Home away from home

We're in Tonopah for the weekend.

Again.

Downtown Tonopah without the
Mizpah, Nevada's most haunted hotel,
as the centerpiece.

This is my 13th assembly here in seven years. On the surface nothing's changed much although, since we were here last, the town has put up a spiffy new official sign on 395. You can see it in the first photo. And, by the way, the Mizpah Hotel will be on the auction block September 16th. That's just a few days away! Just think. It could be yours for a song.




The Ramada didn't have our reservation so we're at the Economy Inn for half the price, $35 a night. It's not as bad as it looks from the street plus it has free wi-fi and a great view if you like defunct mining/desert ghost town scenarios. However, the clowns next door carried on until 6 in the morning. Given the volume of their voices and the number of "fuck him, fuck thems and fuck hers" they had to be out of their pea brains on speed and booze.

The sticker on the windshield of the Mustang parked outside their door explains that the car is being moved from Vegas to Portland by a hired driver, so hopefully they are, by this time, gone. Otherwise the manager promised to move them to the front, a place he reserves for Assholes.

Desert elan

Of course, changed or not, I photographed the same old roadside apparitions we pass every time we take 395... Luning and Mina which are wide spots in the road which are well on their way to becoming ghost towns and a roadside brothel called Playmate Ranch.




You will be happy to hear they are all doing well, ie they are still inhabited.

Playmate Ranch (brothel)

White limo at gas station next door to Playmate Ranch

My favorite photos from the trip so far are of the fat, flat, white clouds drifting east although they suggest rain by Sunday, which is exactly when we head out into the Great Basin for a week of camping. Lovely. Well, rain here usually evaporates before hitting the ground but we shall see. We're leaving early tomorrow morning.