“The Loneliest Road in America” is Route 50, according to both local lore and Life Magazine. And it’s not an over-exaggeration– one might only see a few drivers while on it, for hundreds of miles. And like many desert roads, it’s sometimes painfully straight– it goes on and on for as far as the eye can see, with no reprieve.
I didn’t get a photo of the Route itself– mostly because Moon was asleep in the back for most of the trip, and because I was dreadfully worried about nodding off. Even as a person who loves driving even desolate roadways, this one challenged me.
What greeted us at the end of the road was a comical sign reading “You Made It!” and large icons indicating there were bathrooms here in town: a welcome sight.
Ely was a stop on the Pony Express, and had a boom-time during a run on copper and other resources. It’s now primarily a stopover on the way to Great Basin National Park– and plays up its Western-town charm via keeping up its restaurants, storefronts, and signature Nevada-neon signs. They even had a restaurant themed like a Jailhouse aptly-named “Jailhouse”– in which you can eat a steak inside a small fabricated jail cell. (*No, we didn’t eat there*).
At dusk, Ely’s neon signs were ablaze and enveloped the entire downtown strip in a warm glow. It was comforting. If there’s a real place that gets close to an actual oasis in the desert, that little town could qualify. We fueled up both literally and figuratively, before heading onward.
Also, weirdly– Pat Nixon was born in Ely, so here’s hoping that helps you in your next bar trivia contest.
I’ll leave you with one of the photos I DID take on the route to Ely via the “Loneliest Road In America”– one of a rusted-out van sitting on the side of the road… reminding us what might become of us if we lingered too long.
Posted by Sun
