The Great Mikegration

Cover Photo: Genoa Bar; Nevada’s Oldest Thirst Parlor since 1853

Adventure Map Days 8-10

Day 8: 06/06/23 (Tuesday)

• Woke up on our last day in Death Valley to a unbelievable 72 degrees and a cool wind blowing. Of course that was at 6am but the high today is only supposed to be 100 and cloudy so; What a day!!!
• Loaded up the vehicle, checked out and on to our Nevada adventures.
• We decided to go via US 95-N through Tonopah instead of US-395 N by Mammoth Lakes route through California and then we had to detour a little further to miss a storm with some hail in it. Didn’t matter though as the drive was spectacular on the alternate route.
• As I inferred we came out at the Death Valley Junction and made a quick stop at Marta Beckets Armargosa Opera House. The opera house tours are at 9am and 6pm with tickets being sold in the hotel lobby. We didn’t have that long to wait so we headed on. For future reference the hotel didn’t look like a place I wanted to stay at although there was a casino up the road that looked good to spend the night at. As you can see the Armagosa Opera House was built by the Borax Company in 1924 (along with the rest of the town). In 1967 Marta Becket discovered the abandoned building and transformed it into an opera house in 1968. It has some beautiful murals inside and if you get a chance you should see it. I’ll try again next time I’m out this way.

• Across the street from Armagosa Opera House is a small building that has some of outfits worn from the very first time Marta Becket performed. These are replicas of the originals but still look great.

• Next stop was at the Area 51 Alien Center.  We filled up full of gas and looked around inside at all the alien themed merchandise they sell. Anything alien you can think of they seemed to have. I got a cool pair of socks and some fun pictures.

• Playing into the theme don’t forget to look behind the Alien Center at the Alien Cathouse brothels.  Hidden behind the Area 51 Alien Center in Amargosa Valley is the ambiguous pink Alien Cathouse, an adult-only place dedicated to extraterrestrial fantasies. I didn’t go in to take a tour to see the various themed rooms so I don’t know what it’s like, but I’m sure the experience is out of this world. Beside the Area 51 Alien Center, at the fireworks stand, there is also the World’s Largest Firecracker for a more mainstream type of fireworks. Here’s a picture of them both.

• Our next stop was at the town of Rhyolite which is an old ghost town. To get to Rhyolite we had to drive through Beatty where we saw the donkeys wondering around town getting fed. We’ll be coming back through Beatty in a little bit. For now we just whizzed on by on our way to Rhyolite. Rhyolite was founded in 1905 from several mining camps that sprung up when gold was discovered in the area. Here is the town info sign with history and how it currently looks. There is still a lot to see in Rhyolite despite what you see in the picture.

• Rhyolite is also home to the Tom Kelly Bottle House which was built in 1906 out of glass bottles and mortar. Rumor has it you can still find insects and all sorts of stuff in the bottles as he just used what he could and mortared around them. This house was also used in the 1924 movie Wanderers in the Wasteland. I’ll let you read about it for yourself.

• Don’t forget to stop at the old train depot either. Rhyolite used to have three railroads that serviced it (even one was a big deal). At it’s hey day they were hauling 50 freight cars a day into town.

• What Rhyolite is best known for though is the thirteen white figures “The Last Supper“ by Albert Szukalski in 1984, which is loosely inspired by the work of Leonardo da Vinci. There are a couple other pieces also that taken together I thought were quite interesting and had great perspective. It is part of the Goldwell Open Air Museum that is found on the outskirts of Rhyolite. The first picture is the overall view showing the perspective however I wanted you to have the close-up of “The Last Supper” so I placed it on bottom.

• One other very important item to note about Rhyolite is that it has clean bathrooms here. They were very clean and well maintained when I was there so with that I’ll leave you with this last thought from Rhyolite. I loved it as I immediately thought of the “lone penguin” from my Antarctica adventure a few years ago.

• After finishing at Rhyolite head on back towards Beatty. Don’t turn the wrong way or you’ll be back in Death Valley!
• Ah Beatty, it seems like a great little town. Burrows wondering the streets, appearance looked good, some nice places to stay. I’d want to look at staying here next time I was going to Death Valley and see exactly where the entry point was, etc. We were going to go through the Beatty Historical Museum. It’s open between 10am and 3pm however it was closed at 11am when we stopped to go through it. It looks like an interesting stop though so next time I’ll try again.

• We kept going north through Beatty and in about three miles you’ll come to a rather interesting picture spot filled with legend. You’ll see the sign of the former Angel’s Ladies Brothel, a brothel that at the time was a place where truckers passing through Nevada would stop. Did I say truckers? I meant parachutists as well! For all you doubting Thomas’ when you go there you’ll find the wreckage of a small plane that crashed right near the brothel… Nobody really knows whose it was BUT rumor has it that the owners of the place held a competition. Legend states that if you could parachute from a plane precisely onto a mattress outside the Brothel you would win a free night with a girl. The plane crashed, down but nobody was hurt. However, the publicity stunt gained popularity, and still continues today!

• Next stop is Goldfield. Goldfield is the most authentic mining town in Nevada. The picture below isn’t how most of the buildings look but it DOES capture the spirit of the town perfectly.

• Make sure and visit the Santa Fe Saloon and Casino on North 5th St. if you have time. It’s the oldest continually operating business in Goldfield since 1905. We tried but they didn’t open until 2pm so we couldn’t get a snack there.

• Did you read the plaque? Did you catch that at the bottom of it it says “E Clampus Vitus”? It’s a fraternal order dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the American West. There motto means “I believe it because it is absurd”. Look it up on Wikipedia. They have chapters in quite a few states and call themselves “Clampers”.
• There is also some cool train info across the street.

• Don’t forget the drive by of the Goldfield Hotel as it’s haunted. We looked but couldn’t capture anything on film.

• The International Car Forest of the Last Church isn’t to be missed. This is much more extreme than Cadillac Ranch in Texas but extremely cool. Chad Sorg and Mark Rippie are the artist creators of this place. You can drive your car through them or get out and walk among them. It’s quite a lot of graffitied cars but well done overall. I took quite a few pictures.

• When you head out of town make sure you take a quick stop at the Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery. Look in the very back for the old Potter’s Field. All the stones will be just stones. You’re looking for one in particular but several are worth a read. I put a picture in with the one I’m still shaking my head over to illustrate. Library paste, huh….

• When you pass through Tonopah make sure you visit the Clown Motel and the old rundown cemetery behind the hotel.  Address is 521 N Main St, Tonopah.  You can even take a peak into the hotel if you want! If you like clowns this is the place for you. If not you may want to just keep on driving. By the way in Shoshone the word Tonopah means “a little water and some trees”. That sounds about right for how it looked.

• Another quick stop in Tonopah that you’ll want to make is the Central Nevada Museum if you have time. We only had about 30 minutes to spare so it was a quick in and out for us but we really liked it. I’d say to give it a stop as it’s got some cool stuff inside as well as a ton of stuff outside.

• Had to detour from here onto NV-361 up to Highway 50 to avoid a rainstorm with hail however the route was super scenic so I’d recommend going that way next time anyway! I think NV-361 is the true loneliest highway as we saw maybe 3 cars on it the whole way.
• Make sure you check out the giant sand dune on Highway 50 on your way in. It’s all caused by nature. The winds huff and puff and blow, blow, blow. The sand gets caught by the mountains because it can’t go over them so it just keeps building!

• Arrived in Carson City about 7pm and got checked into our hotel for the next couple of night. We’re staying at the Marriott Courtyard Carson City. Not as ritzy as the Inn we were at in Death Valley but it’ll do. lol
• Quick unpack and headed down to The Basil Restaurant for some good Thai food. The food was good as was service. Finally someplace that uses garlic!!!
• Walked around for just a few minutes and then back to the hotel to call it a night. Very, very tired. Tomorrow is another day.

Day 9: 06/07/23 (Wednesday)

• Drove around today to just explore the area. Nothing huge as we only did about 90 miles in total today driving.

• Our first stop was the scenic small town of Genoa. We both loved the drive there as well as the town itself. It’s not a big town but so nice. It’s the kind of place you want to move to. They have Mormon Station State Historic Park located right in the middle of the town.
• Mormon Station was the first permanent non-native settlement in Nevada and as you may have guessed by the name it was founded by Mormon pioneers.

• Never one to pass up desert we stopped at Holy Cannoli to get a small cannoli to try the local desert. It was good and a repeat!
• The other pretty neat thing about Genoa is that it has the oldest saloon in Nevada. It’s called Genoa Bar; Nevada’s Oldest Thirst Parlor since 1853. We couldn’t pass that opportunity up so we stopped in to have a Bloody Mary and shoot the breeze with the bartender for a few minutes. Cool place as you can see from the photos.

• Couple other cool pictures and we were back on the road. We wanted to see Virginia City as we had heard so much about it. We weren’t disappointed. It was a realistic old west mining town. We wondered around for awhile and finally got some lunch. We thought it was a pretty cool place but not want to live there due to mountain roads. The locals were telling us they got snowed in for a week last winter and the National Guard had to get them supplies. We did see a nice looking hotel that I’d like to stay at next time we come through. It was the Silverland Inn & Suites. We even went inside and chatted with them for a little while. Great people and a great view from the hotel!

• We drove on down the mountain with lots of hair pin turns over to the west side of Reno. We saw quite a bit of construction on the east side and learned it was because of the new Tesla and Apple factories there. The west side of Reno was pretty nice and I’d consider living there. There is a Dell Webb Community out there that I’d like to go through and check out. The views of the mountains looked pretty spectacular!
• We continued our drove back and saw the Chocolate Nugget Candy Factory so just had to stop for a picture and for me to get a small snack.

• Pretty happy with my “take” for the day it was back to the hotel. We were hungry so we walked over to the Casino Fandango to eat at Duke’s Steakhouse. The elk tenderloin with cranberry sauce was awesome!! The Rockefeller oysters were good although I still like Drago’s better. The Duck Leg Confit was good also but not outstanding. The Strawberry Foster was wonderful. We’d never had that before as it’s normally just Banana Foster. This was a great twist and very refreshing way to end the day. Prices were reasonable and the service was extraordinary also. Highly recommend eating there.

• Feeling lucky I played some in the casino and realized I wasn’t lucky when I lost money in the casino. Lol. I don’t recommend that.
• It was back to the room for the night and time for some shuteye.

Day 10: 06/08/23 (Thursday)

• Checked out of our hotel.
• First stop was Carson Donuts. Old Fashioned crueller was best. Blueberry fritter was next best. Bacon Maple was ok. We did our sampling from the traffic jam due to road construction on our way to Incline Village.

• Finally made it to Incline Village at Lake Tahoe. Traffic jam due to roadwork caused 30 minute delay. Loved the look of Incline Village but decided to crowded, claustrophobic, and isolated to be used as a retirement spot.
• Headed back to Carson City on Highway 50 and continued on Highway 50 to Ely.
• Still driving and hungry we stopped at Old Middlegate Station to split a hamburger. Have to say that it was a great burger! Cool looking place also as it has dollar bills on ceiling and just a neat ambiance. Loved there population sign! There is an old motel there also I’d consider staying at if necessary.

• Just up the road a couple of miles we stopped at the famous Shoe Tree and I tried to throw some old shoes I found laying around there up in the tree to contribute to the cause however the laces broke on the throw so no go for me.

• We kept on driving and stopped in Austin to fill up full of gas and drive up to Stoke’s Castle however it started raining so we just kept on driving. Glad we did as literally 2 minutes later as we were driving up the mountains out of town it started hailing and torrents of freezing rain hit us. There was some pretty bad lightning going on around us also. We just took it slow and worked our way through it with no problems.
• Kept on driving to our stop in Eureka to see the Opera House but it was closed at 4pm. We decided to be productive though and made reservations for Bryce Canyon and Monument Valley over the next couple of days. We felt pretty fortunate to be able to get lodging on premises last minute at both locations.
• Working our way onward while admiring the beautiful scenery we stopped just outside of Ely to marvel at the crazy huge amount of mining tailings there. Literally they made their own mosaic looking mountains out of them.

• Headed on into Ely and spent night at Prospector Hotel & Casino in Ely. Arrived there about 6pm and had an outstanding dinner of beef, chicken, mushroom, and shrimp fajita’s combo platter (Fajitas Margaritas) that we split. After that up to the room to plan out the drive for the next couple of days and call it a night. Not a huge driving day but we did about 350 miles so I was tired. For more details on Eureka, Ely, and other parts of Nevada check out my previous blog “Westward Ho” from 2022.