I hadn’t been on a road trip in years and wanted to take one to celebrate the one-year anniversary of my little stroke. Decided to visit a number of small Nevada towns and avoid any national restaurant or hotel chains.

I left home on the morning of the 18th of October. My first stop was actually just over the state border in California: China Ranch Date Farm (https://www.chinaranch.com/).

This place is less than 100 miles from Vegas and south of Death Valley. You have to want to go there just for its own sake, though, because it’s not really on the way to or from anywhere. It is not going to visited by hordes of tourists

I didn’t snap any pictures of the road on my way in, but here’s a few I took on my way out:

You would not want to be on this road in one of the areas infrequent rainstorms.

Here’s the gift shop:

They had a dozen or so different types of dates, date baked goods, souvenirs, rocks, and, of course, date shakes. One bathroom, a picnic table or two, and some hiking trails. It made for an interesting stop for an hour or so.

From there, I drove into Pahrump, which is pretty much an exurb of Las Vegas. Although it has around 45,000 residents now, it didn’t even have telephone service until the 1960s.

The main road through town has all the usual businesses and chains, but I was looking for somewhere local for lunch and settled on Mom’s Diner, which you can check out here https://www.facebook.com/people/Moms-Diner/100048743390385/# if you have Facebook (which I don’t).

The place was full of vintage items on the walls and had a great vibe. It was quite busy when I arrived for lunch on Saturday, but I only had to wait a few minutes for a table. They didn’t have any small tables and I felt a bit guilty taking up a table for four, but that soon sorted itself out: The family at the table next to me had 6 people and were having trouble fitting everyone in. I suggested we share my table, so rather than lunching by myself, I spent my time chatting with the grandfather about Pahrump and his history there. Made for an unexpected but interesting time. And the food was good, too!

Next stop was Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (https://www.fws.gov/refuge/ash-meadows). Thanks to our dysfunctional government, the visitor center was closed, but the trails (and bathrooms) were still open. Ash Meadows is the largest remining oasis in the Mojave Desert, but it’s hard to realize that because there is not a lot of open water. Here are typical landscapes:

The water is almost completely grown over by bushes like this:

When you do glimpse the water, though, it’s stunning:

After a fairly warm afternoon of hiking the boardwalks, I headed for Beatty, NV, “Gateway to Death Valley” and home to 1,000 inhabitants (not counting the burros). After my big lunch, I just picked up a few snacks and a bottle of Diet Coke for the evening. I haven’t been drinking sodas much at all lately, but the day’s walking just seemed to call for it.

My room for the next two nights was in the Atomic Inn. I’ll let their website (https://atomicinnbeatty.com/about.cfm) speak for them:

Completed in 1980, the Atomic Inn (originally the Lori Motel) was built to accommodate defense contractor and military personnel working with the Ford Aerospace Corporation who worked at military installations at nearby Nellis Air Force Base – home to top secret installations like the world famous Area 51 (Groom Lake), the Nevada Nuclear Test Site (where over 500 above-ground nuclear bomb tests were tested, and the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository.

No wonder we call it the ATOMIC Inn! The Atomic Inn/Phoenix Inn is a retro-themed motel establishment dedicated to great value and great service reminescent of the good ‘ol days when Eastern Europe was the Warsaw Pact and the United States was ready to “duck and cover”! Now a popular Death Valley motel choice, the Atomic Inn / Phoenix Inn has survived the Cold War and has been remodeled into the 21st Century yet is still a classic. Rated as #1 in Beatty out of 6 motels on TripAdvisor!!!

Here’s the Inn and the steps up to my room:

Day two will be a ghost town, outdoor art installations, and Death Valley.