On the road, Utah to Nevada,
October 2016.
Early departure : 6h30 in the morning. We are in Salt Lake City, Utah
Great Salt Lake, Utah.
The couchsurfer who welcomes us, a nice and intense guy, explains to us the day before that he will be up early to go hang-gliding with his girlfriend. ’What time?’ ’We ask…‘ ’Around 6 o'clock.’ ’Nice, please let us know at midnight. After waking up, a stop is necessary in a coffee shop. “Here or to go?” The girl asks, “Here!” She serves us our shots in the dark (espresso + filter coffee) in a cardboard glass. Well. Plus I ask for a $ 4 US croissant, which turns out to be an old, dried croissant. I think about it again and a bitter taste comes back to me. It’s around 7 am that we hit the road. Our route process was often as follows: give ourselves a destination, look at the maps and landscapes, stop where we want! This precise day is the plan for the day, see where the road takes us. On Highway 80 West, seeing the sunrise envelops me in a magnificent feeling that I enjoy the eyes half-closed with an extreme smile on my lips. The road is only a line which extends to infinity. It was that morning that we saw the most beautiful landscapes of our trip, which still to this day justifies in my heart our flight to America. The Great Salt Lake. A lake of salt. The effect of the water acts as a mirror on the mountainous, bluish horizon. We stayed a long time to admire this incredible landscape, a poisoned gift indirectly offered by this more or less welcoming couchsurfer.
As we keep driving, I look at the travel guides offered by CAA which boil down to more or less an anthology of the most expensive hotels, fancy restaurants and 50% are advertising pages. About half of the guide is dedicated to Las Vegas. I watch the road and we will pass Elko, a small town known for its mining industry during the time of the conquest of the West. The small description of the guide is enough to arouse our curiosity. Four hours drive and we stop at the Elko Museum. The visit was surprising; a mastodon fossil (the ancestor of the mammoth), an impressive display of stuffed animals and an awesome exhibition on the history of Elko. There, I learn that Nevada is a state rich in minerals like turquoise and quartz. During the period of the conquest of the West, mining developed rapidly, industries going to settle all over the desert, often for very short periods, and several villages settled as quickly as they disappeared. As I leave, I notice a map showing the ghost towns of Nevada. I leave the museum, map in hand. -’Are you tempted?’ ’I ask Gab, but he has no choice, the map is there, we have to explore. Before continuing, we stop at a McDonald's to stock up on $ 1 coffee and most importantly, bump up the free WiFi. I'm doing 10 couchsurfing requests for San Francisco. Back in the car, we decide to follow the directions to the ghost town of Kingston.
The road is long. The expanses even larger than those seen before; the desert as far as the eye can see, mountains on the horizon, far, far away. Literally, we are in the middle of nothing. Nothingness. Sometimes 4x4s overtake us, surely laughing at Princess the Matrix. Arrived in Kingston, the ghost town is rather disappointing. The Sun hides behind mountains. Late afternoon darkness envelops the few relics found. We are a little disappointed. It is almost 5 p.m. Where to go ? Next destination, Belmont, ‘’ We have time! ’Route 50 South for 14 miles. Left onto 387-E. The road goes up a little north, we pass through the village of Manhattan. There are deer in the village that focus their attention on the car. The directions on the map say to continue straight ahead and at the next junction turn left. Continuing on this road in question, we arrive on a dirt road, difficult in places, which crosses the Toiyabe National Forest. After 30 minutes the road splits in two, but neither appears to be the main one. What to do ?
Time is running out, the Sun is approaching dangerously near its end, we are somewhere lost in the desert and we do not know if we will find what we are looking for. You have to make the right decision. We continue on the same road for 15 minutes. "No, we had to go the other way," we go back ... another 15 minutes. Twilight is approaching. At the end of the second road, we see our salute. A poster indicates Belmont turning left. Find ! When we arrive, night has fallen. Everything seems dead. You can't see anything in the city, except a bar which looks more like a house. 4x4s are parked. Gab wants us to explore the ghost town. I tell him that I don't want to walk through debris at night. We therefore opt for our "Plan A" applicable everywhere anytime: go have a drink at the bar. There is a dog announcing our entry. We sit at the bar. A little TV is showing a game of soccer or football, I can't remember. We order two beers. The man at the bar is an elderly man. He wears a straw hat, 80s serial killer glasses, a blue checkered shirt over a yellow checkered shirt. He speaks with a wedge toothpick, without loosening his teeth. He stands erect with his hands in his pockets, except when asked for a drink. To my right, there are three men watching us. They are a little cold at first, but the alcohol warms up. The place is small, so don't be rude! The discussion begins, the glasses too. ‘’ How many people live here? “You ask, the answer is 12. The men sitting at the bar are hunters who have been in the area for 20 days and tomorrow they are planning to leave. One of them shows me a rifle bullet, he gives it to me. The owner of the saloon is a woman in her 50s. She talks to me about Gabriel as ‘’ my husband ’. Of course.
A few drinks under my nose, I create a romantic story that led to our wedding. The hunters offer to show us the way to the campsite and share a fire with them. We follow them by car (a very short distance) to the site. Once there, the fire quickly ignites with gas. We exchange a few words, ideas and opinions. I quickly understand that they are real ’Americans or at least, the preconceived idea I had in mind at the time sounded a lot like it. One of them uses the word "nigger" to refer to Obama. Ok, I'm not going into this ... We carefully avoided any further political discussion, as it was obvious that nothing good could come out of it. Rather we enjoy the heat of the flames in silence, until one of them exclaims "Fire…" The next morning, they offered us a good breakfast, hashbrowns and sausages for lunch and they left with their deer. After we spent two hours collecting pine nuts. In the light of day, we strolled through the ghost town which was more like a heap of collapsed buildings, relics of a former 14th century mining town.
Village fantôme de Belmont.
We hit the road again at the start of the afternoon. On the clock, 6,680 km traveled. Next destination ? The goal is to find the internet and see the couchsurfing answers for San Francisco. We take the road to nothingness, to the desert. Several military planes pass in the sky. Indeed, we walk along the secret military base Area 51 (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_51).
The day goes by, it goes at full speed. We stop in the first town we see and decide to go to the bar. It is 3 p.m. Reasonable decision? Always, when you don't know what to do. TLC, Tonopah Liquor Compagny, is the city's oldest bar with almost 3,000 residents. At the bar, there is this lovely lady, Suzy, who greets us. Maybe in her 50s, her smile made her half younger. We order two beers and the WiFi password. The password does not work, the beers are already served. Never mind. We are the only ones at the bar, except a lady in her corner. Suzy tells us about her life, about the city and us about ours. The exchange is honest. We explain to him that we do not really know where we are going. Spontaneously, she invites us to stay at her place. Hesitantly, we tell him we're going to have a bite to eat and come back later. We decide to wait for her to offer it to us a second time, maybe that was a polite offer? When we come back, we meet our boyfriend Victor. ‘’ This is Victor! This is Gabriel and Lorena. They’ll stay with us at home! ”“ Well, it's official, we're staying at Suzy's tonight. In the end, we will have stayed two days and two nights with Suzy and Victor. They showed us around the city's ghost hotel, the Myspa, and underground tunnels. The second night, with a few drinks under our noses, we were treated to a parade of guns. In Nevada it's open-carry, so it's okay for them to show them to us. I was pretty impressed, if a little scared. As I was leaving, I shed a few tears. Thank you Suzy.
The meetings were honest and the people nice to us, it’s the surprises to go into the unknown, without expectations. After that, we headed to California, heading to Yosemite National Park and Death Valley. The latter, where a little before entry we really got to know and live the ghost town experience.
On the road somewhere in Nevada.
Comments