Day 9 & 10: Survived 'the Loneliest Road in America'

Day 9: 3 April 2007

Leaving small town of Hurricane in Utah, we had to deal with a small problem... decision... Life is about making choices... this one was no exception.

We could go as planned to Las Vegas -- which was only 2 hours away (see map above) -- and enjoy its beautiful lights, glamorous night life, cheap delicious buffet dinner, and maybe spend few small changes for fun in the casinos.... And then California would be close from there... It would all be easy drive from now on if we decided to take this direction...

But wait a minute... it's only the 9th day... we still had 5 days to go... we could have much more fun than spending a dull night in LV and drive easy way to southern California! My wife and I had been to LV before and didn't find it worth returning to, and my kids would not be allowed to enter the places anyway... so why even bother stopping by...

So in a flash we crafted the idea of going up north and followed the road less travelled. More precisely and extremely, it's actually the road LEAST travelled.... Nevada's Highway 50, dubbed 'The Loneliest Road in America,' spanning for 400 miles from town of Ely to Fernley, with not much life along the way. For more details on this historic road, see this and this.

So today we were kind of relax and preparing our physical and mental for this trip to long solitude. We drove only 180 miles for the day to small town of Nephi, Utah. We stopped by a small historic fort called Cove Fort and took a free tour inside this small fort built by the Mormons to provide protection and refreshment to travelers to the Wild West during mid 19th century. By 4.30 pm we already checked in a Nephi hotel (a very nice Best Western Inn). My kids had a chance to spend much time in the playground. I was so sure they must have really enjoyed the break from routine go-out-morning, check-in-the-hotel-at-night for the past eight days.


Day 10: 4 April 2007

We were a bit nervous starting the day, imagining driving hundreds of miles thru open spaces, some high elevation passes, ghost towns, and few quiet towns, with not much life, traffic, rest areas, and things to see and enjoy, and got to get out of this long loneliness before the night became too late... let alone with two small kids...It was more than 200 miles from Nephi in Utah to Ely in Nevada. As we got closer to Ely, where the loneliness was supposed to start, the intensity of life along the road was indeed sharply diminishing... It began a bit early, about 50 miles from where we started in Nephi on the town of Delta... Not much life was found between Delta to Ely for 150 miles, but there were still some cars driving in the same or opposite direction with us... making us feel good that we had companies... But as we reached Ely, the solitude had begun...

Ely was said as the largest town in eastern Nevada, but to me it looked like a small town with only one main road passing its downtown. Ely is the closest town to Great Basin National Park. This historic town had some casinos. It had a train museum and there was a tour on its Ghost Train.

We picked up 'the Survival Guide to the Loneliest Road in America' in the tourism (Chamber of Commerce) counter located in one of the historic casinos. It's nothing more than a passport-size notebook with brief history of Highway 50 and description of the five towns along the way. At the back of this 'passport' there is a place where we are expected to get it stamped at these five towns. Once completed we can send it to Nevada Tourism office to get the survival certificate signed by the Nevada Governor, a pin, and a bumper sticker. Those are the proofs that the holder has passed the test of long loneliness and boredom on 'uninteresting and empty' 400-mile Nevada's Hwy 50.

We didn't spend too much time in Ely. We headed west 75 miles to the next town, Eureka, an old mining town. This town was also very quiet, but more peaceful than Ely without the sounds of the slot machines. Some old buildings were still standing. The old opera house and courthouse were located on the main street. The Eureka Sentinel Museum where we got our survival cards stamped used to be the office of local newspaper with the same name. All these old buildings were dated 1879.

Continuing our drive 70 miles to the west we reached smaller town of Austin, said to be named after Austin in Texas. Several miles on the way to Austin we found some signs showing what more than a century ago were the Pony Express trails, the mail service carried by the horse riders (instead of stagecoach) across continent. I couldn't imagine the challenges that these riders had to deal with during the time, the Wild West era. Speed riding the long, rough, quiet terrains and route alone with their horse only as their trusted friend, with so many obstacles which could cost their lives, was certainly not a career path for everyone. For more details on the history of the Pony Express, see this and this.

Austin is smaller compared to Ely and Eureka, but when we got there we felt that it was more lively yet peaceful. We stopped by a small cafe and had very delicious milk shake. Some locals in this town flocked in the cafe and can be seen on the streets, unlike in Eureka which was a bit larger but very quiet. I also read that Austin was one of Central Nevada's most popular mountain-biking areas as this served as gateway to the nearby Toiyabe Mountains.

Half an hour later we continued to what people said as the loneliest and most boring part of Hwy 50, a 110-mile route to the next town, Fallon. We didn't see much difference with previous parts of this highway. Same loneliness, same empty and open spaces, but not really made us bored. One of few objects located along the way, which we skipped due to time, was Sand Mountain, which was popular for ATV riders.

Once we reached Fallon, we felt right away that this was the end of the loneliness. This town was the largest of all five main towns along the highway, and definitely the liveliest. Farms and ranches were found on the outskirt and around the town. The Top Gun school, featured in Tom Cruise's early movie with the same title, was located here. Fallon was also one of Nevada's premier bird-watching areas. All these have drawn people to come, stay and would never make Fallon fit into the category of a lonely place.

Twenty seven miles to the west was the last town on the west listed on the Survival Kit, Fernley. It was just a regular road trip town with plenty of roadside motels, casinos, restaurants and gas stations. We reached this town slightly after dark. We felt that we still had extra energy to reach the next bigger city to stay overnight, Reno -- 35 more miles from Fernley -- so we just passed Fernley, of course after we got our 'passports' stamped. Around an hour later we already checked in a motel in Reno, feeling so relieved and proud that we had passed and survived the long test of loneliness, boredom and driving endurance. It was a heck of endurance test as we drove 540 miles for the day, the longest on a single day during our trip. We had now easily passed 3,000 milestone for the total mileage of our road trip.

So now you are probably wondering whether Hwy 50 is really very lonely. I would not say 'I would say so....' as fortunately we decided to take simple statistics when we got to Ely, the gateway to the loneliness from the east side of Nevada. We counted the number of vehicles that we met, either same direction with us (from east to west) or the opposite direction from Ely to Fallon. The tally was not surprising and only confirmed the validity of this highway as the loneliest road in America.

The total vehicles that we met from opposite direction from Ely to Fallon were 63 vehicles and 1 bike (very courageous biker!). That means we met a different vehicle from opposite direction once every 6 miles!

But that was nothing compared to the number of vehicles running in the same direction with us from Ely to Fallon. We counted very carefully and there were only 20 different vehicles going with us along 400 miles. That means we met a new fellow traveler only every 20 miles!!!

Ok, so it was really lonely there... but was it 'uninteresting and empty' as Life magazine claimed in 1986, which then made this road widely known and promoted as 'the loneliest road in America'? I think it depends on what type of traveler we are. The real adventurer would love to explore every details of the road and visit all objects along the way. There are many things to enjoy within 400 mile besides the five towns, like Lehman Cave, Charcoal Ovens State Park, Toiyabe Mountains, Great Basin National Park, Grimes Point/Hidden Cave -- an archaeological site housing many prehistoric Indian artifacts and petroglyphs --, Pony Express trails, sites and remains, and also some ghost towns. Definitely an interesting place for real adventurer....

For family travelers like us, we would love to come back and explore further someday in the future. But for now, we could not hide our pride of surviving the loneliness while enduring the physical driving test on this most infamous road in America, not to mention that we brought with us two brave little boys -- whom we were really proud of for their patience, cheerfulness, understanding, and strength during the trip.... they were just cool....

To see the slide show of some pictures I took along the Highway 50 please check this out.