Dispatch from Rachel, NV Text, photographs and web design by Erik Gauger
I stopped
in at the Little A'Le'Inn. I wanted a beer, but I got the universe. The décor
- pro-extraterrestrial, pro-gun, anti-Hillary. The Little A'Le'Inn has become
a mecca for those who believe, but you wouldn't have guessed by the looks
of the slouched drinkers at the bar. Bill was talking to Howard, "How
long you been truckin'?" he asked.
"Since nineteen forty-eight."
"Nineteen forty-eight? You are a good man, Howard. What, Freightliner?"
"Dodge."
"A Dodge man?"
"All my life. I move cars, boats, trailers, trucks."
"Always?"
"That's my specialty."
Bill patted Howard on the back, a little too hard maybe. Howard was old.
Bob, who was listening in, said that he liked trucks. Bob was reverse engineered
from a human. Bald, aging and with a skeletal head and a long sun-bleached
goatee, Bob had seemed to have been drinking since morning. His long, inaudible
drawls meant he had reached a state of drunken equilibrium - no highs, no
lows anymore, just fuzziness and squint-eyed smiles.
The Loneliest Road A journey across the Nevada's Great Basin and the Loneliest Road in America. We follow the struggle between off-roaders, Great Basin Indians and conservationists over the fate of a blue butterfly.
Summer Lake Part II of a conversation about travel writing, this episode continues into the southern Oregon Desert.
Rachel, Nevada and Area 51
Area 51 is a dusty set of hangars at the bottom of a dry lake bed.
The Owyhee River Part I of the Oregon Testament.Follow us to Leslie Gulch, where we stumble upon a yet undiscovered Native American site.
The Alvord Desert Part II of the Oregon Testament. Fishing under the Steens Mountains, and wandering the alkali flats of Alvord Lake.
Mono Lake They are twisted, trollish, ungodly, like a woman turned to stone
