Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 16, 2013 - 03:43pm PT
Inspired by the Little Feat thread
Did you ever hit a town or a place, and you had to stop for a moment and let it soak in?
I was trying to cross Nevada on U.S. 6 and I got dropped off in Tonopah by a guy driving retrieval for the hang gliders going off the eastern sierras- first time I ever saw cocaine. Like every other drug scene in the world- he offered me a line but I was too shy.
".........I've driven every kind of rig that.'s ever been made....."
Tonopah the last of the mining towns in the west, and for good measure there was the top secret air force base that was flying strange sh#t overhead.
I hit the town at dinner time, I'm trying to get my act together and no kidding this old timer comes rustling out of the arroyo-he must have been about 140 years old, the only thing he was missing was a burro named # 7, and I ask him whats the best place to eat and of course he tells me it's across town. I'm carrying about 100 pounds of truck and across town aint gonna happen.
I go to the wrong place and order a bowl of chili and it had to be 90% dog food-and this is coming from a broke, eat anything, anywhere, dirty dog. Hunger was a great sauce but that chili needed more sauce- a lot more sauce.
I got dead-headed all night trying to go East. The same 8 teenagers drove by again and again as they cruised Main, up to Fourth, down Southern, and then back to Main up to fourth......and anyway I had to crash in a vacant lot on the edge of town and those teenage sonsobitches sought me out as I was crawling into my bag and flashed their brights and serenaded me in the fading Nevada twilight..........."Good Niiiiight!!......"
Up at 5 A.M. for a walk across town and got a 60 mile ride west to a cross roads but that's another story.
Any other freeze frame moments you'd like to share?
Brings up memories of the radio station recording Pate posted a few years back. Best recording of "Willin'" i've had the fortune of hearing. Lowell George and Linda Ronstadt. Good soundtrack for this thread: http://tela.sugarmegs.org/_asxtela/lowellgeorge1974-03-19.asx
Once I was coming home from Vegas on the 95 over the Westgard Pass,
Made it allthe way to the border as Neveda had plowed, Ill be damned if California didnt and I had to back track and go up to Tonopah to come down on the 6.
Well the snow storm got more intense and to make it over the pass there you would need chains. Not one pair to be sold in Tonopah.
I stopped with my then girlfriend at the northern junction of the ET highway, where the abandoned hot spring facility is.
We were swimming in the pool with the dog, naked obviously, for a good half hour, when a lone semi rolls up to the junction.
My lady stands up in the pool, shows the goods, and waves.
We got a honk from the truck, and he went on his way.
Once he finished his way up the grade, it was only us and the wind again..,
Edit; someone else here has posted photos or discussed (can't remember) of the creepy abandoned changing rooms adjacent to the pool. I didn't care to comment at the time, but, yeah, creepy.
Rural Nevada ain't creepy, it's just weird. I imagine you all can handle weird. I'm from Ely, so it feels normal. Cities are weird.
Come on back, breaker?
Cities are weird. I grew up in a small town in the swamps of South Florida, so I hear ya...but rural nv, esp along the 95 south of Fallon is just plain weird. Tonopah borders on creepy. Maybe much of that stems from the presence of the aforementioned Clown Motel...
Easy to do. Middle of nowhere, with nobody around, and one of if not your single most important person with you. One thing when it's just you, a whole other order of things when others are involved.
Was it as bad as it looks on the exterior on the interior? Were the folks at the counter weird as sh#t or odd? Dude the Tonopah McDonald's closed...pretty sad day. Was driving back from one of my final interviews in Vegas and was hoping for a McFlurry and fries in Tonopah. Not to be had, even the golden arches were gone. I had been down two weeks prior and they had been there and the McFlurries flowing. Had to wait until Hawthorne and all was good; McFlurry and fries had.
I tried making reservations at the pet friendly Clown Motel once...When i checked in i quickly discovered why they advertised pet friendly when they handed me the key and cowboy boots to kill the cockroaches...Don't pick up hitch-hikers when you drive thru Ely....RJ
Nevada never felt weird to me--just people working hard. Now Utah--that has been weird!
The ride I got going west out of Tonopah was with a surveyor who had no work unless it came from the air base--I think he told me about the stealth fighter? But too long ago.
He drops me off 60 miles west at this cross roads and this is a VERY bad place to try and get away from. Just a building, U.S. 6 and some road going north. You could hear the wheel hiss of the westbound cars for miles and miles--total doppler effect as they busted by you without even a thought of slowing down. And then more wheel hiss.........
I'm there most of the day, and about 2 in the afternoon, the same guy who dropped me off--he shows up because he said he was concerned about me getting home (connection--my Dad was a land surveyor- it was a Sunday and he said he had nothing to do)! The upshot, is this guy gives me a ride back to Lee Vining- must have been 100 miles! It was probably the only time I got a ride where there was NOT a case of beer in the back--I swear every car in the West is drunk.
I've never forgotten that and many times I've picked up hitch hikers and given them some money or clothing, bus fare, whatever. All a spin off from that un-named guy from Tonopah.
Let us know!