Day 11, Part 1: Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006
Beatty, Nevada to Escalante, Utah
On Tuesday, I spend the entire day driving across the emptiness of central Nevada and through half the state of Utah, just to reach a little town called Escalante, in the middle of nowhere.
The day's first stop comes in a little town called Goldfield, which is the seat of Esmeralda county. In 1997, I bought a tour book (Rough Guide: USA) that claimed that Goldfield was a "ghost town". Not knowing how a county seat could also be a ghost town, I drove out all this way, just to get a picture of its courthouse. My camera broke on that trip in the middle of Kansas, though, so I was only able to get a couple of snapshots of the building with a disposable camera--and none of myself.
Nine years later, I finally get proof that I've actually been here, thanks to the automatic timer on my camera. I could tell in 1997 that Goldfield still had enough life in it to be more than just a "ghost town"; in the Spring of 2006, it looks even livelier to me still.
26 miles north of Goldfield is Tonopah, the county seat of massive Nye county, which fits like a key into the center of Nevada. I was here in 1997, too, but had a hard time finding the courthouse, which sits on top of a hill, away from the main drag in town.
Here I am, ruining an otherwise perfectly good courthouse picture by trying to act like it's cold outside. Which it was.
Tonopah's another Nevada town that boomed about a hundred years ago after they discovered silver in the surrounding mountains. While there still seem to be functional mining operations in the area, the hills are dotted with the ruins of the mines that have gone defunct, along with their excrescent "tailing piles" of exhumed dirt.
East of Tonopah, the adventure begins. I head down U.S. route 6 towards the "Extra-terrestrial Highway" and a little town called Rachel. It'll be a long drive before I see anything resembling civilization again.
In Nevada, the Open Range signs feature bulls, not cows.
As I'm waiting for the obligatory follow-up shot of cows on the road, I pass by something called the "National Wildhorse Management Area" and am surprised when I see a few wild horses grazing by the side of the road.
They get excited as I draw near and impetuously cross over to the other side of the highway...
Where they gallop off towards the snow-capped mountains in the distance.
