Today is a full day of driving so that we can make it to Las Vegas in time to drop the hire car off. We're aiming for a small town called Tonopah to spend the night before driving to Vegas in the morning, the trouble is that the only place that is in our budget is the Clown Motel and James hates clowns! It's a scenic drive and it's weird to watch the landscape change as we drive into Nevada. Arriving at the hotel it's exactly what we expected, clowns...clowns everywhere!
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| A very scenic journey, with daylight headlights by law |
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| A scary bargain! |
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| That ain't right! |
The owner only has one room left and it's the old maintenance man's room, he doesn't usually put people in that room so we're a bit nervous but walking in it's clean, has a bed, a shower and a TV, what more do we need? The hotel is located next to the old cemetery which has the victims of the 1902 plague, we love these little special touches. We find a hotel restaurant to have a fried chicken dinner and miners stew, somehow James manages to finish half a chicken plus all the sides, before going back to the Clown motel to sleep with one eye open.
We survived!! We weren't eaten by clowns!! The motel is actually a good motel, considering we were in what was considered a bad room we had no complaints. Less clowns needed though. Luckily the room was clown free.
Getting into the car we drive to Beatty which is a little town with a giant sweetshop, it is big but it's more like a warehouse so we don't get that 'kid in a sweetshop' feeling we were hoping for. We spot an odd looking thrift shop and go in for a rummage. When the nice owner chats to us and gives us some tips for our drive to Vegas we feel the need to buy something and end up with pin badges and a homemade cowboy garter, yee-harr! James refuses to buy the yellow Hawaiian shirt, even though it would be perfect for Vegas.
The next stop is the Goldwell Open Air Museum and the ghost town Rhyolite. The museum has weird sculptures including a ghostly last supper and giant Lego lady, made by Belgium artists. Moving on to Rhyolite it's weird to think that these empty buildings used to be part of a booming mining town. We pose for pictures in front of the glass bottle house, a house made out of thousands of glass bottles - creative! It was actually raffled off in 1905 for $5 a ticket by the guy who built it so maybe its a good moneymaking idea for a beer drinker?
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| I will find you Frodo... |
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| Our retirement home |
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| Ghost town |
Now it's time to drive through Death Valley which is something James has always wanted to do. Driving through Hell's gate we stick our arms out of the window to feel the sudden change in temperature, hot, hot heat and no breeze, we're not going to stop for long in here! We can see why it is called Death valley, James describes it as "Mars with plants". We drive around to Badwater Basin which is below sea level and take a few photos before realising that we're running a bit behind schedule and incredibly hot, time to put the foot to the pedal and get to Vegas!
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| Well it is called Death Valley Christine! |
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| Can you spot 'Sea Level'? |
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