tent packed, dog fed im back on the road by 8:30 to hump it across wide open boring places all day until i finally came up over that rise before denver when the mountains finally reveal themselves. i made it to idaho springs and up the side of a mountain to national forest in time to still have daylight enough to set up camp. then it was back down the mountain to indian springs resort for some soaking in the steam caves. shew, the pools in this mother were the hottest ive ever been in. they sapped me in five minutes, found out as i was leaving they were sitting at 115, i felt scalded for sure. slept better than i had in 6 months.
the next day was spectacularly filled with stunning vistas for 3 quarters of the day and then i made my connection onto highway 50, well known under the moniker of the loneliest highway in america. little did i know it was the road used for the filming of vanishing point movie when i planned this route, that would come after visiting a ghosttown i had on my itinerary. cisco utah was not the best ghosttown ive ever been to, but it did have some cool buildings and offered up a mystery that i wouldnt be able to solve until several miles down the highway when i finally found some internet service. as i drove around the town i came to an old gas station that had kowalski lives spraypainted on the side. turns out this was the town they shot the final scene for the movie and that hwy 50 was the route they used to film the entire run. imagine the grin on my face afterwards...
so i plugged thru the rest of utah and landed at mystic hot springs. wow, just wow. here was the epitome of all that went wrong with the hippy generation, this place was a rundown relic. fantastic! it looked and had the feel of a failed commune; story goes that it is owned by the guy who did all the grateful deads cartoon work and he bought the place after they were stranded here by a broken bus. i fell in love, so wanted to charlie manson that place and take over. the tubs were awesome, with two HUGE flowstones on the property; the soaks ranged from 100 in the big pool to 102-110 in some of the smaller pools and clawfoot tubs. place was gorgeous, tight little valley with mountains ranging up on either side of the property. there were derelict hippy buses, gutted trailers and rickety cabins all over the property and the main building was generally falling down. the empty swimming pool and original buildings attested to the chic-ness that might have hung over the place in the 50's when it was built but that luxury had faded far off into the past.
the next day found me driving across the emptiest stretches of this country there are; it would be hours between what passed as "towns" out there, with nothing to break the monotony but sagebrush and the occasional mountain pass to drive up. absolutely gorgeous godforsaken land. ely nevada was a really cool break from the monotony. old buildings everywhere, the old neon signs were mesmerizing, i had to stop. the dive bar i chose was called the club rio and the look of the place and the patrons had my heart as soon as i walked in. there was the white guy with the red saggy labrador eyes who was obviously drinking himself to death, a long haired native american with metal tattoos, a few dusty women and a mutton-chopped cowboy who looked like a cross between lemmy and murderface. as i sat there drinking a colorado cool-aid and pondering my luck in stopping here, in walked a for real dyed-in-the-wool old cowboy. he grinned at me and pulled up right beside me and flirted with the barmaid as he ordered a beer. when she asked where he was from he said right here, as in that particular stool. after receiving his drink he proceeded to get down eye level with the bar and start searching the length of it. he finally waved me and the bartender over and pointed to some notches cut into the wood of the bar. it appears that at some point in the past, he couldnt remember if it was the 70's or 80's he had ridden his horse into the bar and the sucker decided to take a bite out of it.
pushed on out of ely with regret and jammed it on across the desert, finally arriving at spencer hot springs just before sundown. this place was also amazing, set in the middle of a vast desert valley with stunning views in all directions. met some great folks there that night. an old mining retiree with his young vietnamese wife; they were out there on their dual sport motorbikes riding canyons and soaking for a week. the family from wisconsin who were slowly making their way back home from california; the dad stayed up with us into the night. and finally a kid i started calling johnny pinecone the rest of the night; he was camped out there indefinitely, riding his dirt bike up into the mountains collecting pine nuts. his aim was to eat a third, sell a third, and plant a third in western oregon because the climate was changing and the trees there werent right for the arid conditions becoming prevalent. he was a font of wild food knowledge, making us all a snack from flour made from a root he collects and grinds up. his goal was to graduate to a horse so he could get further up into the mountains. very fun night, we listened to the famed pack of wild burros braying in the distance while everyone helped me kill a brand new bottle of tequila. spirits were way high under that big ass sky...
i finally arrived in the sierra nevada mountains and set up camp there for a long spell of alternately freezing and burning in the california climate. me and the dog did a lot of hiking and swimming, drove up some awesome mountains, saw wild minks and river otters hunting, collected many cool rocks, got stung by a scorpion, got raided by a free range pig, hung out with old friends, had some tiffs but even more laughs and watched countless falling stars.
once i broke camp i headed south on the 395 to find travertine hot springs and the ghost town of bodie. got to the hot springs at 8am and had the place all to myself. such a treat. this place was stunning with pools at the bottom of a gigantic travertine mound with a perfect view of the snow-covered mountains off in the distance. most descriptions of the place say its usually crowded so i felt myself lucky. it was 26 degrees out but after a 20 min soak it felt like summer. the drive to bodie was long and wound through some very desolate mountains which is probably why the place is so well preserved. except for extensive fire damage that wrecked 60% of the town, the place looks exactly the way it did when the last person left. magazines left lying on tables, all the store shelves fully stocked, child size caskets on the work bench in the morgue. fantastic place
the next day i drove the long way through death valley, listening to the "lie" album, taking my time. damn do i love the shit out of that place, some day im going to spend a week down in there and really get to explore it. unfortunately i40 lies at the southern end which led to the long grind back home, ah summer how i already miss you so...
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