I had a rare day working at my desk today, and in an effort to keep from having to do precisely that, I checked out my "spam" folder and saw that I'd gotten a message from a guy who wanted me to write a piece for his blog. Kind of cool... glad I didn't just empty the folder like I've been known to do.
He has a pretty nifty premise - he's asking bloggers from around the country to talk about adventures in their home states. Here's what I wrote for him:
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When I was a kid, somewhat more than 50 years ago, there
were about 300,000 people in Nevada. We didn’t have a big enough
population to warrant two representatives in Congress, or even statehood for
that matter. We had lots of silver, though, and the Union needed it for
the war, so with a wink and a nod they let us join the America club. Not
that it mattered much to the cows and sagebrush that filled the high desert
back in the day.
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| International Car Forest of the Last Church, Goldfield |
There are a lot more people in
Nevada now, but luckily for the rest of us they mostly live in Vegas. It
takes a little more effort than it used to, but you can still plop yourself in
the middle of 200 square miles of nothing. Real Nevadans like it that
way. Go ahead and dis our state as a wasteland. Speed on down the
interstate. We don’t mind.
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| Wendover Will |
Nevada echoes… with history, with loneliness, with the ghosts of broken
dreams. With mile after mile of dirt roads and strange, friendly,
self-sufficient people who’ll gladly let you through their gates to access some
remote stretch of mountain snow, but who’ll warn you that you ought to be
packin’ if you go. Mountain lions, you know, a guy got killed up there a
while back. That’s the story at any rate, and news is so rare in these
parts that “a while back” may have happened in the 1800’s.
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| Photo by Kenny Sheen |
I mean, really – you want
mountains? We got mountains, and most of them require some serious
map-and-compass skills to adequately explore. The guidebook-dependent
ecotourist need not apply. There are 300 named mountain ranges in the state
– more mountains than in any state other than Alaska. For my money, my
home range, the Ruby Mountains of Elko County, is the prettiest around.
But high deserts are about jewels of oases, and every range in the state has
trickling seasonal streams with shady caves of cottonwoods at their bases,
bumblebees lazily buzzing in the dappled light. You don’t have to make it
all the way to the Rubies to find Nevada paradise. Go out and find a
special spot of your own.
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| Seitz Lake, Ruby Mountains |
The way to see Nevada, frankly,
is to throw away the guidebooks. They don’t do it justice, anyway.
Get yourself a well-stocked pickup (water, food, camping gear, repair kit, some
select maps, extra fuel, a big dose of self-sufficiency) and head out.
“Where does this road go?” is one of my favorite games, and Nevada is the best
state in the country to play it. You never know if you’re going to end up
at a cattle trough, an old hydroelectric plant, a mining camp or a washed-out
bridge. Bring some wine and somebody who likes to enjoy a good Nevada
sunset, and find a nice high spot to watch the desert turn to night.
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| Independence Range |
Now – keep in mind that people can and do manage to get lost and sometimes
killed this way, so take your own safety seriously. The cavalry may
eventually show up – eventually – but even giving directions to AAA in this
state is a challenge. The nearest cross-street may be 89 miles away,
assuming that you even have cell coverage to call them (fat chance, generally
speaking).
The premise of the #makeadventure theme is to come up with a
top five list of things to do and places to see in my state. My best
answer – I don’t know yet, but I look forward to finding out. No doubt
it’s at the end of some washboard road somewhere, in some little bar in a ghost
town, complete with friendly fossils holding down barstools.
A few ideas for my next Nevada adventures –
-Dig for opals at the mines near Denio.
Spend some time at the Sheldon Wildlife Refuge while I’m there, see if I can
spot some mustangs.
-Follow the Pony Express Trail. Bike or
horse, whichever works.
-Look for the old concrete arrows that pilots
used to use to navigate cross country. They’re still there, spaced 10
miles apart, all across the northern part of the state.
-Go wander out to the bristlecones near Wheeler
Peak, see if I can guess which ones were around at the time of Christ.
-Find the funky – the one-horse towns, the
International Car Forest, the showers at Ely’s Hotel Nevada, the Brothel
Cookbook, Pioche, the locals just about anywhere.
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| Take this sign seriously, folks! |
The vastness and small beauties of our high desert will grow
on you. Nevada is windswept, sun-baked, snow-choked, humbling, filled with
birdsong. Spend some time here, and you’ll understand why we’re happy
when folks stay on the interstate.
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I had a link to his blog, but I just checked it and it's been hacked. So, I've sanitized this for YOUR PROTECTION. Just like they do to the toilets in Tonopah. You're welcome.
