Elko, Nevada
A comical place, full of casinos and smokers, plus a handful of folks who look really down and out. After our sizeable lunch at Penny’s Diner in Green River, Wyoming, Ginnie and I were determined to go light and have salads for dinner.
Parking the rig is always a challenge, so our first order of business each evening is to find a safe place to park it and then head out on foot. As soon as we got it parked in Elko, the rain started. This has been our pattern: the minute we pick a hotel, the sky opens up and we are hauling our crap across the parking lot in the rain.
Ginnie had thought to pack a raincoat but I had not. My solution was to get an old aqua-colored bath towel out of the truck and drape it over my head. We laughed at how we must have looked, Ginnie in mesh jogging capris and a T-shirt with a prominent chocolate stain front and center, me with a towel over my head, walking in the pouring rain through the casino parking lots. Nobody walks in Elko but the down and out. People could assume that we'd lost it all gambling: our cars, our good clothes, and all our money except what we needed to buy two salads at McDonald's.
After eating, we splooshed our way back to the overpriced, but very pleasant, Holiday Inn Express—no other towns for 50 miles in either direction, they had a captive audience. It seemed to be the only building in Elko that didn't reek of cigarette smoke and old booze. It was clean, pleasant, quiet, and had free high-speed internet service. I was beginning to feel like most of the truckers we saw on the road: poorly dressed and stubbly, so I drew a bath, shaved my legs, and laid out clean clothes before falling asleep.
The next morning, Ginnie pointed out that the atmosphere in Elko was strangely familiar. It smelled of old urine, just like the New York City subways. But a whole town! How do they do it?
One last errand before ditching this mountain paradise: fuel up the truck. We pulled into a Sinclair station, rather awkwardly, as is typical for me. The pump was painfully slow and shut off after the first $75 purchase, forcing us to repeat the process (typical fill is $150) and thus spend additional long minutes breathing Elko's stale-waste aroma. Once fueling was completed, I resorted to my tested tactic when getting out of a tight spot with the truck: I threw myself at the mercy of the guys in the rig next to ours. I told them, truthfully, that I was incompetent, and asked them to direct me so I wouldn't knock the bug off its trailer, crash into their vehicle, or shear off a gas pump. The two men were quick and cheerful with their help, and we steered out of the gas station without mishap.
Ginnie points out that in some cases, like this one, testosterone is a wonderful thing, prompting men to do chivalrous things, even for a couple of pudgy, middle-aged women. To be fair, the vintage VW bug we are hauling has the same disarming appeal as a labrador retriever puppy or a baby harp seal. But we are willing to exploit any advantage that will get us across the country in one piece.
Parking the rig is always a challenge, so our first order of business each evening is to find a safe place to park it and then head out on foot. As soon as we got it parked in Elko, the rain started. This has been our pattern: the minute we pick a hotel, the sky opens up and we are hauling our crap across the parking lot in the rain.
Ginnie had thought to pack a raincoat but I had not. My solution was to get an old aqua-colored bath towel out of the truck and drape it over my head. We laughed at how we must have looked, Ginnie in mesh jogging capris and a T-shirt with a prominent chocolate stain front and center, me with a towel over my head, walking in the pouring rain through the casino parking lots. Nobody walks in Elko but the down and out. People could assume that we'd lost it all gambling: our cars, our good clothes, and all our money except what we needed to buy two salads at McDonald's.
After eating, we splooshed our way back to the overpriced, but very pleasant, Holiday Inn Express—no other towns for 50 miles in either direction, they had a captive audience. It seemed to be the only building in Elko that didn't reek of cigarette smoke and old booze. It was clean, pleasant, quiet, and had free high-speed internet service. I was beginning to feel like most of the truckers we saw on the road: poorly dressed and stubbly, so I drew a bath, shaved my legs, and laid out clean clothes before falling asleep.
The next morning, Ginnie pointed out that the atmosphere in Elko was strangely familiar. It smelled of old urine, just like the New York City subways. But a whole town! How do they do it?
One last errand before ditching this mountain paradise: fuel up the truck. We pulled into a Sinclair station, rather awkwardly, as is typical for me. The pump was painfully slow and shut off after the first $75 purchase, forcing us to repeat the process (typical fill is $150) and thus spend additional long minutes breathing Elko's stale-waste aroma. Once fueling was completed, I resorted to my tested tactic when getting out of a tight spot with the truck: I threw myself at the mercy of the guys in the rig next to ours. I told them, truthfully, that I was incompetent, and asked them to direct me so I wouldn't knock the bug off its trailer, crash into their vehicle, or shear off a gas pump. The two men were quick and cheerful with their help, and we steered out of the gas station without mishap.
Ginnie points out that in some cases, like this one, testosterone is a wonderful thing, prompting men to do chivalrous things, even for a couple of pudgy, middle-aged women. To be fair, the vintage VW bug we are hauling has the same disarming appeal as a labrador retriever puppy or a baby harp seal. But we are willing to exploit any advantage that will get us across the country in one piece.
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