Travel Photography > Great Basin > Loneliest Road

The State of Nevada - ever cunning in turning sage into gold, turned that Yankee-Doodle moniker into something malleable. The tourism board developed a ‘Highway 50 Survival Kit’ and then gave the highway a name. Like Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway, colorful names have improved the collective image of Nevada’s hardest-to-sell regions.

Most of the land in Nevada is administered by the Bureau of Land Management, or what we call BLM land. That sounds like bureaucracy, but the existence of BLM land is one of the coolest parts about living in the United States.

Sixty-eight percent of Nevada is public BLM land. The idea behind this free land is that it is there for everybody. A place where you can do pretty much whatever you want. American land that you don't need to own in order to harvest. In fact, BLM land is where free-range cows graze, and miners mine.

These open lands are different from both the national parks and monuments of the United States, and the public lands of Europe. America's national parks have strict rules; Europe’s mountain ranges have established designations for the type of entertainment that is encouraged. But American BLM land, which is located primarily in 12 western states, is where you go if you need to walk on stilts in a clown costume. BLM land is where you take your shotgun, your rhapsody, your soapbox, your journal. BLM land is your own canvas: it is old, and nearly untouched.

In Austin, a gentleman with thirty pens in his overalls offers us a pamphlet of his city, which happens to be the geographical center of Nevada. Mike "I lost my lungs, that's why I have to drag this canister around" works in a roadside building, welding all day. "This was just a hobby," he says, showing Jane a coyote pelt, which "an Indian friend skinned for me." He says, "Coyote pelts are like socks, you see?" He turns over the dead thing, revealing the complete outers of an animal. "When you kill a coyote, you just slip the fur off the body."

Mike trades things. He trades for rocks, gems, corals, knick-knacks and steel. From all of this, he welds knives, bracelets, clocks.

"When my health went, I turned my hobby into my business." He rolls his chair from his welding room out to greet us, dragging his air. Mike reveals Austin to us through his collection of old photographs. He left here in middle age, but open spaces and freedom led him slowly back home.

"How is the Toiyabe Cafe?" I ask.
"Greasy spoon, just like the other one, but it's fine," he says.

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