Trains & A Lonely Road

This is a smaller hotel but the lobby has some great stuff in it, including a great eagle sculpture and several motorcycles. The decor is somewhat discordant but the items were both worth seeing.

1971 Honda CB750 chopper. 

1948 Indian Chief

Eagle sculpture in the Prospector Hotel lobby, Ely, NV

I love seeing old steam locomotives, and in Ely, NV, the Northern Nevada Railway runs a 1909 2-8-0 Consolidation locomotive and passenger cars which date from the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s. The railway does rail tours for people who want to experience a train ride as it was almost one hundred years ago. Tom and I rode to the station where we met Ron Taylor who is a volunteer with the railway. Ron is an encyclopedia of railway knowledge. He started his volunteering working on the track crew and he eventually became an engineer and ran 93, the Nevada Northern Railway locomotive.

Tom & Ron with 93

Ron in front of the Nevada Northern Railway Museum.

We waited until the engineer was ready to move from the yard to the station to begin the tour. Listening to this beast and watching it makes it seem like it is a living creature. It was a real bonus to see this locomotive and to talk to Ron who told us many tales of the railway. The video below may give you a sense of what we experienced.

The Beast awakens!

We left Ely and headed out on Highway 50, 'The Loneliest Road in America' for the 325 mile run to Reno, NV. The ride was uneventful, as we passed through small towns named Eureka and Austin. We stopped in both of these places to refuel before continuing on. It seems that many of these towns share a common story. they were established in the 1860s, there was a mineral find, usually silver, copper, or lead , a mine developed and the time boomed sometimes having large public buildings erected, then the mine played, out, people left, and the town went into decline. This is the story of Pioche, Ely, Eureka, and Austin. Austin has three churches alone as well as a courthouse, but now has only about two hundred residents. 

Jackson House 1877, Eureka, NV

The Eureka Sentinel Building which housed the newspaper of the same name, had an interesting story. It was owned by three generations of a family and in 1944 it was taken over by a man who had worked at the paper since 1894. He published the paper until 1960. Two days after publishing the final issue, he died. He had worked for the paper for sixty-six of its eighty-one year existence. The building is now the Eureka Museum.

Nevada Sentinel Building 1879

Ore carts, Eureka, NV

Jackson House and Eureka Opera House

Eureka City Hall, 1879

The country between Eureka and Austin, NV.

It was lunch time when we arrived in Austin so we stopped at a restaurant with a yellow Model A Ford parked in front of it. When I crossed the street to take a photo I saw a huge' Trump Make America Great Again' banner hanging from the front. Needless to say, I decided to eat at the other restaurant in town. The old Ford sure looked great though.

Model A Ford

The restaurant that I wouldn't eat in.

main street of Austin, NV.

At the restaurant we met a man who I think all four of us would like to emulate. He is seventy-nine years old, rides a Victory motorcycle, and has been on the road for a month, riding all the way to Maine to visit family, all the while putting ten thousand miles on his motorcycle. He is riding to Alaska in July with a fried. The only thing I don't want to emulate is riding the Victory.

The man & his Victory

The Loneliest Road in America.between Austin & Fallon, NV

The Loneliest Road in America

Along the 'Loneliest Road'.

The scenery on this stage of our tour is different from the previous stages with wide vistas, low sage brush and mountains in the distance. We rode over several passes one at an altitude of 7600 feet. As we approached Fallon we stopped at a large sand dune which was formed by the sands of old Lake Lahotan. The Indians say the dune is like a rattlesnake and when the wind is blowing just right they can hear it sing.

 The Rattlesnake sand dune

We rode past a naval test range which is connected with Naval Air Station Fallon. We hears jets but couldn't spot them. On the way in to Fallon, we rode across a dry lake bed that looks white from a distance, but is a dirty brown close up.We found a Starbucks in Fallon and enjoyed really good coffee for the first time since yesterday morning.

Dry lake bed near Fallon, NV

 Dry lake bed & mountain near Fallon, NV

It was a fifty mile run in to Reno, but outside of Fallon the wind picked up and for the remainder of the ride we were buffeted by side winds. It isn't the greatest way to ride, but we made it to Reno safely after almost 540 kilometres. At a rest stop we saw an Amtrak train with about ten cars. I can only imagine where it was going but it was great to see a passenger train.

We are in Reno and have decided to stay for two nights, just to catch our wind. We have been riding quite hard for the past eleven days. Tomorrow we are planning to visit the H-D dealer, ride up to Virginia City, carry on to Carson City, then ride along Lake Tahoe before we ride the Santa Maria Pass back to Reno. Then we'll get serious about getting home.