Endemic Diary — June 6 to June 10, 2022

Monday, June 6, 2022

Left home at 8:22 this morning in a steady downpour. The rain eased when we got to Tombstone Pass. Going up to the next pass, we went by the Potato Hill snow park. Funny to see the trailhead  with no snow. Then came Lost Lake, which was definitely not in its lost phase. It was as full as we’ve ever seen it. There are patches of snow here and there, but it’s melting fast. 

Stopped at Sisters Bakery around 11:00 to stock up on delicacies for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Departed Sisters at 11:10, headed for Burns, with EC driving. The trip was not without difficulty. EC had to buy gas twice, and also pass other vehicles at least 4 times, not to mention driving straight through what should have been her lunch hour. How could this be happening? We finally reached Burns at 1:35 and went to our favorite picnic park. After a very nice lunch of MW’s finest sandwiches, we took off again towards Winnemucca with MW at the wheel, thank goodness. Beautiful country with strange plateau formations rising out of sagebrush flatlands.

Arrived in Winnemucca around 6:00. We stayed at Scott’s Shady Court, which we remembered dimly from days gone by. It’s still lovely: a large property with dozens of big trees situated in a residential neighborhood a few blocks away from the main drag. The Shady Court first opened in 1923, a time when automobile travel was just getting started. It began as one long, low building divided into a row of ten or so “housekeeping” units.  Three of those old units still exist, tucked way in the back and long unoccupied. We peered in through the dusty windows to see how they were laid out. Each unit had a narrow, doorless “garage,” a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen. There are no furnishings or appliances now, but we could identify the kitchen by the old porcelain counter with a built-in sink. These days the Shady Court consists of five such long, low structures, all seemingly constructed in different eras. There must be about seventy rooms all told; only seven or eight were occupied on the night we were there. One nice thing about the Shady Court is that all the buildings–older and newer–are single sided, which means that every unit can have a window in the rear as well as the front. We loved having that natural ventilation, not to mention hearing the birds sing through the open windows. 

The property was operated by several generations of the founding family for 97 years and then sold to the present owner in 2019. The present owners are a father and son. They are very nice and we wish them good luck. They will need it. 

As you may have guessed, we feel some affection for Winnemucca. The main street is pretty bad, as it is in all of the little gambling towns along I-80. In Winnemucca the casinos are mostly small and maybe a little shopworn with names like The Winners Hotel, Lucky J’s, The Roadhouse, The Sundance, the R&L Casino and Lounge, and Parker’s Model T. But the rest of the town is just a place where people live, mainly working people, some of them in new homes scattered on the hills around the town and some of them in the old town, in small, tidy houses built on ridiculously wide streets. 

Our favorite place to eat is The Martin Hotel, which was founded in 1913 by French immigrants Augustine and Elisee Martin. During much of the twentieth century, many sheepherders and stockmen in the area were of Basque origin and the Martin Hotel became their home whenever they were in town. After Augustine Martin died, the restaurant and hotel were owned by a succession of Basque families. Many of the current menu items are based on Basque recipes preserved from that era. Today the Martin serves a six course meal with standard sides and your choice of entrée. Seating is family style, so you always get to meet some new people. This time we got to talking with a farm wife from Utah who was in Winnemucca visiting her brother.

The current structure was built in 1920. It is located on the corner of Railroad and Melarkey streets. 

We drove 478 miles today. Note to selves: That was too many miles for one day. Seriously.

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

The day’s plan was to go up to a place called Paradise Valley and see what we could find there. Having heard us mention Paradise Valley, one of our dinner companions at The Martin–a UPS driver by day–had suggested we might want to go to Mount Hinkey as well. The owner of the Shady Court had suggested we might want to stop in at the Paradise Valley saloon and get Nita to make us some lunch. So, we filled up with gas and off we went.  

A little less than an hour later, we were in the tiny town of Paradise Valley. We easily found the saloon, which did not look inviting, and also a lovely little square called Firemen’s Park. There were two roads out of Paradise Valley. A helpful sign showed us that one went north to Mount Hinkey and one east toward a place called Chimney Dam Reservoir. We headed north. The road was unpaved, but it was wide, level, and smooth–at least for the first few miles. 

Mount Hinkey is the mountain with the snow on it. The road to the summit goes up to that little notch just to the right of the peak. From down here, the road that leads to the summit is the one that goes straight ahead. Nice road, eh? The road that veers off to the left goes to a place called Solid Silver, at least according to a weather beaten sign. In some ways, this is an even nicer looking road. Too bad we couldn’t go check it out. 

We continued on the nice, smooth main road. After a while it turned narrow, rough and steep. We climbed and climbed, and eventually we arrived at the summit, elevation 7,850 ft. .

We had some snacks and fruit juice with us, so we didn’t actually have to go into the Paradise Valley saloon for lunch; but we thought maybe we should. It was an old wooden building, once painted a sort of beigey color. It didn’t have a sign, but there were some tables and chairs out in front and it just didn’t have the look of a residence. Also, there was a big gravel parking lot next to it. We pulled in and parked. As we were getting out of the truck, we noticed a short older woman out in front wiping off a table. As we approached, she gave us a less than welcoming look, then turned back and went inside, closing the door behind her. Not surprisingly, we were somewhat hesitant at this point. But it seemed that M had made up his mind. He opened the door and in we went.

We entered to see an eight-stool bar along the right side of the room. In the center, there were two tables. On the left wall was a big old velvet couch, seven or eight feet long with a high curved back and dark wooden arms. But before we could really look around, we had to deal with Nita. She was standing behind the bar looking skeptical. M started rambling about how Chris, at Scott’s Shady Court, had told us we really ought to drop by here because Nita made a great cheeseburger. “The grill menu’s on the whiteboard,” said Nita grudgingly and pointed toward the far end of the bar where the board was located. Now that was definitely a thaw in relations, not enough to make anyone real comfortable, but a start. We dutifully walked farther into the room and examined the board. There were four items: hot dog, hot dog with cheese, hamburger, cheeseburger. 

After a minute we sat down at the bar and M ordered a cheeseburger. Then E had to negotiate a meatless burger for herself. You might think that Nita would have been annoyed by this, but that didn’t happen. Apparently she was a woman who appreciated a challenge where cooking was concerned. When she was done, E was quite pleased with the result–a grilled bun with cheese, lettuce and tomato, kind of amazing. M found the cheeseburger excellent also. E asked Nita what the bar’s hours were and how late she had to work. Nita said they stayed open as long as the customers wanted to stay, sometimes till midnight or later. But then she added, “But that’s only if they’re drinking. If they’re just bullshitting, we throw ’em out.”  

To continue the day’s adventures, we took the other road out of town, the one that led east into the sagebrush. The area is not densely inhabited. At first we passed a few scattered ranches. By the time we were ten miles from town, however, it was pretty much just us and the sagebrush. We came to a number of road junctions, none of them with any signage whatever. With the help of a pretty good map, and we made to Chimney Dam Reservoir without undue difficulty.

From Chimney Dam Reservoir we had a choice of two roads. M leaned toward the one, E toward the other. M finally saw that E was right. E is good at map reading; M is better at noticing and reading signs. As we set out on the correct road, M noticed a yellow sign with black letters. “Road not maintained.” it said, ” Travel at your own risk.” Which is what we did. And it was fine.

Not having seen another vehicle for over an hour, we were heading south on Kelly Creek Road when we noticed a huge mining operation to the west of us. All we could see were huge piles of tailings. Only the uniformity of the piles made them stand out from the natural landscape. Soon the road turned east and we left the mine behind. A while later, we caught our first sight of Kelly Creek. We knew from the map that we had been going parallel to the creek, but we’d never seen it. But now suddenly it was right in front of us running quite swiftly across the road. That gave us pause, but it was less than a foot deep and the truck crossed easily. More dirt roads and several hard to decipher junctions followed. We had many miles to go at speeds of 25 to 40, so it took several hours. E was very relieved when we got back to pavement and got up to 70. We arrived in Elko around 6:00, both feeling like we had again done a little too much driving. We ate leftover Basque food in our hotel room and later went across the street to take a walk in a beautiful park where we found majestic trees and a group of old log buildings from the early days of the European invasion.

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

On this day the goal was to go up into the Ruby Mountains and spend the night in a tent. Thankfully, this involved very much less driving–just 35 miles or so, all on pavement. We arrived at the Thomas Canyon campground at about 10:30. We hadn’t reserved a site, but there were a couple of good ones available. The area was spectacular. As soon as we settled on a spot, we packed our lunches, put on our hiking shoes, and headed up a nearby trail. 

It was beautiful, and it would have been nice to go up to where the trail entered the snowfields at about 9,000 feet. But at 8,400 we were having a lot of trouble getting enough oxygen. We decided that where we were was a good place to sit down and have our lunch. Then it was back down to the campground to set up our tent and have a rest. We made a dinner of Amy’s soup, Albertson’s French bread and a bagged salad, followed of course by cookies and a crazy sunset.

When the sun was gone, the moon came by. It wasn’t full, but it was fat enough. M talked E into a moonlit drive just eight more miles up the main canyon, to a place called–appropriately enough–Road’s End. The road ended at a large circ amid some craggy peaks. There was a wide, empty parking lot and a rushing stream that came out from under a snow field just a few hundred yards away. We got out and walked around a little, but we didn’t stay long. It was darn cold and our sleeping bags back at camp were calling to us. 

Thursday, June 9, 2022

We survived the cold night in our little tent. Had a nice breakfast in the surprisingly warm morning sun. Packed up the tent and gear and headed off westward toward home. We stopped in Winnemucca for lunch at McDonald’s and for gas at Fast Eddie’s. But Fast Eddie’s pumps were acting sickly, so we moved on to Chevron. After that we had a long drive on Oregon 140, heading westward and ending up in Lakeview, Oregon at the Fremont Inn. Deluxe suite with a flush toilet and everything. Okay dinner at nearby El Aguila. No aspen, no sagebrush, all roads paved.

Friday, June 10, 2022

We left Lakeview at 9:30 am and drove up past Abert Lake, then Summer Lake, which is mostly dried up. This seems like better cattle country, much greener than the past few days in Nevada. We drove OR 31 through Fremont/Winema National Forest and then crossed the Cascades on OR 58. Around 1:00 E drove us into Oakridge where we could get a very nutritious lunch at the DQ. This consisted of celery & carrots in car as an appetizer and then sundaes in the restaurant: a small hot fudge for E and a medium chocolate for M. Yum. To E’s relief M drove the rest of the way home. We got home around 3:00 and started unpacking and also rustling up a small hors d’oeuvre to take to B and B’s house for happy hour. It was great to see them. We traded stories about our respective travels. Us: three days in the Nevada outback. Them: a month touring the west coast of Italy. Hmm.