Woooeee!

So here I am, at the Historic Hotel Nevada in Ely, Nevada. I drove 12 hours yesterday from Boulder, about three and a half of them on Route 50, "the loneliest highway in America." Really, that's what it's called. I didn't know that when a middle-aged man in an peach polo advised me against taking it in Salina, and driving 150 miles out of my way along the interstate to Salt Lake City. But checking in here -- among the slot machines and stuffed mountain lions -- I saw T-shirts proclaiming "I survived the loneliest highway in America," complete with a donkey shooting a gun, which I think is the hotel's logo. I might buy one.
And it is the loneliest. Two lanes undivided, any cars going the same way just black dots in the distance. But it's the road you think about when you dream of road trips. A big wide plain surrounded by high blue mountains. Some cattle, a few signs for camping spots miles away. Nothing else.
But I've had Jack Kerouac to keep me company with On The Road on tape. More accurately, it's Matt Dillon ... but it's great. I have 5 and a half hours of book left. Sal and Dean are in New Orleans. When I started the book, in the Rockies, the characters were following me -- going to Council Bluffs, then Denver, and then they passed me and got to San Francisco first.
Looks like I have another 12-hour day ahead of me, about six of them on Route 50. It does make me nervous, all that open space and a wavering cell signal. Bu has been good to me though, incredibly good, and I think prayer might count double outside the heretic Northeast.
Just kidding.
She did not like the Rockies, however. Uphill was a struggle and downhill -- I really thought I was going to have a heart attack. My left arm hurt. But we got through it.
And eventually I got here, to the Hotel Nevada and Gambling Hall. I did not expect this place. The first floor is packed with slot machines, neon, cowboy statues and sullen, smoking locals. A row of motorcycles stands in front. But the people here have been nothing but nice. Got me a complimentary margarita, a little thing I found out later would cost 99 cents. But it got me downstairs, where I met some nice folks (there's no other way to describe people out here, is there?) and gambled away a couple dollars. The 21 dealer taught me how to scratch the table, etc., and probably thought I was an idiot.
Considering this loneliest highway idea, she's probably right.
And now, to San Francisco, and California, and the promised land.