NV - The Loneliest Road in America - Better Know Your Survival Skills

Today, we started our official journey across Nevada on what Life Magazine in 1986 called the “Loneliest Road in America.’ It’s true: Life Magazine in an article in one of its magazines in 1986, called the stretch of Rte 50 across Nevada the ‘loneliest road in America.’ AAA then followed up with these words: ‘It’s totally empty. There are no points of interest. We don’t recommend it. We warn all motorists not to drive there unless they’re confident of their survival skills.’

Hey, what kind of words are those to use about a part of the country? Pretty harsh. Well, those who lived along this stretch of highway did not take this lying down. They turned the Life article on its head and made it into a marketing tool. They built a reputation around it. They built it ito a credo, they built legends around it and challenged people to drive it and convinced the state of Nevada to make a game out of it. Nevada now has a booklet titled appropriately enough: Highway 50 Survival Guide. There are descriptions of all that lies along the road, places to visit, history to explore and recreational activities that you can enjoy. Then you stop in the 5 major cities along the route, get a stamp on your booklet’s last page, send it into the Nevada Department of Tourism and get a certificate stating that you have Survived Route 50.

Now, with so many people traveling this route - is it still the Loneliest Road in America? We’re going to find out. We’ve got the Survival Guide, our travel plans and are ready to collect our stamps. The road iself is approx 300 miles long and passes through Fallon, Austin, Eureka, Ely and on to Nevada’s border with Utah. 5 miles from the border, however, we are going head south a bit and go to Baker where the Great Basin NP is.

Even Stephen King drove this route and, after hearing some stories about the ghosts of Chinese miners crossing highway 50 , wrote his book Desperation with references to them and to the Loneliest Road in America.

Actually, Route 50 merely traces several previous trails and routes through this area. It traces parts of the old Pony Express route, it follows some of the old stagecoach lines and the Lincoln Highway across America. This highway was built in the 1930’s from New York to San Francisco, (this goes through Iowa at what is now called rte 30) and is also traced by this new highway 50.

Above one of the cement markers commemorating Abraham Lincoln and the Highway placed by the Boy Scouts in 1928. The highway itself began as the idea of a group of Indiana automobile manufactures as a marketing gimmick to sell more cars. They plotted a route from New York, through New Jersey, Pennsylvalia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and arriving in San Francisco, California. In Nevada it replaced old stagecoach and freight wagon trails.

Back when it was built, people took the highway for a lark, to say they had traveled across the US. It took approx. 20 - 30 days on average, traveling 100 miles per day. Today, we can travel much faster and the trip could take only 4 or 5 days now. And, back then, there were special precautions:

        ‘always have plenty of food and water, if you break down, it might be some time before help comes

        5-gallon cream cans tied to the running boards are recommended for both drinking water and radiator water

        don’t drink the alkalai water in NV because it will cause cramps

        don’t drive across any water without first walking across it.

        carrying extra gas is not recommended because of the danger but topping off at every chance is.’

Arriving in San Francisco, automobiles were loaded on railroad cars while the travelers rode the train home. Travel was a bit different then.

Gary is lying on one of the only two sets of cement markers ever made to mark the highway. One marker on one side of the road says 'Highway' and the other says - get this -' Lincoln'. The other set of markers is in Tama, Ia. Fancy that.

Back to Route 50 - along this route are petroglyphs, Pony Express stations, old mines, a National Park and old mining communites and ghost towns to see. We’re excited about traveling along this route and have been looking forward to it our whole winter. And, here we are.

We began in yesterday in Ferney where we stayed overnight and got our book stamped at the casino, one of the official sponsors. Our goal today was to travel through Fallon and Austin, seeing several things along the way and stay overnight in Eureka, a trip of about 225 miles. The first 20 miles went swell but then we hit Fallon. We knew getting the stamp on a Saturday was going to be hard since the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitor Bureau, 2 of the places with the stamp, were closed today. But our plan B was to take our pictures in front of these buildings to prove that we had been there. However, we decided to try the last place which stamped books and it was the Churchill County Museum.

Outside were about 7 old Model A Fords, all in pristine condition. Inside we found the Ford owners in a large room watching a movie about Hidden Cave which is about 10 miles east of town. We sat down for the film and, when the group said they were going to visit it, we asked if we could tag along. Well, actually, the BLM, which manages the Cave and Grimes Point Petroglyphs nearby runs a tour of the Cave on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month. And, this was the first Saturday of May. Lucky us.

The Ford group was a club from the Reno area and they take a road ’tour’ every now an then and today’s tour was the Hidden Caves. So we lined up to go to the Cave, 7 Fords and 1 Jeep. Now, if we expected to leisurely puts along the highway we were mistaken. They zoomed up to 55 and moved right along.

The cave was interesting. It’s not a cave with stalactites and stalagmites but a cave in which Native Americans long ago actually kept their belongings. They dug out a hole in the ground, lined it with reeds, stowed their goods and then covered it all with more reeds and a layer of dirt. Since there was no ventilation in the cave, they could not live here but they lived down by the lake. Here they found the reeds which they made boats with and actually made their clothing.

Then we went back to the Museum. What a find. Gary and I were talking later and we both agreed that one of the hallmarks of this museum is the breadth of its collections. Secondly, we thought the care with which they were arranged and described was superior. And, finally, the way they got you involved in their displays was way above average. They had good displays on: mining with rocks, minerals, ranching with brands, guns, saddles, depression and carnival glass, WWI and WWII with particular attention to the local heros, water issues in the area with several interactive dioramas, and a plethora of other items.

There were two displays which were superior. One was the Victorian age with about 4 rooms and one old store devoted to this. In the kitchen display, you were looking through a window in to the kitchen with various kitchen items displayed around. A question page on the window frame asked if you could find the: toaster, curling iron, butter churn, bread bucket, etc.

In the office / library room, they actually had a safe and a bookshelf actually built into the wall. Above the doorway into the room were the authentic bric-a-brac with which Victorians decorated thier doorways. There were several other Victorian rooms equally well decorated and displayed. Someone must have donated their entire home and it was brought here and installed.

The second display which I thought superior was the whole section on the Native Americans. They had the obligatory baskets and weapons but one of the original curators actually had had some older Native Americans actually make many of the objects in their everyday life. Then there were flip-books with each object with at least 9 - 15 pages describing in detail what was being done through each step in the process. Here we saw a reed boat which the two made and it was accompanied with a flip-book of 9 pages, each descriping a step in the process with a description of what was being done and why. This was neat and the first time I’ve seen this done.

The first picture is of the two gathering the reeds to make the boat, the second is making it and the third is a demonstration of how the newly constructed boat is used. Finally - tada - is a picture of the actual boat they made.

Pretty neat and very unique.

Absolutely marvelous museum and certainly not what we expected to find here in this small town. And, we stayed in Fallon for the night. It was too late to travel on to Eureka especially when there were things to see on the way.

We found the local Walmart parking lot, asked inside if we could stay overnight and we were set. If the purpose of the Rte 50 Survival Guide was to get us to explore the area and spend money in the town, they were successful with us. But, then, we’re easy.