6 ms·

A Night and a Day in Tonopah, Nevada

31 points by Thevet 10y ago

sverige 10y ago
Having driven through this area a few times, and also on Highways 93 and 50 ("The Loneliest Road in America"), I have to say that my favorite parts of Nevada are far from Vegas and Reno. The emptiness is quite wonderful.
- blackguardx 10y ago
  I've always wanted to pull off the highway in the middle of Nevada and just go wandering into the wilderness. Sadly, I've always been on my way somewhere and felt that I couldn't spare any time. Someday I would like to have a more spontaneous approach to life.
  - prawn 10y ago
    Also I imagine that police would see your car and investigate, (with best intentions) interrupting any solitude. Perhaps if you left a note saying that you were going for a walk, had ample water, weren't out of your mind, and the time/date you intended to return.
    - sverige 10y ago
      There are no police out there, though. At least, I've never seen any.
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        They exist (see earlier comment). However they also typically stay close to town.
      - prawn 10y ago
        I was speaking mostly of general highway stops. Pulled over on a road in Nevada or one of the neighbouring states at 10-11pm so my wife could breastfeed our daughter. Car pulled up behind us and we had an initial nervous reaction before it turned out to be a cop just making sure we weren't having car trouble.
  - nisse72 10y ago
    Before you do that, see this film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/
  - jaycroft 10y ago
    Please read this before you go: http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun... The desert is surprisingly unforgiving.
degenerate 10y ago
>> Tonopah (pronounced TOE-nuh-PAH) is located halfway between and . If anyone else is missing the locations on their page too... interestingly, my ad blocker removes the anchor links labeled "Las Vegas" and "Reno" because the link destinations funnel through a doubleclick server.
- epimetheus 10y ago
  It was blocked on mine too, thanks for posting a reason, I had assumed it was just bad editing. I have ABP but also have a "safe" hosts file[0] that blocks a lot of stuff like that. [0]-http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/
icodestuff 10y ago
How is one supposed to watch the videos? A VR headset?
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  With a non-mobile browser. You can pan with wasd control keys.
prawn 10y ago
I'm from Australia but have visited the US several times. The country has so many great stretches of grim Americana - areas that you are surprised support life and enterprise now or in the past. In California, there's the stretch from Palm Springs down past Bombay Beach to Salvation Mountain (both interesting to see). Between Joshua Tree NP and Mojave NP is the Needles Highway, Wonder Valley, areas with messages written in colourful rocks on the side of the road. Arizona has some interesting roads too with remnants of road-side stalls.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I would caution those planning travel through Nevada that predatory policing and exceptonally aggressive law enforcement appears par for the course. Despite the appeal of open desert, and several past travels through the region, I've had exceptionally poor experiences, particularly on US Highway 50, and Austin, NV, in particular. Avoid. Being threatened with violence and bench warrants for traffic stops, and the reasonable precaution of not stopping in the middle of desert rather than a mile down the road in a well-lit, inhabited area, is beyond the pale. The LEO's stated concerns during our encounter for his safety whilst being observed by those he is sworn to protect and serve suggests a considerable failure of governance.
- mikestew 10y ago
  I've had two encounters with cops in NV on the motorcycle (can't say that I've driven a car in NV), one county and one state. County was outside Ely. I'd swear I was outside the town limits and twisted it back up to 70mph. Nope, not out of town yet, and the speed limit's still 40mph. We had a nice conversation about the local area while we waited on the radio license check. Check came back clean, and I was sent off with a "long stretch of lonely road ahead, try to keep the speed reasonable." Second encounter was right around Tonopah. Coming to a hill crest, Valentine One radar detector goes nuts, and a state trooper pops over the hill coming the other way as I am doing about 90mph (don't recall the limit, but it ain't anywhere near 90). He hits the lights. Fuck. Then, oddly, the lights go out. As I roll off the throttle in preparation for a nice Q&A on why he might have pulled me over, I check the mirrors and the cop's Tahoe is still rolling the other way. Oookay, then, hint taken. So I'll see your anecdata and raise you one. I don't know your story, but at a minimum I well and truly deserved a ticket for encounter #2, and didn't even have to stop. Doing 30 over for #1 was a mistake, but I was still guilty as hell and traveling at "go to jail for reckless" speed. And I never obey the limit in NV when I'm outside of town. I've touched motorcycle wheels in every continental U. S. state, and NV is the least of my worries for cops. YMMV, and it obviously does.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Mine was specific to the Austin area. I've met good and bad cops. This was definitely a bad cop. Every opportunity he had to make things better, he made them worse. (I stopped digging early and fast, I'm not stupid.) Much of the situation was the context and interaction of the stop itself. This kid wasn't doing himself any favours.
jimmywanger 10y ago
I've been through the area several times. My favourite place is Great Basin National Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin_National_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin_National_Park It's the EDIT: (one of the) least visited national park. And if you're going during the new moon, there's a glorious view of the milky way because of the lack of light pollution (one of the least light polluted places in the United States)
- sizzzzlerz 10y ago
  Not quite the least visited but close. If you only consider the continental parks, North Cascades and Chaco NHP have fewer visitors. Several of the Alaskan parks also have fewer visitors but they are much harder to get to. Still, its a beautiful park to visit. Sort of a Yosemite without the people.
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    Appreciate the correction, I thought I read that somewhere but I guess I was wrong. The North Cascades are beautiful too. God's country up there.
GCA10 10y ago
Glad to see they included the Goldfield Hotel, just down the road a ways. It gets bought every 15 years or so by a different out-of-town property magnate, who announces that it will be fully restored. The Goldfield's new owner never makes much headway, but the hotel does get opened up briefly for visitors. It is a very freaky experience to walk its corridors. I did so in 2004, and wrote this piece about it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110238920487392930 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110238920487392930
adsteel_ 10y ago
I spent a day and a night in Tonopah, NV, in the clown motel, but not by choice. It was a story-packed 24 hours. I never thought I'd see someone writing about being a tourist there though. Tonopah's economic collapse is written starkly across a landscape of rusted out industrial equipment, as well as the flat affects of the locals. It's the kind of town you nervously wait to leave while you're filling up your gas.
Animats 10y ago
When I saw Tonopah, I assumed the article was going to be about weapons testing. There are various ranges around Tonopah for testing dangerous things, up to and including nuclear weapons.
tankenmate 10y ago
When I saw Tonopah the first words in my head were Dallas Alice.

31 points by Thevet 10y ago

Having driven through this area a few times, and also on Highways 93 and 50 ("The Loneliest Road in America"), I have to say that my favorite parts of Nevada are far from Vegas and Reno. The emptiness is quite wonderful.

blackguardx 10y ago
I've always wanted to pull off the highway in the middle of Nevada and just go wandering into the wilderness. Sadly, I've always been on my way somewhere and felt that I couldn't spare any time. Someday I would like to have a more spontaneous approach to life.
- prawn 10y ago
  Also I imagine that police would see your car and investigate, (with best intentions) interrupting any solitude. Perhaps if you left a note saying that you were going for a walk, had ample water, weren't out of your mind, and the time/date you intended to return.
  - sverige 10y ago
    There are no police out there, though. At least, I've never seen any.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      They exist (see earlier comment). However they also typically stay close to town.
    - prawn 10y ago
      I was speaking mostly of general highway stops. Pulled over on a road in Nevada or one of the neighbouring states at 10-11pm so my wife could breastfeed our daughter. Car pulled up behind us and we had an initial nervous reaction before it turned out to be a cop just making sure we weren't having car trouble.
- nisse72 10y ago
  Before you do that, see this film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302674/
- jaycroft 10y ago
  Please read this before you go: http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/ http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun... The desert is surprisingly unforgiving.

degenerate 10y ago

>> Tonopah (pronounced TOE-nuh-PAH) is located halfway between and . If anyone else is missing the locations on their page too... interestingly, my ad blocker removes the anchor links labeled "Las Vegas" and "Reno" because the link destinations funnel through a doubleclick server.

epimetheus 10y ago
It was blocked on mine too, thanks for posting a reason, I had assumed it was just bad editing. I have ABP but also have a "safe" hosts file[0] that blocks a lot of stuff like that. [0]-http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/ http://someonewhocares.org/hosts/

icodestuff 10y ago

How is one supposed to watch the videos? A VR headset?

jimmywanger 10y ago
With a non-mobile browser. You can pan with wasd control keys.

prawn 10y ago

I'm from Australia but have visited the US several times. The country has so many great stretches of grim Americana - areas that you are surprised support life and enterprise now or in the past. In California, there's the stretch from Palm Springs down past Bombay Beach to Salvation Mountain (both interesting to see). Between Joshua Tree NP and Mojave NP is the Needles Highway, Wonder Valley, areas with messages written in colourful rocks on the side of the road. Arizona has some interesting roads too with remnants of road-side stalls.

dredmorbius 10y ago

I would caution those planning travel through Nevada that predatory policing and exceptonally aggressive law enforcement appears par for the course. Despite the appeal of open desert, and several past travels through the region, I've had exceptionally poor experiences, particularly on US Highway 50, and Austin, NV, in particular. Avoid. Being threatened with violence and bench warrants for traffic stops, and the reasonable precaution of not stopping in the middle of desert rather than a mile down the road in a well-lit, inhabited area, is beyond the pale. The LEO's stated concerns during our encounter for his safety whilst being observed by those he is sworn to protect and serve suggests a considerable failure of governance.

mikestew 10y ago
I've had two encounters with cops in NV on the motorcycle (can't say that I've driven a car in NV), one county and one state. County was outside Ely. I'd swear I was outside the town limits and twisted it back up to 70mph. Nope, not out of town yet, and the speed limit's still 40mph. We had a nice conversation about the local area while we waited on the radio license check. Check came back clean, and I was sent off with a "long stretch of lonely road ahead, try to keep the speed reasonable." Second encounter was right around Tonopah. Coming to a hill crest, Valentine One radar detector goes nuts, and a state trooper pops over the hill coming the other way as I am doing about 90mph (don't recall the limit, but it ain't anywhere near 90). He hits the lights. Fuck. Then, oddly, the lights go out. As I roll off the throttle in preparation for a nice Q&A on why he might have pulled me over, I check the mirrors and the cop's Tahoe is still rolling the other way. Oookay, then, hint taken. So I'll see your anecdata and raise you one. I don't know your story, but at a minimum I well and truly deserved a ticket for encounter #2, and didn't even have to stop. Doing 30 over for #1 was a mistake, but I was still guilty as hell and traveling at "go to jail for reckless" speed. And I never obey the limit in NV when I'm outside of town. I've touched motorcycle wheels in every continental U. S. state, and NV is the least of my worries for cops. YMMV, and it obviously does.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Mine was specific to the Austin area. I've met good and bad cops. This was definitely a bad cop. Every opportunity he had to make things better, he made them worse. (I stopped digging early and fast, I'm not stupid.) Much of the situation was the context and interaction of the stop itself. This kid wasn't doing himself any favours.

jimmywanger 10y ago

I've been through the area several times. My favourite place is Great Basin National Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin_National_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin_National_Park It's the EDIT: (one of the) least visited national park. And if you're going during the new moon, there's a glorious view of the milky way because of the lack of light pollution (one of the least light polluted places in the United States)

sizzzzlerz 10y ago
Not quite the least visited but close. If you only consider the continental parks, North Cascades and Chaco NHP have fewer visitors. Several of the Alaskan parks also have fewer visitors but they are much harder to get to. Still, its a beautiful park to visit. Sort of a Yosemite without the people.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  Appreciate the correction, I thought I read that somewhere but I guess I was wrong. The North Cascades are beautiful too. God's country up there.

GCA10 10y ago

Glad to see they included the Goldfield Hotel, just down the road a ways. It gets bought every 15 years or so by a different out-of-town property magnate, who announces that it will be fully restored. The Goldfield's new owner never makes much headway, but the hotel does get opened up briefly for visitors. It is a very freaky experience to walk its corridors. I did so in 2004, and wrote this piece about it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110238920487392930 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110238920487392930

adsteel_ 10y ago

I spent a day and a night in Tonopah, NV, in the clown motel, but not by choice. It was a story-packed 24 hours. I never thought I'd see someone writing about being a tourist there though. Tonopah's economic collapse is written starkly across a landscape of rusted out industrial equipment, as well as the flat affects of the locals. It's the kind of town you nervously wait to leave while you're filling up your gas.

Animats 10y ago

When I saw Tonopah, I assumed the article was going to be about weapons testing. There are various ranges around Tonopah for testing dangerous things, up to and including nuclear weapons.

tankenmate 10y ago

When I saw Tonopah the first words in my head were Dallas Alice.