I get up early. We're
out of milk and I want to explore the town.
So I feed the cats and take off down the steep (8%) Main
Street. I
find a gas station and convenience store that is closed up, and next to it is
the County Courthouse
where I get my Survival Guide stamped.
The lady who does the stamping tells me the store only recently closed
and locals are not happy with the owner for closing it. Presumably she wasn't making a profit. There is another gas station at the bottom of
the hill which may have milk, so I continue down the street past a couple of
cafes that are open, seeing almost nobody.
The store is out of milk, so I cross the street and walk
uphill past more closed businesses. I do
find a display on the history of Austin
and find out a couple of interesting facts.
Emma (Wixom) Nevada, one
of the most famous coloratura soprano opera singers of the 19th Century, grew
up in Austin. I'd never heard of her but I researched and
found she was indeed very well known and loved in her time. Sje was born in California
but moved to Austin at an early age
when her father was hired as doctor for the newly opened silver mine.
The second story concerns the superintendent of the silver
mine. He wanted to build a railroad from
the mine to the top of the town. People
told him the grade was too steep and it would never work. He laid tracks and use teams of mules to pull
the ore cars. Since the mules could do
it, he reasoned a steam engine could also do it. Eventually a steam engine was brought in and
did work. The railroad was henceforth
known as the "Mule Relief Railroad".
Since I have neither mules nor a steam engine I complete the
slog up the hill on foot and share my new found trivia with Vicky and the cats
over breakfast. Vicky is impressed. The cats are not. We move on out with Vicky driving the combo
down the hill and over a series of mountain passes, only one of which, at
6,500ft, is significant, through Cold Springs, shown on the map as a town but
actually just an RV park in the middle of nowhere, and eventually to the town
of Fallon.
We've been driving through mountains and desert, and past a
series of "dry lakes" which appear to be slat flats. So I'm surprised to learn that Fallon is a
major agricultural area, specializing in cantaloupes. About 10 miles out of town we start to see
green field with a variety of crops, and even cattle. For the last 30 miles there's a crosswind oof
over 20 mph so Vicky is happy when we arrive.
We see a small restaurant offering BBQ corn on the cob and
decide this will make a great lunch. The
woman behind the counter informs us the only thing they don't have is the corn
on the cob. So we each order a
"dinner" of pork ribs with 2
sides (beans and potato salad for me, potato salad and cole slaw for
Vicky). The meat falls of the bone and
the sides are tasty, plus the woman can stamp my "Survival Guide" so
it's a good choice for a light meal.
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