Road Trip America EP:2 - Riding The Loneliest Highway In America

From the moment I was born, I wanted to explore the world. As a child, I was always discovering something new. When I got my first set of wheels, I learned something about myself. I was born to ride. Oh look at that! Oregon right on! You guys know how to build some roads! This is all lava. Well, at one point it was all lava. It is so crazy windy right now. In 1986, Life Magazine dubbed Highway 50 as the loneliest road in America and warned its readers not to travel on here as there were no points of interest. And in looking at the map, Highway 50 didn't exactly strike me as a motorcycling heaven. With its dead straight roads and desert-like conditions, it seemed better suited for RVs instead of motorcycles. But I did notice that it was built following the old route of the Pony Express. And to be honest, like most motorcyclists, I like to think I could have made it as a cowboy, so I decided to check out this historic highway. Highway 50 officially starts in Carson City, Nevada and runs all the way to the Great Basin National Park. But I will be starting my trip at the Stokes Castle just outside of Austin. Sitting high on a ridge overlooking the small town of Austin, the Stokes Castle was built in 1897 as a summer home by Anson Stokes, a local mine developer, railroad magnate, and banker. Unfortunately for the Stokes family, shortly after the completion of the castle, the local silver mines dried up and with that went the fortunes of the small town of Austin. Once a lucrative mining town, Austin is now increasingly deserted, currently with a population of just 167, down from a peak of over 7,000 back in 1863. Not a lot looks open in a little tiny town of Austin. That's my destination for the today, Eli, and that's where I'm headed straight for a long time on Highway 50, the loneliest highway in America. The history of the loneliest highway in America has its origins in the inception of the iconic Pony Express. The Pony Express was a horse-mounted mail service that operated between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California. It was created as a direct result of the 1849 Gold Rush that saw thousands of prospectors move across the country in search of a better life. Traditional cross-country mail by stagecoach took about one month, but the Pony Express was able to reduce that time to just 10 days, which was incredibly fast for its time. They did this by riding horses at breakneck speed for 10 to 15 miles before arriving at a relay station, jumping on a new horse and galloping off again. Most of the Pony Express riders were in their early 20s and they faced all sorts of hardships from dangerous weather, navigation errors to hostile bandits. While the Pony Express operated for only one year, it played a vital role in connecting the young country together and came to symbolize the adventurous spirit of the Wild West. In 1864, as the town of Austin was booming, several prospectors made their way east in search of less crowded diggings. I can relate to that. Their Eureka moment came shortly after when they discovered a silver strike that would go on to become one of the largest in the state's history. It's not hard to see where the town of Eureka got its name, is it? Actually, originally they were going to call it, holy shit, we're going to be rich, but then they decided they didn't want to advertise how much silver they found and I actually just totally made that up. But much to the chagrin of the original prospectors and introverts everywhere in the world, others followed and soon the town's population grew to over 9,000. In its heyday, Eureka was one of the largest settlements in the area with over 100 saloons, dozens of gambling halls, multiple newspapers, hotels, restaurants, and even an opera house. The opera house is one of the main attractions as it brought Victorian high culture to the Wild West in the form of dances, operas, and masquerade balls. You can still see the signatures of past performers scribbled on these historic walls. The Eureka Sentinel Museum is home to what was once the Eureka Sentinel newspaper. What started out as a weekly pamphlet during the town's early days expanded to a full-blown daily newspaper by 1871 and with over 100 saloons in the town, you can bet there was a lot to talk about. The original newsroom from the 1800s have been fully preserved and is an amazing glimpse into what life looked like in those early days. This is what Instagram looked like in the 1800s. What a fantastic little bit of history in this town. I love it. The stage in the opera house is just fantastic. It has that old vaudeville type look to it, you know. I just love, maybe I'm old, I'm getting old. I just love old history, analog history, like that printing press. The guy has to make each letter in metal. You can't undo, you can't make a mistake, you can't copy and paste. That's craftsmanship. It's unbelievable. What a fantastic little town. So now I head back onto the highway, the dead straight baking hot sun highway towards Ely. You made it. Welcome to downtown Ely. Yay, made it. This is downtown Ely. 24-hour massage, VIP massage. Yeah, that place looks legit. I want to find a massage. Mr. G's. What is it, a strip club? Interesting. Casinos, strip clubs, massage. It's like a mini Vegas. The Nevada Northern Railway owes its beginnings to the discovery of large copper deposits near Ely in the early 1900s. The railway was active from 1906 to 1983, but dwindling copper reserves made it commercially unviable. These days it operates as a working museum with train rides into the local mountains and an active train yard that you can walk around. You know, there's very few train yards left in America that work on steam engines and even fewer that allow you to walk around the yard and talk to the engineers. So I absolutely had a blast checking out this historic train yard. You know, I absolutely love trains. I will visit any train museum I can because something about the size of it, the scale of it, I just love the engineering that goes into these things. It was fantastic to be able to see the train and engines up close. Like, did you see the size of that turbo? Oh my god. Oh man, I need that turbo with this stupid slow bike. But anyways, that's Ely, Nevada. A fantastic stop on the loneliest highway in America. Now I'm heading back out on the road to my next stop, which takes me underground. My last stop on the loneliest highway takes me deep underground into the Lehman Caves. Discovered in 1885 by Absalom Lehman, a local rancher and miner, the caves extend about a quarter of a mile under the Great Basin National Park. What we see today actually began thousands of years ago when acidic water from the surface seeped into the ground and began dissolving the soluble rock. Eventually the water drained out forming these huge caves and over centuries as new water migrated downward from the surface, it carried small amounts of limestone that drop by drop formed these magnificent stalactites and stalagmites. I was amused to learn that the Lehman Caves were actually used as a speakeasy during the Prohibition era and given how challenging it was for us to get into the caves, I wonder how many Prohibition patrons might still be wandering around in the darkness. That was pretty cool. You need to go underground like that and kind of see how nature forms itself. I mean, it's a whole other world down there that we don't normally see when we're above above ground obviously, right? So I remember as a kid I always used to like exploring caves and whatnot, trying to fit into the smallest spots. Now I'm older, now I'm all claustrophobic, now I don't want to do it anymore, but this area is really interesting. I read online, I don't know if it's these trees or not, but there's this tree around here. I think it's called the bristlecone pine tree. These trees apparently live 3,000 years. That is amazing. I'm almost near the end of the loneliest highway in America and I gotta say it's actually been pretty cool. I'm heading back on the highway and heading to do some riding in Moab. So I've got a bunch more highway riding to do and the next state is the state of Utah and I'm going to be riding in Moab. Whoa! A bee just about flew into my helmet! Holy crap! Okay, time to put this down. Despite Life Magazine's claim, I found Highway 50 to be really interesting. It has numerous points of interest and provides a fascinating look into an important part of American history. There's actually a lot more to see and do on the highway than what I've shown in this video and I encourage you to grab a copy of the official survival guide and discover the loneliest road in America for yourself. Just make sure to add some highway pegs to your bike first. And that is the end of Nevada and the start of Utah and the end of the loneliest highway in America. That rock is pretty dang slick looking. That is way bumpier than I thought it would be. Whoa! Sand! Sand! Sand! Oh, shit!