Driving through the Nevada desert has got to be the most boring activity of the entire trip. These roads rarely curve more than 20 degrees, and when they do all you get is yet another 40 miles of perfectly straight asphalt as far as you can see.
Luckily once in a while the occasional redneck village pops up to remind you people actually live here. A fitting example is the town of Tonopah, home of the muckers. The term 'muckers' probably has something to do with the mining history of the village. The mining industry apparently isn't exactly the booming business in here anymore these days. Tonopah frankly put is a disgusting little town and it saddens me to think youngsters have to grow up in such a shithole. Further along the road we even drive past real slums, places that were once trailer parks turned into garbage belts but surprisingly still house families. Truly testaments to the high poverty rate that threatens the US.
In the middle of nowhere we reach what is called the "Extraterrestrial Highway". Anyone who saw movies such as Signs, E.T, War of the Worlds, Paul and so on knows that Americans are intrigued by aliens. And it just happens to be on this very highway where the most UFOs and other alien sightings have been made. In the middle of the highway we find the Black Mailbox. It's a surprisingly white mailbox (which used to be black) that belongs to some farmer that has been idolised by the nutjobs that believe it is used by aliens to communicate to humans or the other way around. Speaking of nutjobs, when we arrived at the Black Mailbox we were accompanied by two believers who are making a documentary about UFOs and whatnot. After we took our mandatory mailbox pictures with and without tin foil hats (it blocks aliens from reading your mind, duh!) Vegas Bob, as he likes to call himself introduced himself to us, convinced we saw some of his earlier movies about aliens and stuff. Not to be rude but respectfully denying I tried to avoid going into mind-blowing discussions. He elaborated on his earlier trip to Area 51 and stressed the dangers of approaching the secret base. The army seems to have devices all over the desert that record every word you say, and approaching the gate can get your car impounded and will definitely put you behind bars in a maximum security prison. Good to know! Before we left Vegas Bob gave us his business card. Can come in handy when aliens decide to give me a rectum probe.
The very next day I went to Bob's website to find out the documentary video was already posted on youtube! Check out www.ufosaliens.org and play the Black Mailbox video. They even mention us in the video!
After visiting the Extraterrestrial Highway we headed over to Mono Lake, one of the oldest lakes in the world. It has twice as much salt as the ocean, making life for animals very hard. Only some crabs, an ancient form of shrimp and birds and strange little flies are able to live here. Due to the low water level the coralriffs are clearly visible and tower out above the lake, giving the whole area a very ancient look. Unfortunately also here humans have made a nearly irreversible impact on the environment by disrupting the rivers that bring water to the lake.
We continued our way to Bodie, a ghost town in a deserted valley. I had imagined Bodie to be a couple wooden shacks ready to fall apart, but apparently Bodie has been turned into a State Historic Park and is quite popular among tourists. When going through some really old houses, we took the guided mill tour. Bodie once was a prosperous mining city with over 2000 buildings. Now only about 100 houses are still standing together with a really big mining mill. While the mines themselves are closed and way too dangerous, the mill is still intact and still holds all the equipment that was used back in the day. Lifespan-expectancy was about 35 years, and that ain't hard to believe if you see the conditions the miners had to work in. If you didn't go down the mineshafts and died of either collapsing tunnels, 800 feet drops or explosions inside the mine, you surely would find your way to your maker while working in the mill. Not only did none of the tools used in the mill have an emergency stop button, none of the drills or belts spinning around had any cover. That ensured a freak incident with arms or scalps ripping off was always right around the corner. Now if that still wouldn't kill you, the mixture of dust and iron particles you're breathing would do the trick on the long run. And then I didn't even mention the mercury or other deadly chemicals they were using to get the most silver and gold out of the rocks. The Chinese who were discriminated against in that time were not allowed to work in the mines or goldmill, so they took care of the lumber import. Somehow they were the lucky ones.
Even with the huge chance of not getting out alive, Bodie attracted people from all over the world. The idea of gold laying around for the taking in SouthWest America set in motion what was called the goldrush. After the mines had depleted Bodie was nothing more than a city in the middle of the desert where everything had to be brought in by train. It had no purpose anymore and so Bodie what was once the finest example of prosperity in the country became a desolated ghost town in the middle of nowhere.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten