The Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah was voted the '# 1 Haunted Hotel in America'. Photo / 123rf
They call it America’s playground. But if you are tired of the same old swings and roundabouts, there is an alternative to the bright lights and blackjack of the Las Vegas Strip.
We’re hitting the road for a lightning-fast roadie into the Nevada desert. The first leg of our journey takes us some 340km along US95 to the town of Tonopah. It’s an easy job accessing the 95 from our hotel in downtown Las Vegas and before long we are checking off the Vegas suburbs.
We had picked up our rental on arrival in Vegas a couple days earlier and it could not have been simpler. We stepped out of the terminal and on to a shuttle bus to the rental depot. The paperwork was sorted in minutes and we were soon bunny-hopping from the car park into rush-hour traffic.
Other car renters would be well advised to take a spin along Las Vegas Boulevard, which encompasses the famous Vegas Strip. We navigated it as the day was growing dark and the lights were coming on. A definite Vegas must-do.
Back on the road, and with the city in the rearview, a vast desert expanse opens before us. It is bone dry and barren and resembles the more desolate expanses of our own Desert Road. It’s the type of terrain that stirs the appetite, so we make our first stop at the town of Beatty, about 200km north of Vegas.
It’s a tiny settlement on the junction of US95 and Route 374 to Death Valley, a few kilometres west.
Gemma’s Cafe might not look like much from the outside, but the staff knows how to assemble a Denver omelette. Kiwi travellers may be relieved to learn the US seems to have raised its coffee game of late, with Gemma’s serving up a well-made cappuccino.
A short detour from Beatty is the first highlight of the trip, the ghost town of Rhyolite.
A boom town during the early 20th-century gold rush, the population peaked at an estimated 5000. Then the ore ran out and the town was all but deserted by 1920. Today, all that is left is the skeletal remains of buildings and a railway station without a line. There are a few residents in the neighbouring Goldwell Open Air Museum, namely, a collection of abstract artworks and sculptures, including a metres-tall Lego woman. The most impressive piece must be The Last Supper created by Polish artist Albert Szukalski in the 1980s.
Back on the 95, we strike out for Tonopah. Another town built on mining, unlike Rhyolite, Tonopah – population circa 2500 – survives as a resort town.
On the way, we take a minor detour in the town of Goldfield to check out the International Car Forest of the Last Church – basically a park full of vehicles buried nose-first in the earth, or stacked atop one another. It was created by resident Mark Rippie, whose vision was to break the Guinness World Record for the world’s biggest car forest.
Admission is free, and like all good car churches, you don’t have to get out of your vehicle to admire the works.
Arriving in Tonopah, we stop off at the Tonopah Historic Mining Park, which stands on a hill above the town. Also worth a look, the Clown Motel, dubbed “America’s Scariest Motel” due to its clown theme and location next to a cemetery.
Not to be outdone, the Mizpah Hotel – our stop for the night – has been named the most haunted hotel in the US by readers of USA Today. The Lady in Red - in life a member of the oldest profession, who plied her trade from what is today Room 504 - is the ghostly presence often reported to be heard whispering sweet nothings into the ears of male guests. Clearly, she was not one to bear a grudge, as she was believed to have been stabbed and strangled to death by a jealous ex-lover.
I’d read good things about the Tonopah Taproom ahead of our trip. It’s a restaurant serving in-house beers and barbecue. Inexplicably, most of the barbecue items were unavailable when we visited (it did do a lovely pint, though), so we opted for the Mizpah’s Jack Dempsey Room for dinner. And we were glad we did. You don’t mind seeing a few clouds on your holiday when they are clouds of pillowy mashed potato holding aloft a perfectly done pork chop.
Dinner was washed down with an old-fashioned in the Long Shot Bar afterward.
The next morning, refreshed by a blissful, undisturbed sleep (The Lady in Red clearly spent the night in her room), we resume our journey. We are heading back toward Las Vegas, via US6 and Nevada State Route 375, aka The Extraterrestrial Highway.
The 160km ET Highway roughly follows the eastern edge of the Nevada Test and Training Range, home to Area 51, a top-secret US Air Force facility. Not only is it the place shadowy programmes such as the Stealth bomber were developed, it is also believed to be one site at which captured UFOs are stored and examined. Tantalising stuff for those of us who consider The X-Files to have been a documentary.
Where the government is backward in coming forward about the base, the public imagination takes over, and a thriving cottage industry has grown along the highway, leaning heavily into the UFO phenomenon.
The jewel in the crown is the Little A’Le’Inn (geddit?), in the hamlet of Rachel, population 54 at last count, toward the southern end of the 375. A stop-off is compulsory, as is the devouring of an Alien Burger. This reporter did both and is now also the proud owner of an Area 51 mug, an Area 51 fridge magnet, an Area 51 T-shirt and a bendy alien figurine.
The A’Le’Inn also has accommodation for those who might like to break up their drive with an evening gazing into the sky for a glimpse of clandestine goings-on above Area 51.
Leaving Rachel and heading south, unmarked dirt roads lead off the highway in straight lines toward Area 51. The public can travel these roads, but only as far as the signs threatening the authorised use of deadly force and hefty fines for those who venture further.
One landmark to keep an eye out for on the road is the famous black mailbox. Leave a message for the aliens as you pass by – or leave a joint (cannabis is legal in Nevada), a can of beans, or some chewing gum and cigarettes, as previous visitors appeared to have when I glanced inside.
There are a couple of final stops along the ET Highway. When you spot a giant silver alien standing beside a barn-shaped building (technically a Quonset hut), you have reached The Alien Research Centre. I reckon the owners spent a lot more time studying business than aliens, as the shop is stacked with memorabilia, as well as clothing, books and snacks.
We come away with an ET Highway hoodie and a book purporting to have solved the mystery of the Roswell crash. Make your final stop on the highway at ET Fresh Jerky, if you have a hankering for dried beef. I’ve never been a fan, but anyone who is will find a wide range of treats.
From there, we complete our trip with a 2.5-hour drive to our final destination, Hoover Dam.
If you are getting a bit of cramp from too much driving, you could make a stop at the Valley of Fire state park on the way. It boasts some 16,000ha of sandstone terrain, petrified trees and petroglyphs dating back thousands of years.
I’m a big fan of infrastructure, so Hoover Dam gets my vote as the greatest work of art on our tour: functional, awe-inspiring and beautiful in a very concretey way, it sits in a gorge on the Nevada / Arizona border as a tribute to what humans can do when we put our minds to it.
Tours of the dam are available, or you can simply park up and wander the structure yourself (you won’t be alone). There are also more than 50km of trails around the dam and Lake Mead. The Historic Railroad Trail has been designated a National Historic Trail, with plenty of history and great views of Lake Mead. Go prepared, though. It is desert and can get pretty darn hot – even in early April.
Dropping our rental at the Avis office at New York New York casino the next day, we’ve covered some 800km in about 36 hours. That seems like quite a distance in a short amount of time. And it was. But it was pretty easy travelling, and a great alternative to the neon lights and cheeseburgers of the big city.
Could our trip have been extended? Absolutely. For an area of the US dominated by Las Vegas, there are tons of things to see outside the city limits. We barely scratched Nevada’s dusty surface.
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NEVADA
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Fly to Las Vegas with Hawaiian Airlines via Honolulu, Air NZ via LA, or United via San Francisco.
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