Nevada - Day 21 - aliens, mountains, hot springs, to Ely

Ely KOA, Ely

Thursday, 21 April 2022

The tiny mom-and-pop campground at Alamo had the best wifi signal I've found in a long time.  I was almost sorry to leave, except for the cottonwood cotton and for the absolutely no place to walk the dogs.  So off we went.

today's route

A highway sign told me that litter pick-up in that area was sponsored by Eagle Mothers Clan of the River People.  I've tried finding information about those folks and can't.  There's a website, written by someone in Pennsylvania (?) but clearly referring to the Mojave Natives.  The website is for the Mojave Paiute Eagle Clan, saying it's a non-profit intended to advance the welfare of Native Americans.  I couldn't find anything about the River People, or the Eagle Mothers Clan.

About 30 miles or so north of Alamo, we came to the junction with Nevada highway 375, aka the Extraterrestrial Highway (official designation by the State of Nevada).  It runs for nearly 100 miles through almost nothing but desert, but it skirts the section of Nellis Air Force Base known as Area 51.  

The closest town is Rachel, founded in 1978, population in 2020 of 48 residents.  It has almost no services at all and seems to be still in existence because of the UFO enthusiasts who visit the area.  This place must have been a madhouse during that Storm Area 51 idiocy in 2019.  In fact, I found an online discussion by the BBC of all folks that addressed just that.   https://www.bbc.com/storm-area-51

I don't myself believe in alien spaceships, especially not as they're depicted in popular culture.  I think first, that any being from another planet that's advanced enough to make it this far from their planet (and scientists have so far found no life nearer than a whole bunch of light years away) are competent enough not to crash here or be captured. 

And second, why on earth should these beings take on life forms similar to ours - with arms and legs and heads and eyes (really big slanted ones) - and why oh why should they be green, of all colors?  Are they vegetarians?  

And third, I don't see any problems with the explanations that the Air Force and the US Weather Service folks have given of the alleged UFO sightings so far.  Sometimes it's taken them a while to figure out what caused what people have seen, but they can always do it and it always sounds reasonable to me.  The whole thing started with sightings of the U-2 aircraft the Air Force was developing - and those were real enough.

Anyway, if you're curious about what you might find if you were to drive down this highway, here's an informative web page.   https://www.legendsofamerica.com/extraterrestrial-highway

As you can tell, I wasn't that curious.  But I did stop at the crossroads where there was a sort of rest area to walk the dogs a bit.  Gracie now reminds me of the Peanuts character Pigpen.  When I touch her, or when she plops down, a cloud of dust rises into the surrounding air.  She really loves rolling around in almost anything - and in this part of the country that means dirt and sand.  I need to get her bathed again, but on the other hand, why bother if she's just going to get dirty again.

Google tried hard to get me to go down NV-318 that starts at that junction, and I saw lots of cars and RVs taking that route.  But AAA says US-93, which I was on, was a scenic route, and I had plenty of time so ignored Google.

We climbed to Pahroc Summit, elev. 4,961', and then crossed a broad flattish valley - I think it was Delamar Valley - ringed by mountains.  I'm assuming this area was created by a prehistoric sea, but it's been a really long time since a sea was here.

I passed a sign telling me to turn left for the Oak Springs Trilobite Site.  I didn't, though I was curious and had to look it all up.  A trilobite is an extinct marine arthropod, one of the earliest known species of arthropods.  And this area is full of their fossils in shale outcroppings.  Worth a stop on another visit.

From Oak Spring Summit, elev. 6,237' (you can see the road was climbing), we found a very long series of s-curves on the way downhill.  And then the town of Caliente, elev. 4,398' and a 2020 population of 1,028.  Apparently the town got its name from the hot springs in the area.  I saw the World Famous Caliente Hot Springs Motel (their words), which has even been a site for weddings in the past.

I saw another watch-out-for-deer sign (still no deer) and another one of those wild bull/open range signs - and this one I managed to stop and take a photo of.

This just doesn't look like a placid cow to me.  And yes, that is Bigfoot that's been added to the sign.  They're real jokers around here.

I passed large crop fields being watered.  (Why are people living in a desert in such a water-intensive way?  The early inhabitants of these deserts weren't growing crops in commercial quantities, but instead trying to live in harmony with this arid land.)

I passed 2 state parks: Kershaw-Ryan and Cathedral Gorge.  Both protect unusual scenery and both have small campgrounds, both of which said they expected to be full on a Wednesday night (last night) because of some bicyclist gathering in the area.  I don't know where they were bicycling because I didn't see any except for those I saw back at Valley of Fire State Park yesterday.

By this time we were ready for another break, so I turned off the highway toward the town of Pioche (the town's website says its name is pronounced "pee-oach.")  It had a 2020 population of 1,354' and sits at 6,060'.  It's a mountain town, a county seat, and has many old buildings in town with explanatory markers.  We stopped at the town park, where I found some historical information.

And Pioche is still the Lincoln County seat.

The courthouse sits next to the town park on the left.  I took this photo from this angle to show that the town is high up over the surrounding valley - a real mountain town.  None of the streets do anything but go up and down (the road pictured is on a steep hill).

That courthouse was built, I'm guessing, in the Art Deco style.  I think it dates from the 1930s, but can't find anything online because all discussions center on what's known as the Million-Dollar Courthouse.

picture posted by the town with the historical notes shown above

This courthouse still exists (now a museum) and, though it was built in 1878, apparently did cost a great deal more than a million dollars.  The Wikipedia explanation is more clearly written than the others I found.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Lincoln-County-Courthouse

As we were leaving town, we passed the Overland Hotel, which has a sign saying it has been featured on Ghost TV.  I'm not familiar with that but the Travel Channel folks included this hotel in Season 8, Episode 12.

Back on the road, I was fighting strong squirrely winds again, and saw 4 signs for elk.  I'm very sorry that elk don't read highway signs as well as Bighorn Sheep do.

I watched a dust-nado form into a tall column on the right - big enough to make me nervous.  That dust storm near Tonopah made a serious impression on me that I won't forget for a long time, so seeing another batch of dust getting itself organized gave me trepidation.

Then (there was nothing else to look at out here) I watched it begin to move toward the road.  I hoped it'd cross the road either before or after I passed the area, but no.  I had to watch it run along beside - beside - the road till I got even with it and then it crossed.  We got walloped with hard-charging dirt and debris hitting the side of the RV, hitting the windshield, obscuring the road.  And then we passed it by - or it passed us by.  I really don't like dust storms when I'm in the middle of them.

We began to see taller mountains - these with snow on the tops, and came to Lake Valley Summit, elev. 6140'.  I saw a guy walking down the side of the road out in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  There wasn't even a rear entrance to a ranch anywhere around.  He wasn't carrying a pack.  He was just walking down this narrow mountain highway.  Where can he possibly have come from and where could he be going?  America is strange.

A sign told me the highest mountain I was seeing was Wheeler Peak, 13,061', and that this was the Snake Mountain Range.  I guess this area is included in the Great Basin National Park, which a sign told me I could get to by turning right.  

This is one national park I'd heard nothing about, and apparently few others have heard of it either, because they say it's one of the least visited of our national parks.  And that seems to be a pity, because it sounds pretty spectacular.  Here's what Nevada Tourism says about it:

https://travelnevada.com/great-basin-national-park  The park includes campgrounds, so I'd definitely want to put it on my list of things to see the next time I'm here.

Instead, I turned left to stay on US-93 and found myself on a Nevada Scenic Byway through the Humboldt National Forest.  A sign told me I'd find s-curves for the next 9 miles.  It was accurate.

I passed 2 rock walls that were clearly pink, white and gold.  I guess there were unusual deposits of minerals in those rocks, and I wondered why just those 2 walls and not the others I passed.

Connors Pass came next, elev. 7,722' (notice they're getting higher?), followed by a 6% grade for the next 4 miles.  In other words, a 6% grade while I was negotiating a series of s-curves.  There were occasional sudden gusts of wind on some of those s-curves which were a little scary when I had to fight to keep the RV on the road.

I passed more mountains with snow.  A sign told me an unpaved road to the left led to a state prison.  Another sign told me I could turn for the Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park.  I didn't but it sounds worth a side trip.  This park protects 6 beehive-shaped charcoal ovens that were used to process silver ore from 1876 to 1879.  This website shows photos of those and more history about them.   http://parks.nv.gov/ward-charcoal-ovens

From there it wasn't much farther to tonight's campground.  I'd had bad cramps in my feet and legs that woke me up at 11:30 last night and kept me up for hours, so after all this driving, I was ready to stop and rest for the night.

Ely (pronounced eel-ee) sits at 6,437' (higher than most of those passes we came through) and had a 2020 population of 3,933.  And since I came to the campground before I came to the town, that's all I can tell you about it at this point.