Editor’s Note: Building Management at Big Ink ran a test of complete Condo Association conversion to Renewable power sources. The initial test, scheduled for dawn on a cloudy day introduced unplanned variation in composition management and iteration control. The mis-ordering of episodes is the regrettable full responsibility of the independent editorial contractors with a distant, formal manner, for which Socotra House LLC is not directly liable.

– Vic

This slogan to generate tourist traffic to America’s forgotten portion of US 50 was inoperative as we had the road entirely to ourselves all day. Very empty and very green. Very straight in between seven mountain ridge/range lines it crosses. Very Zen. Part of the original Pony Express route that operated for19 months in 1861 and 1862. Riders had to be expert, 18, small and wiry, capable of 90 miles per day, and willing to risk death. Pay: $25/week. This BETAMAX-level, single packet switching communications technology of its day was quickly outmoded by the telegraph and cross-country US Postal Service by train. Oops. Only one pony rider was reported to have died. Yeah, sure. We climbed around a surviving PE ride station located about thirty miles west of Ely Nevada.

The Surprise

Stopped at the second of two 2-hose, single pump, gravel lot, gas stations in Austin. We were midway along Nevada’s portion of US 50. If asked, I’d locate it by telling folks that we’re equidistant from the towns of No Way, Never, and No More. This gas-only station was run by a solitary, 50ish woman, married to a county road repair crew member.

I had finished paying for my fuel and was skylarking outside while Steve paid and talked. I saw two young adults plus a small toddler doing a Pythonesque style rendition of creeping along the station building’s concrete block face enroute the front door. The not-so-steady young’un was in the lead with Mom holding her bitty’s mitts above her head to steady her on the gravel. In response to a single whispered question, they confirmed suspicions and I fell in line to assist. I took the little girl’s hands above her head and shielded her from her target’s sight lines and entered the station.

My plans and script changed quickly as the toddler assumed the conn upon spotting full shelves of candy bars and snacks just inside the door in front of her grandma’s register station. Improvising, I asked the cashier whether she had troubles with small creatures eating her assorted treats. Puzzled, she came out from behind the counter and instantly melted when she saw her first grandchild, all the way from western Colorado, walking for the first time. At the exact same time, the surprise package’s parents leapt into the room, shouting Surprise! Happy Mother’s Day!”

Steve and I discretely skedaddled.

Good eats at Austin’s Toiyabe Café.

Observation #12: Why is it in the far west that most of the road side signs have been shot up? I understand blasting away at the bossy ones (Slow Down, Speed Up) and those that have animal silhouettes. But I no comprende route number signs and plain info signs being targeted with not just small arms calibers like 22 and 38 but 357, 45, 30/30 and 50 cal machine gin fire. I saw one yellow sign with almost all of its paint stripped off by repeated shotgun blasts. BTW the “left turn arrowed” ones all had been blasted into outer space.

Observation #13: Dogs on the beds of these far western state owner’s pickup trucks and men on their motorcycles have the common singular goal — faces squarely in the wind with noses sniffing.

Stayed in Ely Nevada’s El Rancho Motel. Cost: $31/night. Motel name may be shy a letter U.

Daily Windshield Bug Smash Bingo Game winners: yellow

Query count as of the end of Day 18:

Where’re you going? – 20
What’s that? (Steve’s Valkyrie) – 8
Damsels in distress? – 8

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