Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

I brought back a small number of souvenirs with me from Wales. I couldn't bring much; my bags were overloaded as it is. Anything I got would have to be light weight and small.

( Bears and Dragons )

Now, almost everyone with whom I have described my trip were unclear on where this "Wales" place is, and not surprisingly, think of that entire landmass called Great Britain as "England." However, almost everyone I met in the UK, if they've heard of Nevada at all, are unlikely to have heard of Reno (I never bother with Fernley; even most Nevadans don't know where it is), and assume that it must be near Las Vegas. When I tell them that is roughly like saying the Glasgow is near London, they were astonished.

(Incidentally, that's not an arbitrary comparison. Per Google Maps, London-Glasgow is 419 miles/674 km and Las Vegas-Reno is 428 miles/688 km.)

Just like lots of Americans have never even heard of Wales, a fair number of people in the UK wouldn't have been able to spot Nevada on a map. Most Americans have heard of England, and I didn't find anyone in the UK who hadn't heard of California, but the rest was a toss up.

A few days ago, Lisa and I were in Hazen taking pictures and video of some specialty railroad equipment that we expect to include in a future RLMS. However, while we were doing so, I looked away from the equipment and found myself very taken with the view.

( Maybe Not Montana, but I Like It )

Although they now observe it on a convenient Monday or Friday, October 31 is Nevada Day, commemorating the state's admission to the Union. I still contend that this means that Nevada is the only state where Halloween is a state holiday.

( Celebrating Nevada Day )

Because of the pandemic, we did not go anywhere or do anything special for Halloween, and did not get dressed up in any of our costumes. However, travelswithkuma did wear one of his costumes and took a picture with his Jack-o-Lantern. He has an opinion about people who don't wear their masks.

Speaking of COVID, Lisa and I drove to Reno Airport this morning, where Lisa dropped me off at the terminal and drove over to the cell phone lot so we didn't have to pay for parking while I went it to get my PCR test needed to fly to Canada to attend World Fantasy Con. Fingers crossed that there are no cock-ups in the testing and that I have negative results to share with the authorities in Canada on Wednesday. Lisa picked me up and we ran one more errand that came up for one of Lisa's new projects about which I will write when it's completed.

While our main reason for coming to Tonopah this weekend was to check out the Belvada and see what the town is like over the US Independence Day Weekend, yesterday we took the opportunity to do a bit of "atomic tourism" to a place we learned about when we visited Project Shoal a few months ago, and that we might not have had a chance to visit because while it is a day trip from Tonopah, it's a fairly long day.

( The Ironically Named Nuclear Test )

Project Faultless is around 150 km east of Tonopah, and is not a trivial excursion. We topped off the gas tank in Tonopah and packed a lunch before setting off east across US-6, a highway that could easily challenge US-50 for the title of "Loneliest Road in America." We had researched the route in advance and printed out the directions from Google Maps, as there's obviously no cell phone reception where we were going.

( The Trip to Faultless )

After taking pictures, we ate our lunch. The weather was good, and pleasant after the heat we'd had at home last week. Intermittent clouds cut the sun, which was fine by us.

( Turning for Tonopah )

We went straight back to the Belvada with no additional stops, as we were getting a little worn out by then. After a bit of a rest, we went to Raley's again and bought another pizza. We have a kitchen, after all, and it was more relaxing after bouncing over back roads to take off our shoes, sit back, and have a pizza than to go back out for dinner.

This was a very interesting trip, and I'm glad we made it. This was Lisa's fifth atomic bomb site, and my fourth.

When we left off our tale of a trip into the Nevada Outback, we had just come down from the Project Shoal site and initially planned to go straight home, but we changed our plans.

( Exploring the Outback in a Minivan )

After making it to Hawthorne, we went down to the rest area at the north end of town, then turned back north, stopping briefly at Safeway (we had packed our masks just in case) to get something to eat and drink, then turned for home.

( Taking the Long Way Home )

We got home just after dark. I'm glad we made this trip, although I think I might have been happier if we'd done it the previous day so that I could sleep in the following morning instead of getting back to the Day Jobbe at 4:30 AM on Monday morning. Still, it was an interesting trip, especially if you like stark desert basin-and-range country. And aside from the little bit in Hawthorne, we didn't have to worry about social distancing.

I have not been able to get to the Bay Area to see my doctor for over a year now. Normally it has not been an issue, because I was obliged to visit the warehouse to which I nominally am attached to more or less prove to people that I'm still alive. When COVID-19 hit, the message changed to, "Unless you are vitally important to the operation of this specific warehouse, stay away." Besides, my manager is in Council Bluffs, Iowa anyway, and he sees me a minimum of 3x/week in our staff meetings online. However, Sutter Health, to which my doctor belongs, has become increasingly insistent that if I want my medications renewed, I need to have at least a video consultation with my doctor.

A video visit leads to a complication: my doctor (like all of the others in the group) is only licensed in California. Apparently it's the location of the patient, not the doctor, that determines the location of service. Consequently, I can't just do the consultation from my living room. I have to be in California. However, I really don't want to be in California that much, and I really don't think that going to the Bay Area is a good idea right now.

It is, however, possible to get to California — barely — and there was even a legitimate reason to go there today. It's fifty miles from Fernley, but that's a lot closer than Palo Alto! I already had today scheduled as part of my "use my PTO or lose it" program, so we hit the road for California, at least technically.

( A Bit of California in Nevada )

After my video visit with my doctor, it was time to justify this use of the just-barely-Californian parking lot.

( That's the Ticket )

Having spent enough money to deflect any accusations of freeloading, we headed for home. Even this was a challenge. Due to the impending snow, traffic westbound on adjacent I-80 was at standstill, and there was a backlog of cars just trying to get out of the Gold Ranch parking lot. Eventually we worked our way back to old US-40 and turned toward Reno, driving the old road through Verdi before getting back on the freeway eastbound.

We considered doing some grocery shopping in Reno, but concluded that the only things we needed were some perishable items we could get in Fernley, so we headed straight home. The storm passing through the Sierra chased us, and it was pretty windy by the time we got back to the house.

( Flagging )

This was a decently productive day. We both got out of the house. I got my necessary medical visit done. We put in some additional groceries if the promised snow arrives overnight. And we've taken a flyer on the billion-dollar jackpot. Had the reporter asked me what I planned to do if I won the billion dollars, I think I might have said, "I've always wanted to own a private railroad car, and with that much money, I might be able to buy a railroad to go with it!"

Today was Lisa and my 24th wedding anniversary. (At least one of you reading this was there when we got married on board Portland Vintage Trolley car 513 running on Portland's light rail system.) Because of the pandemic, we can't do anything ambitious like a trip or a fancy dinner in Reno, but we did get away for the day. I took the day off from work and this afternoon we drove down to Fort Churchill State Park, where we ate a picnic lunch that Lisa had packed for us.

( Anniversary Lunch al Fresco )

After a nice leisurely meal of salmon sandwiches, with a side of blue cheese and the baguette chips we bought from Cost Plus World Market, we cleaned up, put away the picnic things, and went for a walk along a portion of the park's 2.5 km Nature Trail.

( Along the River and Through the Rabbits )

About an hour before sunset, we headed out, with a detour to Buckland Station and a side trip to explore a back road that did not lead where we thought it would, but fortunately didn't lead to us getting stuck. (A later exploration on Google Maps shows that we did the right thing by turning back when we did. The minivan is not the right vehicle for exploring Nevada's back-country dirt roads.) As the light faded, we made for home back up US-95A/50A. We had one more wildlife encounter, but couldn't take pictures of it, as Lisa counted some 72 wild horses along the road between Silver Springs and Fernley.

Next year, we hope we can do someting a bit more ambitious than this, but we certainly got our $5 day use fee's worth at the park, and it got us out of the house, which is a good thing during these trying times. This is the third time we've been here, and I doubt it will be the last. I hope some people driving to Westercon 74 in Tonopah from the north will take the opportunity to stop here and look around.

US-50 across Nevada is famously "The Loneliest Road in America" and the state of Nevada has capitalized on this by having a US-50 "survival guide" program, where you collect stamps at various locations along they way, and you get a prize. Lisa drove the road from east to west long before we moved here, but it turns out that she didn't actually drive the entire route of US-50 because in order to put Fernley on the trip route, it takes you through Alt US-50. US-50A diverges from US-50 at Leetville Junction west of Fallon, runs through Fernley to within a couple of blocks of our house, then turns south to Silver Springs where it meets US-50 again. The Fernley-to-Silver-Springs section is also Alt US-95.

As it happens, neither she nor I have ever had a reason to drive over the section of US-50 between Leetville Jct. and Silver Springs before, so yesterday, being bored and with the house losing ground on air conditioning, we took a little drive in the (air conditioned) minivan to fill in the last segment of US-50 in Nevada for both of us.

( Our Route )

We briefly stopped at the overlook at Lahontan Dam, but things were much too crowded as lots of people were out due to the hot summer weather, and we stayed safely in our car before continuing west, crossing the Union Pacific (ex-SP) "Mina Sub" (the tracks from Hazen on the main line that currently run as far as Hawthorne NV and once led all the way to Bishop and beyond and also formed part of the line that would take you to Tonopah and eventually Las Vegas) and entering Silver Springs.

Rather than turning right and going home immediately, we continued on to the south end of USA Parkway (NV-439) and then went up and over the hill into the enormous Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, possibly best known as the site of Tesla's Gigafactory 1. We generally don't go near here on weekdays as it's crowded with big rigs and workers going to and from the many warehouses and industries that have taken advantage of Storey County practically giving away half of the county to them. On weekends it is much quieter, and the many wild horses in the Virginia Range mountains come down out of the hills and wander about. We slowly puttered through the park after getting off the main road and watched horses, looked at the various businesses, and also watched for train activity. The industrial park is rail-served, and we're glad to see that many of the businesses there do actually use rail for their businesses.

Swinging farther west along Waltham Way, we drove past NV Energy's Frank A. Tracy Generating Station (a combined gas-turbine and steam-turbine power plant) before getting onto I-80 and rolling home. So we got out of the house for a couple of hours and saw a few things of interest to us without compromising social distancing and our safety. We won't have any long road trips this year (even the drive we made last weekend wasn't all that long by our standards), but it was helpful to have something to combat boredom.

Normally at this time of year, we would be busy at Westercon, but with the convention postponed for this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to take some advantage of me being employed but having the day off and do something. It couldn't involve crowds, of course. Also, we wanted to do something to celebrate Kuma Bear's 30th birthday. So we took a long drive today intending to go searching for giant fishes in the Nevada desert. We didn't find them, but not because they aren't there.

( Circling the Wide Open Spaces of Nevada )

Arriving at the park gate, we were dismayed to find a park employee standing there next to his pickup holding one of the day use payment envelopes. We've been to Fort Churchill, which uses the same system, and had expected to pick up an envelope, fill it out, drop in our $5 fee, and put it in the box, without having to interact with anyone. The really dismaying part here was that the employee wasn't wearing any face covering at all. He walked toward us. We pointed at our face masks. He shook his head and said, "Can't," and kept coming toward us.

Well, never mind, then. I put the van in reverse and quickly backed away from him, reversed course, and got the heck out of there. This was disappointing, but also highly annoying. The whole point of coming out here was to find a place that was interesting but that wouldn't be crowded and that we could explore without having to risk our health. Apparently this park employee, at least, doesn't think that the governor's orders apply to him, and doesn't care about protecting the park guests from the spread of the pandemic. I don't care how low the odds are, they're still not good, and it seems to us that one of the small number of park guests could have passed it to him and he could pass it to us even if he's not feeling sick.

So after roughly 120 miles of driving, the nominal target of our trip was effectively closed to us. Fortunately, Lisa had already said before we got to the entrance that the trip had been worth it anyway no matter what. And we probably wouldn't have been able to see the giant stone fishes anyway, as the Fossil House is closed due to the pandemic. Our friend Bob Hole has been there, and has shared photos on Flickr, as have other people.

We could have just gone home, but that seemed a waste when we could see more today. So we decided to take a long loop and check out other roads we've never traveled before.

( The Roads Less Traveled... but not the 45-mile gravel one )

After returning to roads we've traveled before, we turned north for home on US-95. Lisa had packed fixings for a picnic lunch we'd originally planned to eat at the park, but instead we stopped at the Hawthorne Rest Area on the north end of town across from the Mineral County Museum. There are numerous shaded tables and a set of restrooms here. We wiped down a table with alcohol and made sandwiches and ate potato chips and sauteed mushrooms. It was a very pleasant meal, and while it was warm (around 30°C), as long as we stayed in the shade, the light breeze made it quite comfortable.

Tidying up our picnic, we continued north along Walker Lake and turned left at Schurz onto US-95A, up and over the mountains into Yerrington. There we stopped at Raley's to try and find some of the things that the stores in Reno were missing. We were successful, although with Odwalla Juice being shut down by Coca-Cola, we couldn't buy any of the smoothies we like. (We'll miss Odwalla.) Then it was back on the road for Fernley via Fort Churchill and Silver Springs.

The total trip was a bit more than 300 miles, and we were on the road for around eight hours, which is a surprisingly fast average time when you consider how often we stopped to take pictures, read roadside signs, eat, shop, and drive down slow dirt roads, but many of the paved roads are very fast and very wide open.

Although we were unable to visit the home of the Giant Stone Fishes, and do not expect to be able to do so until sometime in the future when (fingers crossed) there is a vaccine for COVID-19 so that we're somewhat safer even around idiots, we still had a good trip. We got to travel roads we've never driven, look at places we've never seen, answer questions about routes that have confused us on the map, and for that matter give better travel directions to people who might fancy being adventurous and driving across US-50 on their way to Tonopah in (we hope!) 2022.

Things are starting to open up in Nevada, but that doesn't mean that Lisa and I feel all that safe. Still, we really wanted to get away from the house for something other than a shopping trip. I suggested we go to Fort Churchill State Park, about 25 mi / 40 km south of us on US-95A. The park preserves an old US army outpost and Pony Express stop. We've been here before and I've written about it when we last came here. For our purposes, it had the advantage of being pretty big, spread out, and unlikely to be crowded. We packed some sandwiches and cold drinks in the cooler and set off for Fort Churchill.

( Watch Out for Lizards )

We spent several hours hiking around the trails at Fort Churchill, and we plan to go back again, although we may have to wait until autumn to do so because soon it may be too hot to take long hikes. The 1 km Ruins Loop gives you a look at all of the fort buildings and is an easy walk from the parking lot.

Fort Churchill State Park is open 24 hours a day because it's also a good place to go stargazing. There are camping sites, but they are temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 restrictions.

We got a lot of fresh air and sunshine (I'm glad I put on sunscreen and wore my long-sleeve shirt, hat, and sunglasses) and didn't feel like we were in any danger of being crowded. That's good for both of us and definitely worth the drive and the day-use fee.

I'll be writing this up as a place where you could stop for a while on a drive to Tonopah from the north. By then, we assume the adjacent Buckland Station Museum ($1 admission) will be open once again.