In search of the one-armed man...
The night before leaving for Tahoe for 4th of July weekend, I found myself in a truck stop diner in Sacramento at 12:31 a.m. eating a short stack of pancakes and hashbrowns. I had picked up my roommate from the airport and, after allowing him time to visit with his dog (Im hungry lets go Im huuuuungry pancakes) we ran out to find somewhere to eat. Everything else close by being closed, we happened into the Silver Skillet and into a hazy handlebar-mustachioed dream I never knew Id even had.
I couldnt stop jumping around in this place. Every guy working there looked like a parolee and every woman called me hon between bright pink-painted lips that smacked incessantly on gum or cud or, I dont know fingernails maybe. There were about nine hundred ceramic roosters for sale all of varying sizes and poses and the absolute tackiest stained-glass renditions of NFL logos and NASCAR racing numbers imaginable. It was the coolest place Id seen in quite some time. I felt like Dean Moriarty and desperately tried to strike up conversations with anyone and everyone around me.
But for all its cracked-vinyl charm and diesel-soaked ambience, the Silver Skillet still wasnt, well authentic enough somehow. I wanted more.
Fast forward to the weekend. Im in Tahoe with my little brother, just up from Cal Poly, to take in some mountain air and dig on the festivities. After three days of doing Tahoe shit (gambling, drinking, disc golfing, drinking, reading, drinking, fireworks, drinking) I got a road trip urge and our wild west adventure had begun.
We detoured through Genoa, Nevada, up into Carson City, and all the way to the home of the Comstock Lode, one time stop-over for pioneers and gold miners traveling from Denver to San Francisco: the silver nugget of Wild West towns, Virginia City.
The night before our trip my brother and I cocked up a pair of Wild West Bingo cards. Forty-eight sights, sounds, and experiences we either expected to see on the trip or would need to work a bit in order to find. Loser was buying dinner in Reno the next night.
Granted, I was more intrigued by some of the bonafide ghost towns we passed along the way (particularly after missing a key turnoff and traveling almost thirty miles in the wrong way along Highway 50, known in Nevada as The Loneliest Road in America) and somewhat disheartened by the filthy commercialism that swallowed up Walleys Hot Springs near Minden, supposedly a one-time rest stop for Mark Twain but the trip was still all about Virginia City.
And, for the record, there isnt a single fucking Starbucks in the Wild West. But before you fair-trade militants raise your French presses in solidarity, realize there isnt a single fucking place to get a decent espresso either.
Tourists to both Reno and Tahoe know about Virginia City, but thats okay. It retains its creaky saloon and frontier mining mentality nonetheless. I thrilled to the Deltas Suicide Table and gasped at the collapsed mine. I even took a turn at panning for gold at a replica exhibit behind the Bucket of Blood Saloon, but this punk eight year old kid was hogging all the flow. He got the replica nugget, little fucker.
My brother was filling up his card pretty damn quick, and when we came across the automatic player pianny in an old casino (complete with live banjo-strumming accompaniment), I was one three-legged dog from losing the bet. Then I hit a lucky streak. Horseshit and I was done.
We found some in the cemetery.
The only thing cooler than a Wild West town is, of course, a Wild West cemetery. Add in the fact that it is located on a cliff side looking down into a wilderness valley full of sagebrush and rattlers, on a day when impending stormclouds lit the sky behind the occasional dead tree (thats right dead trees in the cemetery wow) and wooden burial boundaries, and I had, finally, exactly what I had been jonesing for since my truck stop pancake meal a week earlier. A slice of life past and present that Id never really been privy too, and, once experienced, probably will never need to involve myself in again.
The pile of horseshit was turned over in the dirt path leading back out of the cemetery. Problem was, no horse in sight. Naturally my brother disputed my claim. How did I know it wasnt cowshit? No way could a goddam cow have hiked that path. And Id seen enough horseshit in and around the Polo Fields to know what I was talking about. And I was jumping around screaming for validation. He reluctantly gave me the bingo.
As long as I promised not to let anyone see the dorky pictures I took of him in and around Virginia City.
Click here to see dorky pictures I took of my brother in and around Virginia City.
The night before leaving for Tahoe for 4th of July weekend, I found myself in a truck stop diner in Sacramento at 12:31 a.m. eating a short stack of pancakes and hashbrowns. I had picked up my roommate from the airport and, after allowing him time to visit with his dog (Im hungry lets go Im huuuuungry pancakes) we ran out to find somewhere to eat. Everything else close by being closed, we happened into the Silver Skillet and into a hazy handlebar-mustachioed dream I never knew Id even had.
I couldnt stop jumping around in this place. Every guy working there looked like a parolee and every woman called me hon between bright pink-painted lips that smacked incessantly on gum or cud or, I dont know fingernails maybe. There were about nine hundred ceramic roosters for sale all of varying sizes and poses and the absolute tackiest stained-glass renditions of NFL logos and NASCAR racing numbers imaginable. It was the coolest place Id seen in quite some time. I felt like Dean Moriarty and desperately tried to strike up conversations with anyone and everyone around me.
But for all its cracked-vinyl charm and diesel-soaked ambience, the Silver Skillet still wasnt, well authentic enough somehow. I wanted more.
Fast forward to the weekend. Im in Tahoe with my little brother, just up from Cal Poly, to take in some mountain air and dig on the festivities. After three days of doing Tahoe shit (gambling, drinking, disc golfing, drinking, reading, drinking, fireworks, drinking) I got a road trip urge and our wild west adventure had begun.
We detoured through Genoa, Nevada, up into Carson City, and all the way to the home of the Comstock Lode, one time stop-over for pioneers and gold miners traveling from Denver to San Francisco: the silver nugget of Wild West towns, Virginia City.
The night before our trip my brother and I cocked up a pair of Wild West Bingo cards. Forty-eight sights, sounds, and experiences we either expected to see on the trip or would need to work a bit in order to find. Loser was buying dinner in Reno the next night.
Granted, I was more intrigued by some of the bonafide ghost towns we passed along the way (particularly after missing a key turnoff and traveling almost thirty miles in the wrong way along Highway 50, known in Nevada as The Loneliest Road in America) and somewhat disheartened by the filthy commercialism that swallowed up Walleys Hot Springs near Minden, supposedly a one-time rest stop for Mark Twain but the trip was still all about Virginia City.
And, for the record, there isnt a single fucking Starbucks in the Wild West. But before you fair-trade militants raise your French presses in solidarity, realize there isnt a single fucking place to get a decent espresso either.
Tourists to both Reno and Tahoe know about Virginia City, but thats okay. It retains its creaky saloon and frontier mining mentality nonetheless. I thrilled to the Deltas Suicide Table and gasped at the collapsed mine. I even took a turn at panning for gold at a replica exhibit behind the Bucket of Blood Saloon, but this punk eight year old kid was hogging all the flow. He got the replica nugget, little fucker.
My brother was filling up his card pretty damn quick, and when we came across the automatic player pianny in an old casino (complete with live banjo-strumming accompaniment), I was one three-legged dog from losing the bet. Then I hit a lucky streak. Horseshit and I was done.
We found some in the cemetery.
The only thing cooler than a Wild West town is, of course, a Wild West cemetery. Add in the fact that it is located on a cliff side looking down into a wilderness valley full of sagebrush and rattlers, on a day when impending stormclouds lit the sky behind the occasional dead tree (thats right dead trees in the cemetery wow) and wooden burial boundaries, and I had, finally, exactly what I had been jonesing for since my truck stop pancake meal a week earlier. A slice of life past and present that Id never really been privy too, and, once experienced, probably will never need to involve myself in again.
The pile of horseshit was turned over in the dirt path leading back out of the cemetery. Problem was, no horse in sight. Naturally my brother disputed my claim. How did I know it wasnt cowshit? No way could a goddam cow have hiked that path. And Id seen enough horseshit in and around the Polo Fields to know what I was talking about. And I was jumping around screaming for validation. He reluctantly gave me the bingo.
As long as I promised not to let anyone see the dorky pictures I took of him in and around Virginia City.
Click here to see dorky pictures I took of my brother in and around Virginia City.
VIEW 20 of 20 COMMENTS
And i totally missed that line!
~cheers