Back to Vegas

Admittedly, we weren’t in the park that long, but I did not see much evidence of the great flooding. As we left, I hit up the visitor center to pick up a new annual parks pass and confirm that the Beatty Cutoff bypass to Daylight Pass was open — clearing the path to Rhyolite and that Denny’s.

I’d like to think the placards are new, but more likely I just hadn’t stopped to read them before. Rhyolite was a much bigger operation than I’d realized.

It was poised to become the largest mining town in the state and had a whopping three railroads serving it. Unfortunately, the fancy train depot they built in 1907 to receive all these visitors only turned a profit in its first year, then started seeing more departures than arrivals. It ultimately closed in 1919 and the tracks were pulled up and transported elsewhere. The building went on to be several other things through the years as the town finally dried up.

Historic photos scattered around showed a town of many blocks in each direction, but so little remains, you wouldn’t know it. Was lumber precious enough in this region that they dismantled most of the town and took it with them?

And from there, in keeping with tradition, we made a brief fuel stop and photo-op at The Denny’s (and casino, motel, gas station, candy store, jerky and nuts emporium, and Subway) to prove we’d been there. Then it was time to book it for Vegas.

He misses his friends.

After I dropped Dad at Not-McCarran-Anymore International Airport, I went to pick up a couple things from REI and go for a run in the hills of Henderson at the edge of yet-another-obnoxiously-opulent “yield to golf carts” suburb.

And now I’m at a one-night AirBnB as a rented room in a house occupied by its owner family, which is not my usual arrangement. I received thorough instructions on how to get in and which room was mine, but the listing was clear that it is a “self-check-in routine” and the hosts respect guest privacy. All of which is to say… I feel weird that I broke into some family’s house to take a shower and I can hear them moving around upstairs but haven’t spoken to them.