![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nevada Driving
Jul. 3rd, 2017 11:11 pmThe Monday after BLFC was always going to be the longest day driving, and we clocked about 10 hours overall. We got up reasonably early and said goodbye to Sierrapup in the hotel lobby after we had spent a good half hour carting all of our supplies from the room to the car. We also gave Taneli his con stuff which he had left in our room before we bid our farewells, with those two bound to follow our route for a third of our journey before they branched off towards Las Vegas.
We left the con hotel at around 10:30am, and it was rather sad to leave, although the Sunday evening Dead Dog night was definitely quite sparsely populated, making this the right time to go. After filling up with petrol, we headed out into the suburbs, where the terrain soon turned into sandy scrubland. Apparently this area is popular with retirees but as we moved further away from Reno, the more sparsely populated it became. Towns like Fernley and Fallon passed us by, with a number of small delapidated villages lining Route 95 as we headed towards Hawthorne. Many of them seemed to exist only to sell Fireworks, with a few warehouses dotted between the rundown wooden buildings. Just outside of Hawthorne, we stopped off at Walker Lake, a rather rare expanse of water in a semi-arid environment. We found a parking spot just off the road, where we pulled in to take some pictures over the lake. In the sand, we saw a handful of lizards playing while in the distance we could see rows upon rows of identical white huts which form the Hawthorne Army Depot, where a load of military weapons are stored. Hawthorne is very much an army town, and the main street was bedecked with American flags (indeed it was here that I took the most American photo ever, with a McDonald's sign on one side of the road, an American flag on the other and a pick-up truck bombing down the middle). On our right as we entered we saw the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum, outside which there was a miscellaneous collection of hard artilery. Alas, we didn't have time to drop by though as lunch was calling, which saw us stop off at the rather tired looking restaurant in the El Capitan Casino. This was a place that Tux knew quite well and although the service was slow, the sandwich was pretty tasty, although the honey in the tea was pretty disgusting. It was a relaxing pitstop, however, even if it was a world away from the GSR back in Reno.
As we turned towards Tonopah, it was highlighted just how desolate this area is, as there was a sign warning us that the next gas would be 100 miles away. Fortunately, we had filled up, meaning we were safe as we drove through yet more arid scenery littered by incredibly poor villages in the middle of nowhere. Indeed, the poverty here was quite shocking and a long way away from the America that is projected on our TV screens. I had seen this before when I lived in Louisiana but the desolation on every level was quite shocking, even for me. Indeed many of these towns had seen better days, probably in the days of mining, and some of them had more RVs and pick-up residences than actual houses. The motels in these parts were particularly sorry.
The scenery didn't really change as we were driving. There was a salt flat near Mina from memory, and after that the terrain became even more arid, with sand predominating with a few scrubby bushes dotted about. In the distance there was the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada, which must have been so tantilizing for anyone caught out here in this incredibly dry environment. The only other exciting thing that happened before Tonopah was when we stopped due to some roadworks taking place. The traffic was allowed to form one long line, meaning we had a good five minutes just parked in the road. This enabled me to get out and take some pictures before having to jump back inside to continue our journey.
To say that we had travelled 100 miles to get there, there wasn't an awful lot in Tonopah aside from a gas station, a few hotels and a small number of residences. It was as prosperous as Hawthorne had been though and looked rather pleasant, set into one of the few hillsides we had seen close up. It did have a bit of a Wild West feel, but there was the Tonopah Brewing Company along with some decent accommodation, highlighting that it is something of a tourist town, albeit a modern one. Equidistant between Reno and Las Vegas, I suppose it makes a good stopping off point and while Taneli and Draken would have kept following Route 95, we turned off and followed Route 6 into even more rural Nevada. There were hills on this route, albeit sandy rocky shallow peaks very similar to the ones outside Marrakech in Morrocco. It did make for more involved scenery at least and the road being cut into some of them at least made that part of the journey more lively.
Further down the road, we turned onto Nevada Route 375 - commonly known as the Extra Terrestial Highway - as it is the road closest to Area 51. You don't ever get to see the infamous place, it being situated over a brow of some hills you see as you drive along, but the town of Rachel is the closest place and they have capitalized entirely by opening the Little A'le' Inn cafe there. Rammed to the rafters with alien memorabilia, it made a pleasant stop to get some ice cream, not to mention some tourist tat that they sold in abundance. We got a fridge magnet before noticing some beer in the back storeroom, so we got a bottle of this too. While we were here, we watched footage from the One Love concert in Manchester, which had taken place the day before in response to the terrorist bombing in the city a fortnight earlier. It was rather surreal watching scenes from a place I know so well in this cafe in the middle of rural Nevada. The cafe has definitely hammed up the alien stuff, both inside and out, but it was a nice novelty and on the way out, I got chatting to a bloke in his pick-up who was clearly bored and had nothing else to do. This isn't hugely surprising in a place that only has a population of 54, but it turned out that he was from the East End of London, and had moved over to the US as a kid. You couldn't tell he was British but he reminisced fondly about the place, probably more fondly than I feel about it right now.
We were only ever going to stay a short time in Rachel as we had to press on, still having another three hours of driving to go. On our way we saw dust storm tornadoes and Wolfie saw a roadrunner, resisting his coyote/wolf urges to go and chase it. Wolfie was driving by this point and I was in the back, with the length and heat of the day starting to take its toll. I was quite sleepy and missed the roadrunner, not aided by the gloaming skies nor the luggage piled up in the back seat next to me. Our destination was the border town of Mesquite, which was a far cry from the glamour of Reno. We were staying in the Virgin River Casino, which again had seen better days, but the hotel section in seven separate communes out back was comfortable enough. We were in commune 7, and after a rather lengthy wait to pick up our keys, we headed to our room. For the only time during the trip, we were to be in a separate room to Tux, and it was this that contributed to it being four times the price of our stay at GSR - and that was only one night compared to five. We had got an insanely good deal in Reno due to Tux being fulled compped for three nights, as well as him being on staff. All in all, the five nights cost us $5.75 each as there was four of us in the room, which truly was bargain of the century. This was roughly the price of a poor quality steak in the restaurant of the Virgin River, which is where we went once we had checked in. The casino floor had definitely aged, but there was still a good number of machines, which were quite busy considering it was a Monday evening. The restaurant, even though it was 9:30pm, was also quite rammed. The steak was on special offer and so we couldn't get past it, although you definitely got what you paid for - in this case $6,99. The steak was definitely poor quality, the vegetables mushy and the baked potato was somewhat burnt, but the butter was to die for, and that made it okay in my book. Indeed, the butter was so good I avoided the sour cream entirely, which is rare for me. I suppose I can't complain too much though, considering it was so cheap.
After the meal, I just wanted to crash so Wolfie and I left Tux playing on some of the slots. The night air was touching 100F and it was clear we had gotten a lot closer to Las Vegas and with it to a lot lower elevation. Even when we woke up at 7am it was still blistering. We had hoped to go to the casino again for breakfast, but we slept in slightly and fearing we didn't have enough time, we absconded to the McDonald's across the road. Judging by the quality of the food, this was no bad thing, and as we assembled outside the car for 8am, I was delighted we were bang on time. It was an early start, but we were about to cross our first timezone and with it, move one hour ahead. We were also about to visit two new states, which I will detail next time.
We left the con hotel at around 10:30am, and it was rather sad to leave, although the Sunday evening Dead Dog night was definitely quite sparsely populated, making this the right time to go. After filling up with petrol, we headed out into the suburbs, where the terrain soon turned into sandy scrubland. Apparently this area is popular with retirees but as we moved further away from Reno, the more sparsely populated it became. Towns like Fernley and Fallon passed us by, with a number of small delapidated villages lining Route 95 as we headed towards Hawthorne. Many of them seemed to exist only to sell Fireworks, with a few warehouses dotted between the rundown wooden buildings. Just outside of Hawthorne, we stopped off at Walker Lake, a rather rare expanse of water in a semi-arid environment. We found a parking spot just off the road, where we pulled in to take some pictures over the lake. In the sand, we saw a handful of lizards playing while in the distance we could see rows upon rows of identical white huts which form the Hawthorne Army Depot, where a load of military weapons are stored. Hawthorne is very much an army town, and the main street was bedecked with American flags (indeed it was here that I took the most American photo ever, with a McDonald's sign on one side of the road, an American flag on the other and a pick-up truck bombing down the middle). On our right as we entered we saw the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum, outside which there was a miscellaneous collection of hard artilery. Alas, we didn't have time to drop by though as lunch was calling, which saw us stop off at the rather tired looking restaurant in the El Capitan Casino. This was a place that Tux knew quite well and although the service was slow, the sandwich was pretty tasty, although the honey in the tea was pretty disgusting. It was a relaxing pitstop, however, even if it was a world away from the GSR back in Reno.
As we turned towards Tonopah, it was highlighted just how desolate this area is, as there was a sign warning us that the next gas would be 100 miles away. Fortunately, we had filled up, meaning we were safe as we drove through yet more arid scenery littered by incredibly poor villages in the middle of nowhere. Indeed, the poverty here was quite shocking and a long way away from the America that is projected on our TV screens. I had seen this before when I lived in Louisiana but the desolation on every level was quite shocking, even for me. Indeed many of these towns had seen better days, probably in the days of mining, and some of them had more RVs and pick-up residences than actual houses. The motels in these parts were particularly sorry.
The scenery didn't really change as we were driving. There was a salt flat near Mina from memory, and after that the terrain became even more arid, with sand predominating with a few scrubby bushes dotted about. In the distance there was the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada, which must have been so tantilizing for anyone caught out here in this incredibly dry environment. The only other exciting thing that happened before Tonopah was when we stopped due to some roadworks taking place. The traffic was allowed to form one long line, meaning we had a good five minutes just parked in the road. This enabled me to get out and take some pictures before having to jump back inside to continue our journey.
To say that we had travelled 100 miles to get there, there wasn't an awful lot in Tonopah aside from a gas station, a few hotels and a small number of residences. It was as prosperous as Hawthorne had been though and looked rather pleasant, set into one of the few hillsides we had seen close up. It did have a bit of a Wild West feel, but there was the Tonopah Brewing Company along with some decent accommodation, highlighting that it is something of a tourist town, albeit a modern one. Equidistant between Reno and Las Vegas, I suppose it makes a good stopping off point and while Taneli and Draken would have kept following Route 95, we turned off and followed Route 6 into even more rural Nevada. There were hills on this route, albeit sandy rocky shallow peaks very similar to the ones outside Marrakech in Morrocco. It did make for more involved scenery at least and the road being cut into some of them at least made that part of the journey more lively.
Further down the road, we turned onto Nevada Route 375 - commonly known as the Extra Terrestial Highway - as it is the road closest to Area 51. You don't ever get to see the infamous place, it being situated over a brow of some hills you see as you drive along, but the town of Rachel is the closest place and they have capitalized entirely by opening the Little A'le' Inn cafe there. Rammed to the rafters with alien memorabilia, it made a pleasant stop to get some ice cream, not to mention some tourist tat that they sold in abundance. We got a fridge magnet before noticing some beer in the back storeroom, so we got a bottle of this too. While we were here, we watched footage from the One Love concert in Manchester, which had taken place the day before in response to the terrorist bombing in the city a fortnight earlier. It was rather surreal watching scenes from a place I know so well in this cafe in the middle of rural Nevada. The cafe has definitely hammed up the alien stuff, both inside and out, but it was a nice novelty and on the way out, I got chatting to a bloke in his pick-up who was clearly bored and had nothing else to do. This isn't hugely surprising in a place that only has a population of 54, but it turned out that he was from the East End of London, and had moved over to the US as a kid. You couldn't tell he was British but he reminisced fondly about the place, probably more fondly than I feel about it right now.
We were only ever going to stay a short time in Rachel as we had to press on, still having another three hours of driving to go. On our way we saw dust storm tornadoes and Wolfie saw a roadrunner, resisting his coyote/wolf urges to go and chase it. Wolfie was driving by this point and I was in the back, with the length and heat of the day starting to take its toll. I was quite sleepy and missed the roadrunner, not aided by the gloaming skies nor the luggage piled up in the back seat next to me. Our destination was the border town of Mesquite, which was a far cry from the glamour of Reno. We were staying in the Virgin River Casino, which again had seen better days, but the hotel section in seven separate communes out back was comfortable enough. We were in commune 7, and after a rather lengthy wait to pick up our keys, we headed to our room. For the only time during the trip, we were to be in a separate room to Tux, and it was this that contributed to it being four times the price of our stay at GSR - and that was only one night compared to five. We had got an insanely good deal in Reno due to Tux being fulled compped for three nights, as well as him being on staff. All in all, the five nights cost us $5.75 each as there was four of us in the room, which truly was bargain of the century. This was roughly the price of a poor quality steak in the restaurant of the Virgin River, which is where we went once we had checked in. The casino floor had definitely aged, but there was still a good number of machines, which were quite busy considering it was a Monday evening. The restaurant, even though it was 9:30pm, was also quite rammed. The steak was on special offer and so we couldn't get past it, although you definitely got what you paid for - in this case $6,99. The steak was definitely poor quality, the vegetables mushy and the baked potato was somewhat burnt, but the butter was to die for, and that made it okay in my book. Indeed, the butter was so good I avoided the sour cream entirely, which is rare for me. I suppose I can't complain too much though, considering it was so cheap.
After the meal, I just wanted to crash so Wolfie and I left Tux playing on some of the slots. The night air was touching 100F and it was clear we had gotten a lot closer to Las Vegas and with it to a lot lower elevation. Even when we woke up at 7am it was still blistering. We had hoped to go to the casino again for breakfast, but we slept in slightly and fearing we didn't have enough time, we absconded to the McDonald's across the road. Judging by the quality of the food, this was no bad thing, and as we assembled outside the car for 8am, I was delighted we were bang on time. It was an early start, but we were about to cross our first timezone and with it, move one hour ahead. We were also about to visit two new states, which I will detail next time.
