Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

I ended up doing a very long ride that day. For the map-followers, I headed out on US-95 or US-93; I forget which, but the one that goes past Beatty. I took a detour to look at the historical marker at Mercury, where the nuclear testing was done. Round there somewhere is Yucca Mountain, where the nuclear nasties are stored/were going to be stored. (No, I haven’t done my research yet.)

I passed through Goldfield, a town to explore for another day–old, dusty, original and with one as yet undiscovered historical marker to lure me back. Sadly, I passed the loop to Lida unexplored. I just felt uneasy going out there and risking running out of gas. Another time. That whole area around Beatty/Tonopah could keep me occupied for two
weeks all by itself and I would be more inclined to carry a gallon on a day trip based out of, say, Tonopah.

I did do a nod to the route, though, and doubled up to Belleville on NV-360 to see the marker and look at the ruins from a distance. Pretty road. I was able to fill up in the town with the desert lobsters. An old fella shambled out and insisted on pumping the gas for me. I don’t remember that service since I was a little girl.

Cut up over NV-361, feeling like I was coming full circle and catching up with the prequel to this trip. That’s the route that my friends took when they were able to go to Berlin and the ichythosaur state park. It felt like following in well-travelled tracks. The crinkly rocks you see in the picture are along there, it was pretty.

Took a stop for the third time at the loneliest phone to find out how far Don had got. Not very. There were new stickers on the phone and I liked the hug one so I took a picture of it. I bet it makes a few people
smile.

After that it felt like being on familiar roads. I arrived in Reno about an hour before Don did. I did around 400 miles that day, as I recall.

Just up the road is Rhyolite, an easily accessible ghost town with minimal “interpretation” and many buildings. I was running out of time–already, at seven in the morning it was rather warm and I had to move out of the area. So I just did a quick run-through and put it on my to-do list for a cooler time of year. I would like to park up there and
explore in more depth, but after the sublime experience of the art park, I wasn’t really in the mood.

On the 14th of July I only got as far as Beatty. Exhausted, I collapsed into the Motel 6–which is a prototype for a new Motel 6 and very, very nice–at 11 in the morning. It was stiflingly hot when I left Vegas around six or seven, and I was really glad to be out of there. I love Vegas, but the heat was really not suiting me at all.

The morning of the 15th, I got up very early and reached here, the Goldwell Open Air Museum, before dawn. There were lights here and there in the desert and the sky was pinking up. The images here may or may not be work safe, depending on what work has to say about 20′ nudes made from cinder blocks. The Book Crossers among you will probably appreciate the themed release that I made there.

I actually thought the goddess was a very powerful piece of art. I went there expecting to be amused, but I was moved, instead. I think the artist put a lot of his creativity and passion into the figure, and it showed.

This place is “nowhere”. That is to say, it is a few miles down the empty road that leads to Death Valley. “An expression of the desert landscape” is how the web site describes it. I loved being there so early and utterly alone. It is one of my favourite experiences from the whole trip.

I then caught a cab up to the wedding chapel where my friends got married. I’ve known Mark for ten years online and this was our first irl meeting! His wife, Jayne, is lovely. The wedding was a complete and utter hoot–everything from the 2001 theme entry in the pink cadillac to the hokey Elvis-flavoured vows. Afterwards we piled into the limo and headed down for a buffet at the Flamingo Hotel. I met the “kids” (all growing up now) and Barbara from Alaska and there was much rejoicing.

I wish them very well, anyway :-)

I walked back afterwards in the balmy summer night, and got to see the fountains just as I walked by, so that was cool. For those not in the know, one of the hotels (I forget which) sets fountains to classical music.

Even though I love Vegas very much, I couldn’t cope with living in that kind of heat, day in and day out. I was looking forward to getting out of there.

I had a nice morning catching up on this and that, then met up with my friend and immediately hit it off with her very well indeed. We both squee’d when we found Boots products in some drug store up the strip. ;)

It was well over 100 degrees and I needed to keep diving in and out of casinos to cool down.

First we went to New York. Then we saw the blasted remains of a casino. Then we looked at the ceiling of the Bellagio. Then we chatted for a long time in McDonalds because I was otherwise going to fall over. Then we tried to see the fountains but they were being messed with by a scuba diver.

A high point was sitting on the hot sidewalk with big jars of iced tea cooling down. Afterwards I introduced her to my bug-bespattered motorcycle and showed her a few pics before I had to go onto the next adventure. :)

So I continued, feeling severely ripped off by “Lake Mead Highway”, which is MILES from the lake. So, no cooling effect. At Echo Bay there is a snarf, so I went there and got my token shot of the water and guzzled down some Gatorade from a machine there.

Then I got to Henderson for lunch, gas, arrangements, and sitting in the shade. It was so hot - well over 100 F — that even the pigeons sat in the shade.

I got very lost in Henderson. It therefore took me nearly 3 hours to get settled in the Excalibur Hotel and I was borderline for heat exhastion.

The Excalibur is a silly place. :-P

I said that ten miles down the road would have been a nicer place to stay. Here’s why: the little oasis, put together by the Mormon farmers before the state boundaries were changed and they had to move on.

Under Lake Mead near here are a bunch of ruins from an advanced ancient society. All that remains of it is the Lost City museum, also at Overton.

Then I went to Valley of Fire state park. Name doesn’t need any explanation, right? ;-) It was pretty easy to see where it was by the flame of red through the otherwise dusty and monochrome desert.

I climbed a ladder to visit these 4000 year old, awesome petroglyphs that are placed rather a long way up the side of a giant rock. There is a design that is unique to this area–the little man holding the spear, or atlatl. Hence, Atlatl Rock.

I felt dizzy up on the little catwalk for viewing them.

On the way up I’d seen something for “Miller Point” and took a break there. It was quite a surprise. In Rachel, I’d been recommended to see Cathedral Gorge, and Miller Point was an access point for a fabulous landscape of salmon-coloured formations like stalagmites and strips of geological candy-rock. I spent a happy hour pottering around there.

Just south was a historical marker for Bullionville (gee, guess what they hauled there?) I looked up and spotted a mysterious little path leading to an ancient burial ground. Well, not really. It was, however, a neat little old cemetery that used to belong to Bullionville. Most of the graves are unmarked; the preservationists got to it too late to save
most of the wooden grave markers.

I also stopped by the visitor centre for the state park and chatted to the ranger, who gave me some historical marker hints and allowed me to a) not go nuts looking for one that was missing and b) find one that I
hadn’t found before.

After that, I was just truckin’…heading towards Vegas. I crossed the ugliest road of my trip, highway 168–it was like crossing a sandpit mixed with a construction site, and windy to boot–and collapsed, dripping sweat and horribly overheated, in Glendale where I shared my burger and shake with roughly 20 flies: totally gross. If I’d ridden 10
more miles I could’ve stayed somewhere nice, but not to worry.

I started to have this inkling that I wouldn’t be spending much time snarfing in the Vegas area: this was a whole different degree of heat.

Including the wedding and Napa adventure on my return home in the middle, the road trip was 5,405.1 miles in a little under one month.

Including the Reno prequel at the start of June, it was 5,946.1 miles.

Rachel, pop. 98, is the only community alongside hwy 375. It is home to the Little A’Le’Inn. ;-)

There are gas pumps. I needed them. I remember seeing a sign, Rachel 6 miles, and then seeing a cluster of buildings in the distance. “So, that’s what 6 miles looks like out here.”

It was a long six miles.