Cents Per Gallon

This gas pump is so old it gives a price in only “cents per gallon”.

Seems to reflect the overall situation in Gold Point pretty well… it’s pretty much an open-air museum too. There are a few houses around the area that don’t look abandoned, but also quite a lot of “No Trespassing” signs and fences, too. The Post Office looks like it’s in good shape.

You try to open the door, but it’s apparently locked.  So you try knocking… and you hear that same bizarre shuffling inside.

No one ever opens or answers. Whatever that sound was, it doesn’t seem eager to help. That same unsettling feeling… Nothing like that was ever mentioned in the Disney films, you think almost out loud.

You notice the sun is starting to go down; maybe you should just leave the area completely and head towards Tonopah?

Or you can brave the evening here in Gold Point and wait for someone to appear. After all… someone has to live in this town, right?

RUSTEZ3

As you approach what you think must be Gold Point, you notice a bunch of old trucks lined up as if on display. Laying on the ground next to this one, you notice a homemade sign that still barely reads “WE SHADOW FORTH…”  whatever that means. You can’t help but notice that the truck appears to have an almost cartoonish face to it.

There’s another vaguely familiar truck-face nearby… or you can just Git-R-Done and head over to what looks like the town’s Post Office.

Unleaded Only

You head out of Rhyolite and quickly lose sight of any other buildings. For a few hours it’s just you and the wind, sand and asphalt. Even though you don’t see anything like smoke in the air, a strong burnt-wood smell lingers around what looks like the abandoned husk of some gas station.

A strange silhouette catches your eye… is that a person leaning against the building?

As you close in, you realize the silhouette that caught your eye is just some poster thrown up on the wall. It’s apparently not that old, either… but damned if you can reason what it’s supposed to mean.

It’s still too early to make camp, so you decide to keep heading toward Gold Point Gold Point.

“To Gold Point”

That’s what the last legible sign in Rhyolite offered up, so you pack into your vehicle and start heading out towards this Gold Point.

The road looks pretty sparse, but there are power lines nearby and you see a house in the distance.

Maybe you’ll find help, a drink of something cool and refreshing in this crazy heat… directions back to civilization, even?

Getting to that house was no problem, but you realize pretty quickly that even if they were inside, they had no intention of answering.

You call out hello but nothing… no one responds.

A smashed-up car and assorted parts are rusting about in the yard. Other than the dust devil that whips around every so often, there is absolutely no sign of activity. The door is locked. The windows are intact and covered from the inside.

Knocking on the door, you could have sworn you heard some scuffling sound inside. It was unsettling. You have a feeling that breaking in would be really stupid, so you eventually move on.

Hopefully you’ll find Gold Point before dark.

Cook’s Bank

You’d heard a few stories about Rhyolite, and how it fell into obscurity almost as quickly as it showed up. The three-story John S. Cook Bank on Golden Street represents the story pretty well: this three-story building once had luxuries like marble stairs and stained-glass windows, but the luxuries only lasted as long as the ore flowed freely. 

The town boomed during the Gold Rush with nearly 5000 fortune-seekers settling in from 1907 to about 1911. It had electric lights, water mains, telephones, newspapers, a hospital, a school, an opera house, and a stock exchange. But the nearby mines stopped producing any sizeable ore around 1913.

And by 1920 only 14 people remained. Now there’s not much but a few buildings’ remains and some really interesting art. You can check out the general store nearby.

 

Union Pacific Caboose

Looks like this caboose was repurposed into gas station or something before being left to it’s own accord. Other than some still-standing powerlines, not much indicates that it’s been used for anything recently.

You consider entering the caboose, but you can tell that someone has taken effort to prevent entry. The ubiquitous warning signs are posted, and what appears to be a tripwire inside the doorway cues you in on the possibility that the signs aren’t just for show.

Other than some stones, accumulated litter, and what appears to be dozens of small holes burrowed into the dirt floor, you really see nothing inside to risk going in for.

Nearby, a motionless, shrouded white form (ghosts?) appears to beckon you away from this relic.

Will you go inside the caboose anyway, or head over to this ghostly apparition?

 

Venus of Nevada

Welcome to Nevada!

Your vehicle, driven slowly and with the heater fully cranked, maintained its uphill composure pretty well.

Now that you’ve gotten out of the depths of Death Valley, it appears to be holding up just fine. In fact, the air itself is slightly less hot. It’s only 113F out here, yay!

The first thing you notice as you approach Rhyolite is some garish, 25-foot-tall pink sculpture off in the distance…  some sort of homage to pixel art, perhaps? Ah, this is the Goldwell Open Air Museum. You can stick around to check out the other artifacts here, or continue towards the town itself.

At least, what’s left of it…

Sixteen Fathoms Below the Sea

One word: Hot.

It’s over 120F here in the lowest point of North America.

You’ve drank almost a gallon of water just getting to this point, and yet your sweat feels like it’s nearly boiling.

If the ocean could be here with you right now, you’d be more than one hundred feet below the surface. Despite the thought of those depths, you still wonder if it wouldn’t be at least a slight improvement of this situation.

You struggle to squint through the windless miasma, but don’t see much beyond the dusty playas and outstretched road. A couple Joshua trees and Creosote bushes dot the desert floor.

For a while you’ve noticed the increased crush of air pressure… it reminds you of pressurized cabins on commercial flights, when your ears start popping and the wee babies start crying.

The heat is incredibly intense and your skin isn’t taking to it very well. Your vehicle is nearly overheating, so it’s probably best to stay the night rather than risk getting stranded. Maybe there’s some shade around here you could faint in? 

Well, let’s decide- you can either head back towards Nevada now and maybe risk overheating the vehicle, or you can look for some kind of shade and make camp. It’s gotta be easier to travel in this desert at night, right?