I recently sold this three-dimensional assemblage and when I packed it up for the client, I decided to include my writeup of the journey in 2011 that inspired it. Since ForgottenMan was along on that trip during which we followed Route 66 from St. Louis to Santa Monica and then wandered northwards in our trip back again, I sent him this photo as well as the notes I’d taken on the trip. He speculated that it might make an interesting blog entry, so I’ll live up to his speculation and let you determine whether it is blogworthy or not. It was a great trip, for sure, in which we visited most of my stepkids and all of my L.A. and Santa Cruz area friends as well as my reunion in my home town in South Dakota. Below is my writeup of our trip through Nevada, including The Clown Hotel in Tonopah and the Extraterrestrial Highway:

Last night we stayed in Tonopah, Nevada, an old mining town that was first settled in 1901. The graveyard has an arched entrance that reads: Tonopah Cemetery, 1901-1911. Most of the graves in it are of people who died in a Plague in 1902 and a Mine fire in 1911 and photo opportunities abound. Next to the graveyard is the Clown Motel. We drove by it in our first survey of local motels, but soon returned after finding the only real alternative was the Best Western at 150 dollars a night. We found the Clown, kitschy and worn-down as it was, to be clean. A full-sized microwave was never used and we had to buy ice to put in the fridge as the icemaker was broken. The man who seemed to live in the room next door appears to be running a junk shop in his room, but it proved to simply be a product of poor housekeeping and decorating skills combined with a packrat personality. Outside his door was a nearly collapsing beach chair, a pair of cowboy boots and a horseshoe that seemed to be serving no purpose other than decorative. On his door was the same poorly-executed and large plywood cutout of a colorfully painted clown as the one on our own.

Inside the office was what the owner declared to be the largest collection of porcelain clowns in the world. She insisted to ForgottenMan, my travel companion, that National Geographic had been there three times. I imagine they were not there to photograph clowns as we found nothing on Google to indicate that the Clown Motel had ever been a feature.

Now we are on Highway 6, speeding toward the Extraterrestrial Highway which our GPS assures us is 11 miles away. We’ve passed the remainders of WWII hangars as well as the Tonopah Test Range. The countryside is relaxing with little to interfere with the skyline of assorted buttes, volcanic cones and craggy hills. Telephone poles stretch out to the horizon and the flat straight road occasionally rises to surmount hills in the horizon before settling once more into a straight ribbon of road. ForgottenMan, who pronounced himself bored with viewing beautiful scenery after visiting Carlsbad, the Grand Canyon, Big Sur and Yosemite with various remarkable and varied scenery in between, has been calmed by Nevada which has put to rest his sensory overload. What seems to be a cellphone tower must be a microwave relay tower or missile tracking device as when ForgottenMan tries to call his sister to assure himself his simpler life in Missouri is intact, the signal is too low.

Sage brush adds a beautiful powder green to the pallet of roadside colors that range from pale rust to waterish gray. Even yesterday’s vivid blue skies are powdered by sunlight or dust or whatever creates this desert color scheme. A sign proclaims “low flying aircraft and “Mother,” our GPS, instructs that we are to turn right in one mile. This is the forewarned Extraterrestrial road, which gives new expectations to the low flying aircraft warning.

Ferdinand the Bull on yellow signs warns that this is open range and a large Hereford cow lopes across the prairie toward the unfenced road, her calf following. We have just stopped to photograph and inspect a huge circle of piled stones behind a stone house that is obviously abandoned and falling to ruin. I see a couple approaching me from a nearby hillside where a house half stone and half dugout seems to protrude from the hillside. They climb over barbed wire and upon my questioning, tell me that the high stone circle was a corral to keep in horses and the stone house was a ranch house. Nearby, the warm springs sign indicates a still full warm pool fed by springs. When asked why the road is called Extraterrestrial Highway, they inform us that we are approaching Area 51. Our interest peaks. ForgottenMan has heard that there is an area above Area 51 where you can go but cannot take pictures and anyone who enters is soon approached by a local sheriff. A sign announces Blue Jay and Twin Springs. We go on into the unknown. Nevada is somehow offering more adventures than better-publicized stops along the way. Yes. We are intrigued.

We are driving through what appears to be a rift valley–a flat area surrounded by low mountains or high pointed and craggy hills. Dust devils, some of them rather large, swirl almost constantly around us––all far enough from the road so they occasion no alarm. More cattle pop up among the sage and a small lake, somewhat murky, extends on either side of the road. Earlier, a lone heifer drank from a large blue bucket. We wonder about its story. A old wooden corral, obviously well-maintained, sits surrounded by nothing but an occasional water tank and more open range cattle. Every one of the few vehicles we pass is a pickup. The cows are large and well-fed, supposedly on sagebrush, since this is the only plant we see. ForgottenMan steers around a large obstruction on the road that turns out to be a cow pie.

We gain on a pickup towing a motorcycle, a red flag warning us not to approach too close. The buttes get pointier, small ranges of mountains. When ForgottenMan tries to pass, a mirage fills the road in front of us, blinding him to what approaches us and he falls back. Earlier what looked to be a large lake turned out to merely be mirage. Water shimmers in the road in front of us but disappears upon our approach. We are as intrigued by what we don’t see as what we see. ForgottenMan sees a layer of blue smoke I don’t see. A haze between us and the mountains. I see a mirage of icy road in front of us as well as dust devils he can’t take his eyes off the road to see. If we see extraterrestrials, will we be able to believe our eyes?

Something looms up to the road to our right, far off, then we pass it. An SUV is parked, its inhabitants with binoculars aimed at another figure sitting far away crouched in the desert, looking at something we can’t see.

Five miles down the road, we see a cabless big rig trailer standing in the middle of the desert. No road leads up to it and it is hard to imagine how it got there and why it is there as the land around it is sandy and covered with sage, stones and small hillocks.

We are 39 miles from Tempiute. What is it? Small lakes surround the road. Again they disappear as we approach them. This is a road for Alice or Dorothy. What we see is not necessarily what we get or even what is. As I write on my laptop, ForgottenMan tells me to save my document often, afraid it will disappear like everything else.

The road in front of us is so straight that as it raises in elevation, it looks like a pillar. The yellow road signs warning of open range depict a happy prancing Ferdinand-type bull unlike either the Brahma bull signs of Mexico or the more sedate cattle signs in other parts of the U.S.

On the left side of the road, what appears to be a lakebed is filled with white sand. A chain of green fields stretch out like pearls to our right–strange in this somewhat barren landscape of sand and sage. No irrigation systems are in view and it is a mystery how they exist in this landscape. A few small ranches are scattered among the green fields. A fancy sign proclaims “Lincoln Estates,” but there is nothing approaching an estate in view. A white dome stands encircled with tall green trees. A mile or two away, another large Quonset hut of corrugated metal stands next to what appears to be a house surrounded by trees. Other small circles of trees are dotted over this area with no buildings in view, a mile or two separating them. Ahead is what appears to be a very small town. But as we approach it, it seems to just be a cluster of small farms that have less distance between them. “Welcome to Rachel, Nevada, 4970 Elevation” a sign proclaims. It is new, brightly painted and cheerful, but the elevation is undoubtedly much greater than the population. “Extraterrestrial Highway” proclaims a much-graffitied sign within feet of it. “Earthlings Welcome,” a sign on the local restaurant proclaims.

As we pass over Coyote Summit, what appears to be an ancient lakebed, now filled only with sagebrush parted by our highway, lifts to terraced craggy badlands in front of us. As our straight road approaches them, it curves into a dental probe hook just before it disappears from sight. ForgottenMan has me make an entry in his notebook to research Area 51. No sign has proclaimed its presence around us. Do flying saucers ever appear in daylight? Probably so, but it is hard to imagine anything current and modern in this landscape, let alone something extraterrestrial.

Intent on my writing, I miss the emergence of a new life form. What plants are these? He enquires. Some sort of yucca arises in tall pillars, it’s spines like pineapple tops at first, but then as they grow larger, they branch out into clusters, each ending in a feathery yucca head. They grow occasionally into small trees. Decayed corpses of these large structures record their entire life cycle. Now they fill the desert for a distance of about a half mile on either side of us before petering out to give way to sage again. Low desert grass grows in clumps but we see no cattle to enjoy their succulence. Ten miles back, a cattle guard crossed the road and a fence stretched out on either side, not along the road, but rather stretching out for as far as my eye could see on either side. Perhaps this marked the end of the open range. A tall thin column issues up from a plot of sand a mile or so to our right…a small tornado stretching up into the sky much further than any of the wider dust devils we have seen. It winds up into the sky as though some small part of this constantly spreading landscape reaches for release. And escape. We are now on the curving dental probe section of the road. 45 miles of winding road warns a sign. Always something new. We ride on into our day.

Piñon pines add variety to our landscape, still interspersed with the yucca. Now all of the yuccas seem to have matured into small trees. The ground is mounded and hilly around us, the road winding in curls around the low hills. Layer upon layer of small hill-mountains line up in front of us. Again, Ferdinand announces an open range. Still, no cows. The first car we have seen for 20 miles passes us, going the opposite direction. We will now see what they have seen. They will relive our last two hours experience. A lake in the distance is in reality water, I have faith in this. Is that water? ForgottenMan asks. I answer that I have faith it is. “Pahranagat Valley,” reads a very fancy carved wood and painted sign. Or close to it. My fingers have given up trying to keep up with my eyes as I record close to what is reality. A blinking sign or light or fire flashes in the road in front of us. It looks more like a fire than anything else. It is in the road, flashing, closer and closer as we approach it for a mile or so. I start to get excited. Is this to be a surprise or mystery not so easily explained by rational thought? It turns out to be the headlights of a red pickup reflected from one of the watery mirages in a depression of the road.

The lake is directly in front of us, topping the straight road like the dot on an “i.” Some part of me readies itself for a dip into the cool water as we soar off into it, then my rational side sees how the road must bend to encircle it. “Low flying aircraft,” reads a sign. “Speed limit 60” (down from 70). A huge aluminum ET figure at least 40 feet high stands next to a spanking new Quonset hut, no reason given. It is seemingly a private residence. In .6 miles, we are instructed by “Mother” that we must turn left on US 93. “Turn left,” she goads us. The sign reads “Caliente.” “Alien Fresh Jerky,’ reads a sign, “Stuffed olives, pickles, pistachios and ice cream. “ The house behind the sign stands empty, it’s windows open to the air. We head off for Caliente, 43 miles away. Area 51 is ostensibly behind us, BUT still a mystery to us. We should be able to stop for gas, restrooms and maybe even lunch in Caliente, suggests my driver. Basic creature comforts will do where mystery and intrigue have failed us. He speculates that his sister and husband would hate this drive but his friend John, a poet, would love it. Kevin would want to climb out, get on top of a hill and get naked, whereas friend Anne would annoy, as jumpy as an overexcited puppy. What he wishes for is a small geological expert who will fit snugly into the small area available in our much-stuffed back seat and only speak when questioned. The giant smooth stones piled in intriguing piles by the road cannot be volcanic, in my estimation, although ForgottenMan questions my thoughts on this. If not, how did they get there? I will make another note in his notebook to check this out if asked to, but otherwise, will stay silent until requested to. At least for this one time.

Is it sagebrush that creates tumbleweeds, asks ForgottenMan? Now I have something new to ponder. Shall I add it to his notebook? I ask. No, he is not curious enough to prompt an addition, he insists, but I want to know and so note the question, resolved to check this out for myself.

In this stretch of road, the yucca trees are the largest I’ve seen and are flowering, to boot. Large white knobs are at the end of each spiky cluster…either tightly fisted petals about to burst out or, perhaps, the fruit from an earlier flowering. I request a stop to resolve this issue and ForgottenMan slows the car, looking for a turnoff. We stop. They are fruit. I snap a picture and break a chunk of yucca off a dead branch. I toss it in the back seat, trailing a plume of sand. “What is it?” asks ForgottenMan, and I tell him. He makes no protests. It’s a surprise how agreeable he is to my rummaging through century-old dumps and stopping to view piled stones and flowering (or fruiting?) Yucca. This is why I sometimes sit silent even when obvious words lie fermenting on my tongue. My silence is a gift I give to him, like his patience is one he makes to me.

Judy Dykstra-Brown, June 26, 2011 11:40 am.