Basin and Range

Where the loneliness may not be a bug, but a feature.

I recently flew to Reno in a window seat. The scenery was incredible, and despite being surrounded by coworkers heading to the same work retreat, a haze of saudade encircled me as I recalled many past roadtrips across the Basin and Range state.

In the 1950s, Life Magazine dubbed Highway 50 across Nevada as the “Loneliest Highway in America.” In the subreddit “r/roadtrip,” a user queries: “Is hwy 50 in Nevada really as lonely as they say?” Yes. And Highway 6 to the south is also lonely as hell.

When my dad died, I was midway through a summer legal internship in Sacramento. A month or so later, I flew to California to retrieve my car and stuff and drive back to Colorado. I stopped in Lee Vining for gas and fish tacos at the famed Mobil gas station and left my wallet on top of the pump. I made it about 150 miles east on Highway 6 before I realized the mistake. In tears, I flipped the Toyota Corolla station wagon around. I was in the tight grips of early grief and listened to Neil Young’s Live at Massey Hall 1971 on loop as I retraced my steps, arriving back in California at dusk with the fuel gauge deep in the red.

Sunset at a Tonopah gas station in 2015.

We have a friend, Derek, who loves a roadtrip as a full experience and not just as the requisite passage between places. He had some epic 40 miles east of Tonopah, on the western side of Highway 6, where his trusty 2003 Honda Civic either broke down or ran out of gas. The details are blurry now. But he was wearing a prized t-shirt he’d gotten when he lived in Mexico for a few months that said “Hecho en Michoacán.” Derek’s savior from vehicular disaster keyed in on the shirt and offered to help. With Derek, uttering the word “Tonopah” is a one-word sentence that conveys so much.

It is fitting that Tonopah pops up in the chorus of Americana band Little Feat’s song “Willin,” which is about a truck driver just trying to survive on his long-haul routes. “And I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah. I’ve driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made.”

When my husband was in grad school in Santa Barbara, we did a lot driving back and forth, and on one trip, we opted to banish our phones to the glovebox and rely on paper maps and whatever random country station was on the dial. I had inherited my dad’s diesel Jetta sedan and the resident collection of battered road maps. We had the 2008-09 Nevada Department of Transportation map with us and were trying to suss out where to camp as we approached Ely. Studying the rectangular outlines of National Forest land, I spotted a black dot drawn in ballpoint pen, likely marked by my dad to remind himself about worthy stops on his frequent traverses across Nevada to backcountry ski in the eastern Sierra. “I bet that’s a campsite,” I said, and we exited and pitched our tent on a perfect flat spot under some pinyon trees.

In the early pandemic days, back when we still wondered if it was safe to stay in hotels, we drove to the Bay Area on Highway 50 with our then three-month-old baby. We would stop every few hours for me to breastfeed the baby in the passenger seat while Alex walked our pup on another random but guttingly scenic BLM road.

Somewhere west of Austin, Hwy. 50.

Other than a night in Great Basin National Park, a few in Reno, and a handful camping, I’ve never really lingered in Nevada. My time in the state is always cloaked in liminality. On those empty roads, with no choice but to descend into the emotional rawness that accompanies such stark beauty, the loneliness is the point.