Day 4: US Highway 50

Didn't exactly hang around in my smelly motel room this morning! No signs of life from the unit next door either, watch the papers for "death by fatal laugh, Reno, NV". Was out on the road fairly quickly, some quality country blasting out on the radio (Reno knows how to do Country!). Fueled up, pump wanted a ZIP code for my credit card, but the usual 00000 and 90210 didn't work… got there in the end. Drove through Sparks and kicked myself; there, right next to the railway yard is a massive casino / hotel complex. I bet I could've got a nicely scented room overlooking the railway yards for dirt cheap! Next time…

Back on 80 East and after one wrong turn and a detour past a trailer park, I was at Scheels, thanks to a quiet tip off from someone at Cabelas. Well… I thought Cabelas was huge. Scheels of Sparks, NV is the largest single sporting store in the world! 295,000 square ft of specialty sporting goods (Westfield Riccarton is 593,000 sq ft, across two hundred retailers! ). WOW!

This is the entrance. Notice how it completely dwarfs the SUVs parked next to it. You can't quite see it, but in the atrium there is a life size propeller plane, the type that lands on lakes. Inside, there is a ferris wheel ! A real, operational, life size ferris wheel, inside the building, and even it doesn't touch the roof. That is how big this thing is! On the way out I took the wrong exit and had to walk around the building… well, 5 minutes later I was almost back at the front. It's like this is a model railway and they've bought a building from several scales up.

Anyway, inside was amazing. I wanted some gloves. Well, whereas in NZ you might get 2 different types of gloves and some mittens, in Scheels they had 3 isles of gloves, an entire range of mittens, convertible mitten-gloves, stretchy under-gloves, fingerless gloves, leather gloves, elk-leather gloves, sheepskin lined leather gloves, fluffy gloves, polyprop gloves, kids gloves; and this was without even going near the ski and snow boarding gloves!

So I walked out with 2 types of gloves (one space age pair with special silver lining to reflect heat in and goretex outer, and one low-tech pair of polyprop gloves for when I need dexterity, i.e. fiddling with a camera), some waterproof, windproof, breathable overpants, and a rather nifty rabbit fur lined hat thing with chin flap. Unfortunately the hat is "Mad Bomber" brand which probably has me on all sorts of DHS/TSA/FBI watch lists now :-)

Shopping completed I hit I80 and zoomed out of town. Passed one train that gave me a toot, well… it tooted as I whizzed past at 70mph. Soon I was on US50, and after an hour almost all traffic withered away to nothing. Excellent… it's just me and the road now. And no more Country; no more anything actually, US50 is total radio silence.

But what a drive it is. Absolutely out of this world amazing. And with cruise control, an absolute breeze. Was a very solid 5 hour drive to Ely, with a total of two 5 minute stops, and while some parts are pretty forgettable, some parts made me gasp in amazement.

Sand dunes and (I assume) salt flats / mountains rising out of the road.

It's pretty amazing when you see nothing by sage brush for half an hour, and then suddenly the as you crest a hill some gloriously crisp mountains rise out of nowhere.

Then the town of Austin, NV materialised from nowhere, tucked into a little valley.

Had a quick leg stretch here, was definitely single digits here; beautifully crisp and wintery. The whole place had that wonderful sharp, clean winter feeling you only get out in the country on a cold frosty morning. Just fantastic. Nevada keeps getting better.

Onwards I drove, till an hour later I glanced in the rear view mirror and whoa!

In a way it just screams NZ and the Southern Alps. But then, where in NZ could you ever get a vista like this? Without, aside from a road and two vehicles, any sign of human existence.

Well… wow… Nevada, you stun me again .

Another hour or so of driving, and the landscape starts to undulate a little more, and the mountain passes become more frequent. I passed some pretty swamps, although taking photos while driving past at 120kmh doesn't always produce great results.

Another little mountain pass, Nevada must be a geologist's dream come true.

Into the second town, this time Eureka, complete with a street called Gold St. Can't imagine what the Eureka is referring to.

Onwards and onwards. Despite having been (officially at least) in Toiyabe National Forest for several hours now, I was only just starting to see evidence of the "forest" part of its name…

Lots of snow in the shadows too now, and getting pretty brisk outside. I tried a trucking trick to clear my head; wind down the window and stick your head out. Yup, freezing air at 70mph sure wakes you up! Oh and by the way, 70mph is the speed limit here, another reason Nevada is awesome.

Sun was getting low now, and wow , there is just something about big open spaces, crisp mountain air, long shadows and that gentle late winter afternoon sunlight that makes my skin tingle:

Arrived in Ely not long afterwards and went looking for a motel. Did my homework on Google Maps and it looked like there wouldn't be too many motels. Well… the entire main street is lined with motels on both sides. I found a very nice place where I got a double queen bedroom, with bath and shower, and a nice pleasant smell (yay!), for $39/night. And every single motel here seem to have wifi… Reno could learn a thing or two from Ely.

Dinner was around the corner at a lovely cozy wee mexican place. I know where I'll be going tomorrow! Had a combination chicken enchilada and chicken sopito (thick buritto with raised edges) which were both fantastic and just the right amount of filling. $10.

Was amused to see the bucket of cigarette buts at the motel here was full of water and had frozen completely solid; it looked like a giant glass brick, with cigarette butts in it. Yep, it gets pretty fresh here! Currently -7°C outside, expected low of -11°C tonight. But it doesn't feel that cold out; the walk to the restaurant was very pleasant actually.

I like Ely. It's small enough to get my head around. I can never quite come to grips with the big cities, whereas somewhere like Ely, Wells, Caliente, or Helper, I feel welcome and it feels homely. They're small enough that you can walk to dinner, or wander down to the railway yard if you have a few spare minutes. And they're always in such spectacular locations! Is it any wonder I keep returning time and time again to Nevada and Utah?

Tomorrow… well, tomorrow is winter steam railfan day #1! Lazy start at midday with a run of the line behind a pair of vintage Alcos, I can't wait!