middlegate, nv population 18… 17... 14.

just one day, the very first full day. began it at a stranger’s house – jane. we dropped off our playa bikes at her place in sparks last night. she asked us where we were staying for the night, and we weren’t sure yet, and she offered her floor. then she directed us to the vegetarian diner in reno. i’ll be seeing her in six weeks when I fetch the bikes, and she said I was welcome to stay at her place again.

off interstate highway 80 right quick, onto route 50. the loneliest highway in america. california all the way to boardwalk ocean city, md straight shot from the pacific to vinegar fries and t shirt decals. but in between… in between there is middlegate, ‘in the middle of nowhere’. where there is a bar general store grill toilet motel set upon the desert. with a rickety front porch with table and rocking rolling chairs made of old wood barrels, and through the creaky screen door, you are there. there are dollar bills stapled covering the ceiling and the rafters, with notes written in sharpies. there are novelty postcards, plaques in memory of the desert dad, 1933-2003, impressive mounted antlers, a bumpersticker proclaiming ‘i love animals: they’re delicious”, a computer, an open area with three guitars for the weekends, and people. beards and cutoffs and tattoos and beers and smokes in hands, at 2pm. she came from new Orleans, he’s the 3 time champion fiddle player, she lost her purse off her motorcycle 20 miles back, and somebody just called her to let her know it was found. come on and pick it up, honey, it’s still got your five hundred dollars in it, the money that will last you the rest of your ride.
and don’t you know, sitting at the bar, swillin and smoking, he pulls out his fiddle, and he takes up the guitar, and without any pomp, just start playing. and the singing, low and his own. “i see your waist is slender your fingers they are small, your cheeks too red and rosy to face the cannonball” “i know my waist is slender my fingers they are small, it would not make me tremble to see ten thousand fall”

i’m back on the road now, headed east, towards a stand of bristlecone pines. the oldest living beings on earth. but i’d been happy to stay in the middle of nowhere.