Editor’s note: Given limited travel opportunities these days, I decided each Thursday to post travel stories I’d written prior to starting this blog. The following is from a cross-country trip I made along the length of US 50 in the spring of 2018. I hope you might vicariously enjoy this trip while we’re all hunkering down at home. Because this is a longer trip (a week and a half), I’m going to post each of the daily entries over each of the next 10 days.
I woke surprisingly refreshed this morning at the Cozy Mountain Motel, and took my bracing cold shower. While checking out, I noticed these displayed on the front counter like Russian nesting dolls. I decided to hurry on my way before they discovered any problems with my MasterCard payment…
I explored the town of Austin a bit more before getting back onto 50. I was struck by the number of abandoned buildings, completely untouched for decades. This is truly a ghost town.
As I mentioned yesterday, I resolved to get breakfast in the town of Eureka, about an hour down the road. So I got back onto US 50, which, if anything, was more deserted than yesterday. I’m getting used to the rhythm, though, and there’s a fullness to the emptiness, if that makes any sense. The sky is big, blue, and beautiful, and the landscape stretches out for miles and miles. Periodic US 50 signs confirm that I didn’t make a wrong turn somewhere, heading far off course.
I was quite hungry when I got to Eureka, and I found the Jackson Hotel (which supposedly has the amazing food) quite easily. It’s part of a complex of buildings on the main drag (which is, of course, US 50). I had trouble determining which door actually led to the restaurant, so I just entered a door that said “open” on it, hoping for the best. I found myself in a large auditorium of sorts that looked to be well over a century old. After a moment I was greeted by a middle-aged woman with a Farrah Fawcett hairdo who asked if she could help me. When I informed her I was just a tourist looking for a place to eat, she seized upon the opportunity to give me a guided tour of the building, which I learned was the Eureka Opera House.
It’s an impressive building that was originally built in 1880. My guide (whose name is Patty), it turns out, is the manager of the building, and is responsible for booking events (including concerts by Eddie Rabbit and Loretta Lynn’s daughter, among others. Their signed photos are on the wall.) She’s also responsible for setup, clean up, and everything else. Check out the old, original projectors that are down in the basement:
Patty is a bundle of energy, and wants nothing more than to promote the Opera House and the town of Eureka. After she gave me a tour of the Opera House, she took me across the street to the county courthouse, the jail, the assessors office, and other county offices. (These are housed in the historic courthouse, as well as a more modern annex.) For some reason, Patty has keys to all these offices, as well as several vaults. Here she is showing off the Treasurer’s vault:
I told Patty I was driving the full length of US 50, and she asked if I had the “passport” for the drive. I hadn’t heard of this at all, so she provided me with a copy. It turns out that it’s just for the towns along the Nevada stretch of US 50, and I had already passed most of those towns. But I took the passport, and she stamped it with the gusto of a customs official.
When I told her I’m writing a blog about my trip, she offered to take a picture of me in the judge’s chair in the courtroom.
Patty spend a full hour with me, and which point I was really ready for breakfast. I asked for a recommendation, and she referred me to the Pony Express Café. (It turns out that US 50 follows the old Pony Express trail in Nevada; I encountered numerous references to it along the way.) The Café is run by a couple of Amish women, who were warm and welcoming. It appears that the Café is where all the locals hang out, with plenty of conversation and back-slapping. In fact, while I was sitting at a table waiting for my breakfast, I felt a large hand grab my shoulder. I looked up and it was just some local greeting me, smiling and asking how I was doing. Is this a great town, or what? Oh, and I had the best “Amish Breakfast Sandwich” ever.
Refueled, I got back onto 50 and headed for Ely, Nevada. Ely is a famous railroad town, and a few miles before reaching Ely I saw plumes of black smoke next to the highway. It turns out a steam locomotive was operating – I still am not sure why. But there’s something wonderful about seeing this equipment, which must be from the 1930s or earlier, out in the wild, rather than at some museum. (Editor’s note: I later learned that, for a fee, regular shmoes like me can drive these vintage steam engines along a private track. Is this a great country, or what?)
Now that I had my official US 50 passport, I visited the Chamber of Commerce in Ely. The woman there stamped it with the “Ely” stamp, and commented that Patty sure had made a lot of stamps in my passport. Evidently there was some rivalry between the two towns, or these two women. I asked her what I should visit in Ely, and she said I should get a lime rickey from the old drug store down the street. I didn’t know what a lime rickey even is (didn’t he manage the Brooklyn Dodgers?), but I was game.
Upon arriving at the drug store I learned it had been at the same location since 1946, with the same soda fountain, same chairs, same stamped metal ceiling, etc. all those years. There were two young women working the fountain, and I ordered my lime rickey. Impressively, the two of them created this drink from scratch, which involved cutting and squeezing fresh limes. It turns out the woman on the right is 31, with a 3 year old, and she moved here from Las Vegas. She seems to really love Ely, and says it’s definitely a good place to be raising a young child. But she thinks in a few years she’s going to move out to Florida, where all her relatives currently reside. She reflected that Ely used to be a much bigger town, “before the mine closed.” It used to be a bustling town of almost 10,000 souls. “We even had a Sears!” I think she sees the writing on the wall.
After my lime rickey, I returned to the familiar ribbon of US 50. I left Nevada behind some time in the afternoon, entering Utah. I stopped for dinner in the town of Delta. There were two good prospects on the main drag; a diner and a motel “cafe.” It turns out the diner now serves only Chinese food, so I opted for the cafe. I was feeling a need for some greens, so I ordered a chef’s salad. It came with my choice of bread, and the waitress recommended I get the scone. It’s not like any scone I’ve ever seen:
Shortly after leaving Delta, US 50 becomes part of Interstate 70 for a bit. I was dreading this part of the trip, because I hadn’t been on an interstate since I’d left Sacramento and I was enjoying the freedom to drive on the empty, undivided, quiet roadway that is US 50. I could pull over whenever I wanted to see anything, and I could flip around whenever I needed to backtrack. So the idea of getting onto the interstate, and sharing it with semis, was not appealing.
However, it turns out that I-70 in Utah cuts through some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve seen. You wend your way around enormous carved mountains that are iconic in this area. Here’s an example, which somehow reminds me of a poop emoji.
So I actually enjoyed this part of the drive. Even travelling at 80 mph plus, the scenery simply dwarfs and overwhelms me. It’s a unique experience, and really places one in perspective.
I didn’t take many photos of this scenery, because an iphone camera just doesn’t do it justice. You really have to drive through it to appreciate it. But I did stop at the “ghost rock” viewing area in Emory, UT. There I ran into a solitary person who was taking a photo. She was probably in her 20s, and probably pregnant. (I knew better than to ask.) I noticed her SUV was packed to the gills with boxes and suitcases. I said that it looks like she’s moving somewhere. “Yes. New York.” From where? “San Francisco.” That was about the extent of our conversation, but after I got back in my car I wondered: Why is she taking this route? Wouldn’t Interstate 80 make more sense? What caused her to want to relocate all the way to the other side of the country? One theme I seem to keep running into on this trip is that everyone wants to be somewhere else.
I called a halt to today’s driving when I got to Green River, UT. Tomorrow it’s off to Colorado!
Chasing Phantoms 