….that just make people stop and stare in awe and fascination. These places are (almost too) numerous, and if we ask anybody, or look at any US travel guide, we’re bound to see the same ole’ shit: Mount Rushmore (boooooring!), Grand Canyon (never been, but I’ll bet money that it’d not interest me if I did go see it), Golden Gate Bridge (Uhhh……and your point?), Arches National Park (my last two ex-girlfriends both went apeshit for this place, so take from THAT little fact whatever you will) and I could go on and on….
Being a Geographer, there are really very few places that stop me dead in my tracks, drop my jaw to the ground, and hypnotise me……The Badlands-South Dakota, Book Cliffs-Utah, San Luis Valley/Great Sand Dunes-Colorado, Olympic Peninsula/Lake Quinault-Washington, Route 66/Oatman-Aridzona…….and maybe a couple others…..
Gerlach, Nevada is one of those places…..it is (by some accounts, all depending on what your definition of a “town” is) thee most geographically isolated place in the lower 48 states, being 105 miles from the nearest town of over 100 persons population (that being Alturas, California).
Gerlach is at the southern base of the Black Rock Desert and its playa (it was actually THIS article where I read about it for thee first time ever in 2001 and exclaimed: "Shit!!!! I've GOT to see this!"), which is home to Burning Man every year around Labour Day…..
…..so last weekend, I took a three-dayer and headed Souf in da Sable…..was gonna take the skooter, but www.weather.gov (being the ultimate Communist Civil Servant, I’ll always use things with a .gov tag rather then their private sector counterpart) told me, whilst the weekend was looking good for the most part, Monday afternoon could rain a fair amount, and I didn’t really like that idea of riding through The Cascades in a mid-March rainstorm on my skooter….errrmmm, no! I’d already been on one deathride on a motorcycle in a different mountain range in a rainstorm that actually turned out to be a flood, so hopping my skooter for this trip really didn’t seem like a good idea, sooooo…….
Hit the road straight from work Friday afternoon, and just drove until I felt I could stop, relax, have a few beers, and get fairly close to Gerlach. This placed me in Medford, Ore.
The was nothing particularly special at all about Medford, no charm, town lacks any Mom-n-Pop flavour, and no sort of homey pub to act as my local for the evening (well, at least not anywhere near the cheap motel section of town where I was residing for the night)……which left me zero alternative but having a couple of pints at a Goddamm SHARI’S! Yes, Shari’s….the Denny’s-like ripoff that nobody who lives in The Pacific NorthWest wants to claim as an icon of home……almost as sad as the time I was forced to have pints at a “Denny’s Lounge” (had NO idea that such things existed!! What’s next?? “The Wal-Mart Bar?”) in Nampa, Idaho about two years ago……but that wasn’t really sad or dull, but rather scary, actually……
This place really wasn’t worth taking any pictures of……but they DO have a really good newspaper, the Medford Mail-Tribune
Define Medford?? Well, basically if you go online to Merriam-Webster (www.m-w.com) and you went to its thesaurus, and looked for a synonym using the guide words "Interstate" "TraveLodge" "Chain" "Restaurant"........Medford would probably come up as its response!
Left Saturday Morning, drove by Lake Klamath......
.....around Klamath Falls, and into Alturas, California. Though, this time crossing into California, I guess the state Agricultural Department ran outta money. They used to have cones set up that would force you over to the side station house, where some guy would ask you if you're importing fruits or veggies into California, you'd say "no" and you'd be on your way. Aridzona (I think) STILL has all of their border Agricultural stations manned........
There's nothing of any fascination in Alturas, just California gas prices and a really cool looking historic hotel for sale that I was planning to purchase on the way back up to PDX, but forgot......
Finally made it over the Easternmost range of The Sierra Nevadas/Cascades, down into The Great Basin, and on into Gerlach with its 192 inhabitants....
Drove by the shell of Joe's Jalasco Club (A place that LOOKS like it was a total riot in it's day, but it closed in 2000.....shortly before my first ever visit to Gerlach) and on into my customary first stop in Gerlach, Bruno's Country Club.....
.....Bruno Selmi is a something of a minor Western Legend. Speaking in a thick Italian accent ("Whazza ya doin' gettin' uppa jussa now??" he asked me when I staggered from Bruno's Motel into Bruno's Country Club around 12 noon, after getting gas at Bruno's Shell......), Bruno has been Carbon-dated to be in the Gerlach area for at least 60 years.....and at 85, he shows NO signs of slowing down anytime soon........it is considered a mild honour when Bruno offers to buy you a pint (which he did for me)......sadly, I never did get a fotograff of him. But I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon, and I know I'm gonna be back, so.......
However, the traveling, lack of sleep, poor eating, the overwhelming stench of mold in my room at Bruno's Motel on Saturday Night (which gave me the impression that it had been a veeeery unusually wet winter in the Great Basin, as Bruno's motel rooms never smell of anything except dust and sand and stale cigarette smoke), the fact that I had gone directly from damp rain forest to high desert and the fact that I was seeing more sun in two days then I had in Portlandia in the last six months, along with other assorted and sundry bad habits I was engaging in, were all catching up to me.
Thus, on Sunday Afternoon when I staggered into Bruno's Country Club for brekker with a shitkicker flu/cold bug that was just killing me, I had pretty much nixed the idea of playing golf that morning and was just looking to go drive out in the middle of the playa and snap a few shots and get to my next destination quickly as I can and go die!! I was then told by Chuck the bartender (whom I remember from my last visit to Gerlach in 2003) that the playa's moist......and that I "....really shouldn't drive out on it right now." Kinda had a clue from the highly unusual smell of mold in Bruno's military-barrack-style Motel rooms that things were still kinda wet in The Great Basin.......
Not really wanting to play "Triple A Roulette" ("WILL they come and rescue me and tow me off the playa?? Or will they call me a fuckwitt for actually trying to drive on the playa and for sinking halfway into the desert floor and leave me here to get eaten by the vultures???"), and realising that there is literally ONE cell fone company that works in the Gerlach-Empire MSA (hint: It isn't one of the fifty largest wireless providers) and it sure as hell wasn't the one that I got, I drove up to the egde of playa, got out of my car, and started to sink veeeeeerrrrry slightly: "Hmmmmm.....I sank a 1/8th of an inch. Don't think a 4000 lb car really should go out there...."
Parked the car, took what pics I could of the playa.....
Love this last pic.......damm, as much as I love the rainforest, there's just something eerily cool about a cobalt-coloured sky.....
Took off from Gerlach Sunday around 1PM after these pics were taken, stopped by Lakeview, Oregon and swung by a local to check on my March Madness brackets on TV. Begn talking to a Wahookie local (biiiiig mistake) who kept spewing shit like "If ya don't know why we're in Iraq, then that's a sad state of affairs" and "Hell no will I vote for Obama!! Ain't voting for no Goddamm Moslum......."
"Errrmm......Obama is actually a bit of a Bible-thumper and that kind of scares me about him because I fel th....."
"HELL NO, boy! Name like Barrack Obama??? He's a Goddamm Islam!!!!!!"
"Uuuuh, sure.....OK......I haf to go now, nice talking with you....."
Define Lakeview?? Go to Blockbuster and rent "Idiocracy"!!! Monster Trucks and all..... and I was "Not Sure".......
Was quite pleased that my brackets were in good shape, so I took off to Paisley, Oregon (30 miles up the road from Lakeview), grabbed my rental cabin at the hot springs (complete with a mini-library of freakazoid anti-Catholic hate literature - see pic below - and at least six or seven beatles), watched a prarie dog-like thing watch me, and just soaked and soaked and soaked in the mineral springs as I tried like hell to fight off a cold/flu/whatever bug I had that came complete with body aches and a fever!
Turned out www.weather.GOV was right: Monday afternoon, just off the summit at Santiam Pass in The Cascades, about 150 miles from PDX.......the sky opens up......rain alllll the way to Portlandia.
Man, that woulda sucked on my skooter.....
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KIDS! It's NEVER wise to attempt to shoot fotograffs with your camera whilst driving the car you just joy-ridden out of your parents garage (or to take fotograffs whilst driving ANY car, for that matter). This could result in an unsafe situation, as well as attract unnecessary attention from the local constabulary. Pull over to the side of the road (utilising you turn indicator, of course), shoot your picture, place the camera back in the glove compartment, and proceed along your journey! Also remember to utilise a hands-free device whilst talking on your mobile, as well.
