine pit, I have to clean it before I'm allowed to leave. I tag onto an existing pair of tourists being shown over the disassembled locos, and listen into our guide Mark's technical descriptions of cracks discovered by ultrasound in the axles, the wires strung from front to back and the ground straight edges inset to ensure that the axles and pistons are aligned exactly perpendicularly: the regrinding of the pistons, the problems with the giant split pins, the safety restrictions imposed on the use of some engines, etc, etc.

With a myriad of parts lying disassembled, this is like a giant 3D jigsaw puzzle with no master plan for reassembly. A 16 cylinder diesel loco is in a similar state of undress.

There must be nearly a dozen locos in these sheds, along with an ancient tunnel cutter, goods wagons, tenders, and so on.

The other 2 tourists are more technically knowledgeable than me, and it makes for a fascinating discussion (for me at least - this is why Mrs T doesn't arrive until next week!) I mention that Mrs T's father built locos for North British Loco - for both the UK and East Africa - and they are fascinated and want to know which models... Cheech is an intriguing character, shaven headed, in leathers, with groovy shades and a Harley cap.

Eventually I establish that the first guest is the Head of Safety for the Nevada Railroad Commission, carrying out his annual inspection of the engineering facility for public safety reasons. Cheech, as his boss, is the Head of Public Transport in Nevada. Our guide is the Chief Executive of the Nevada Northern Railroad and Museum. I shuffle my feet somewhat at this turn of events. They graciously shake my hand, wish me well, and adjourn to the office for the documentation part of their meeting. By this stage, my jaw is trailing along the rail tracks... somehow, I just can't see myself gatecrashing a similar moment at the Derby Rail Engineering workshops.

Austin

It was hard to imagine a town smaller than Baker, but that was before I'd arrived in Austin. An old mining community perched on the side of a hill in the epicentre of Nevada, the mining has pretty much dried up, and I gather it depends for its existence on... well, me really, and the handful of other maniacs who set out to drive across deserts to nowhere in particular just for the hell of it. This is another lovely place, but it's kind of a tragedy in the making. The waitress who serves me supper tells me that there are probably less than 100 people living in the town now, and bewails the fact that their only teacher is leaving town and taking her family with her. This means that the school will close, and the nearest school to which their children can be bused is about 60 miles away - but the law won't allow that apparently, and this means that they will have to home-school their children. I'm not good enough to do that, she admits, and I think her eyes are a little moist. If ever there was a mechanism to break up a community, closing the school is surely it.

My digs are the Cozy Mountain Inn, a tiny motel right on Main Street that has seen better days (and a lot of them, I think). Jim, the proprietor, is easy to cajole into talking about his plans for the place. He's aching after a hard day's work, digging a hole to take the pole that will anchor the wifi satellite dish - it's out of action after a storm blew the dish off course. He proudly shows me the room that he's upgrading, before admitting that I'm in one of the old rooms. It's tiny, and about as old as they come, but he insists that it's clean, as he does it himself: and he's right. The tiny tv works, as does the shower, and the ancient gas boiler fires up (in the room) when I turn up the thermostat, which I hastily turn down again, and sleep with the window open as a precaution. The 4 rooms that he's finished all front directly onto the sidewalk, and although the road isn't busy at night, every now and then a truck grinds up the steep incline bellowing every inch of the way, and I'm relieved to be in the back row of rooms, albeit they are ancient and the window is open with a keen wind and freezing rain falling.

The waitress in the other bar the following morning gives a slightly different slant on the population numbers - maybe 200 tops she says - then adds "But I guess I'm including the animals in that". I ask for tomarr-toes with my eggs: after a bit of disbelief and misunderstanding, we work out that I actually mean tomay-does, and when it arrives, I realise why the eyebrows went up when I actually asked for something extra with their egg and ham megabreakfast.

Breakfast in America. (I've been wanting to use that caption for a while now.)

At Jason's Art Gallery, Jeanne and Duane make loads of really nice jewellery, much of it incorporating stones from their own mine. They are already open as I wander by at breakfast time.

Nice to see excellent craftsmanship on the ground instead of cheap souvenirs mass-produced in China.

Jeanne is patience itself as I agonise over the right shade of opal for Mrs T, and she even lends me her fingers to test the fit of the shortlisted items.

I have a vague recollection that in The Mother Country, rings are measured in letters of the alphabet - size L comes to mind. Yes, I should know this 32 years on,

but by way of self justification, there's a C & W song in the charts at present,

"Well love makes a man do some things he ain't proud of
And in a weak moment I might walk your sissy dog, hold your purse at the mall.
But remember, I'm still a guy...
Oh my eyebrows ain't plucked
There's a gun in my truck
Oh thank God, I'm still a guy ".

The Americans use numbers for ring sizes, so with the help of Jeanne's fingers, I guess at a size 6, and Duane immediately makes the adjustment. [Close, but not close enough. I subsequently find on the internet that US size 6 is an English M. Confusingly, there are also separate and very distinct Italian and French sizes, and none of these systems have any rational basis, so far as I can tell...]

I head out into the desert wearing several layers, and stop briefly to take a look at the historic cemetery on the edge of town. This friendly microcommunity looks doomed. It has 4 bars, a big courthouse and a smart firestation: and no school. Oh, and it does have 5 churches. What's going on?

Reno

I finish my journey across Nevada in Reno, which was sold to me as a fun kind of stop. Unfortunately, it's like Vegas, albeit (mercifully) on a much smaller scale. The Heart of Town Motel, recommended in my Travel Handbook, is in worse shape than the room in Austin, and lacks the charm of the latter, or the character of its proprietor. Sadly, in contrast to Baker and Austin, Reno is thriving, and the casinos seem to be filled with people with money to spend, although it appears to me to be a joyless sort of atmosphere. (Maybe I just don't get it...) Does this inevitably reflect the human condition?

I've written at some length about Nevada, and these three stops, as I want to convey the contrast in these three places, and capture the magic that I felt in travelling this historic and characterful highway.

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