Hickison Petroglyphs

Some miles down the road and over the pass from Austin are the Hickison Petroglyphs, a BLM interpretive site. Unfortunately, the pamphlets from the self-guided trail were all gone, so we just walked the trail and gathered what we could. The petroglyphs are thought to be some 10,000 years old, which is indeed impressive.

Perhaps it all looked differently 10,000 years ago or more...
water in the lakes and rivers, abundant game, little
competition, milder climate...

Austin, NV

We drove through Austin as the sun went down, continuing on up the hill, looking for an NFS campground. But we resolved to drive back the next morning to have a look at this living ghost town of note. 10,000 prospectors and other frontier-types were in this valley at one time.

Seen all over town, nearly all of whose
businesses were closed

Street scene, mostly original frontier, which is not actually
all that old...

Detail

Saloon, left, library, right

Up closer

Episcopal church, built 1878, said to be one of
the finer specimens of frontier church in NV

Masons and Odd Fellows Hall

Frontier spirit

Going concern

Unfinished frontier structure

Favorite daughter/operatic star of the later 19th century, Emma
Nevada; America's answer to Lola Montez/Lili von Shtupp?

More frontier spirit; I guess he provided his own clean air and
water, safe food, transportation and communication
infrastructure, law and order, security from foreign aggression...

More frontier spirit

Trump's favorite insult is calling someone a loser; interesting
how many of his supporters are obvious losers, misfits, and
ne'er-do-wells

I think we'll just drive right on through Austin next time, if
there is a next time

The Loneliest Road

US 50 bills itself as "The Loneliest Road," and, I would add, also the ugliest, and not just the scenery. After stimulating the local economy in Carson City, we drove 50 all across Nevada and through Utah all the way to Provo. I'll have a couple or three posts on sights along the way but wanted to add these from the road itself.

Not the official signage

Salt flats

Writ in sand...

Sand Mountain...reminiscent of larger, more extensive dunes in
France, the North Island, etc.

Hundreds and hundreds of largely uninhabited miles, basin and
range, basin and range, basin and range....

Savage-camping on a pass east of Austin, NV

Occasional pioneer stuff along the way; this in a sort of park in
Eureka, NV, where we stopped for lunch in the shade; my one
abiding image of US 50 will be of the conspicuously armed
paramilitary assholes "guarding" the Chevron station in Eureka

Sculpture on a spur from 50 to Great Basin National Park

Fence sculpture

Somewhere east of Baker, NV, now probably in Utah, a
GoogleEarth street-view car passes us at a very high rate of
speed...

Evidently photographing this gorgeous terrain

Let's see, last time I photographed one of these was in 2010,
I think, on El Camino Real, in Palo Alto...

Just west of Hinckley, Utah, one of the better
shoe trees

Nearby shoe stripling

A few that didn't stick...

Tahoe Camping

We camped two nights at the NFS' Nevada Beach campground, a pie-shaped strip of land, the wide side fronting on US50, the narrow side, perhaps half a mile, on Tahoe beach, a mile and a half from South Lake Tahoe (the town). Rather little of Lake Tahoe is easily accessible, I surmise. At either end of Nevada Beach, fearsome signs, fences, pilings, and other structures let you know this is private property. Anyhow, we mostly walked around, to town, in the forest, on the beach. It's pretty, yes, but smoke from new California fires was beginning to show--we'd seen some in Pinecrest--and we wanted to continue our northeasterly course.

A meadow in the Nevada Beach forest service campground;
the whole place was "rescued" in the 1980s--it was going to
be yet another massive casino/resort--ensuring local access
to the lake; note menhir and stone circle (OK, yes, I seriously
miss Europe)

Really blue sky at this altitude, over 6,000 feet

Sign near highway 50

Still relatively clear water

Panoramic view

Two-seat power-boat parapente

But then things get ugly

Thus; I fully expected armed sentries, but the fence here was
merely that of a trailer park

Burning Man (why not Burning Person?) had just ended, so the
streets and highways were filled with playa-covered vehicles
of various sorts; here is one at the campground; note scratched
comment...

Eating well on Senior Thursday at the casino