Highway 50 Adventure:
The Road Home
A Bittersweet Goodbye
Our last day was bittersweet. We were ready to go home. The trip had been a wonderful experience, but that only makes returning home all the sweeter.
We decided to make the road home as much of an adventure as the trip out, and we began stopping at the Pony Express and old stage line stations we had seen along the way.
We drove through Ely one last time, admiring the sheer Nevada quaintness that somehow evoked images of 1950s-era Back to the Future, and waved goodbye to our temporary home. It was somewhere between a weigh station and a town in the desert, but for the weekend, it had been home.
Our first stop was New Pass Station. Established in 1861, it was part of the Overland Mail and Stage Company route. The site is now a large ruin, unfortunately contained once again inside a fence topped with barbed wire. We did our best to see the site through the fence and enjoyed the history just beyond our reach.
This had become something of a theme on this trip: history protected from those who would steal or vandalize it, but also removed from the experience of the traveling public.
We moved toward our next stop and found a much larger site with much the same fencing. I tried to take some pictures using a telephoto lens and an adventurous niece.
This was Rock Creek Station, and this location had an even more interesting and complex history. It was part of the Pony Express and Overland Stage route and also had a telegraph repeater station used for communication along the line between Nevada and Utah. Like New Pass Station, its importance faded after the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
Our last stop was the final Pony Express station we would see…or so we thought.
What it turned out to be was the Sand Mountain Recreation Area!
Still a wonderful place, we explored the enormous sand dune created from sediments associated with ancient Lake Lahontan. Today, Sand Mountain rises roughly 600 feet above the surrounding landscape and is managed by the BLM, with the remains of the old Sand Springs Pony Express Station nearby.
And then it really was time to go home.
We drove west, admiring the historic concrete water reservoir perched atop Rattlesnake Hill in Fallon and celebrating the fact that home was drawing near.
It had been a tremendous trip, full of surprises, triumphs, history and stunning natural beauty.
And it just proves what I have always known:
Adventure is never far away if you know where to look, go with an open mind, and bring along a courageous spirit.
Happy Travels…for now. ✈️
