The Lonliest Road in America

Continuing on with the travel blog despite the fact we arrived a week ago.

After Zion, we headed off to Nevada and the Great Basin National Park. Now my idea of traveling across Nevada was a whole lotta flat dessert nothingness. I guess I never really looked close enough at a topographical map of Nevada, but flat, it is not!

Great Basin National Park is on the far eastern edge of the middle of Nevada and stick has the 13,000 foot Wheeler Peak as part of its park. In fact, Nevada is full of 10K-12K peaks and tons of mountain ranges; its the most mountainous state in the lower 48. That was certainly a fact I never knew, but can certainly agree on after traveling Highway 50 across the entire state.

At Great Basin, we drove partway up the scenic drive where you can get a great view of the valley below. But the road up had no guard rails and was pretty steep, so after a while we turned back and headed down. We also took a tour of Lehman Caves. These caves are similar to Carlsbad Caverns, but a lot smaller. But to cool thing about this tour was the closeness. There were only 6 of us on the tour and you can walk right up to the cave formations and get a good close look. Plus, this cave is still alive and forming, so you can see the tiny drips of water hanging from the end of the stalagtites.

We want to go back to Great Basin, cause apparently over the summer, they have a starry night program. Seeing as they are really in the middle of nowhere, the stars are increadible at night here. The stars on a clear moonless night here would be stunning.

We stayed in the town of Ely along Hwy 50 overnight. Who knew this town was so popular as all the hotel rooms were booked. Mom and I managed to get the honeymoon suite at the Ramada, but it was rather expensive for Nevada. Unfortunately, we had no time to use the rather large jacuzzi in the room. :-)

The next day was the drive across Nevada on Hwy 50, the so-called lonliest highway in America. Like I said before, this was not a 300 miles flat drive. It was a string of empty valleys with a cow or two then a climb up a mountain pass then back down into an empty valley. It was actaully quite a pretty drive in its vastness. So much land that is realtively unused.

We stopped in the tiny town of Austin, NV for lunch. Austin is apparently the tourquois capitol of Nevada as so much of it was mined here. We, of course, had to stop at a jewelry store to pick up some much needed items. I managed to find a pair of earring that some-what matched my calcilica pendant I bought in Monument Valley. So yay!

Also along the highway was the famous Shoe Tree. Just this big 'ol Cottonwood in a wash in the middle of nowhere with TONS of shoes up in it. And some of them were rather nice running shoes. But I gotta say, the Shoe Tree appears to be haunted. While I was standing there taking a few photos, a single white gym shoe feel from the tree and almost hit me. Scarred the crap outta me. Now, I am sure shoes fall off the tree all the time, but what are the odds of actually being there when one falls and almost being hit? Spooky!

By the time you get to Fallon, NV, the suburbs of Reno have already started to expand this far, so the vastness of the mountains and valleys has given way to WalMarts and McDonalds. It was a little sad to leave all that emptiness and solitutde behind.

I wouldnt' exactly say Hwy 50 is the lonliest highway in the US as I have been on other more desolate roads in the US before. However, it is a very pretty and interesting road and well worth the drive if have the inclination.

We are almost done with the travel blogs and photos.... only a few more posts.