HIGHWAY 50
Nevada's 'Loneliest Road in America'
Sunday People
DISTANT DREAM
YoU might just start to miss all this social-distancing when it’s gone.
The crowds. The hustle and bustle. They’ll soon return and we’ll probably be pining for the good old days of space and solitude.
If that is the case, then over in the US there are parts where isolation has always been a thing.
The rocky desert landscape that accompanies the Nevada stretch of US Highway 50 is so vast and remote it was once branded the Loneliest Road in America.
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Leaving Las Vegas
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WHAT TO SEE IN THE SILVER STATE
You don’t have to go far to get remote.
These two amazing sites in the surrounding Mojave Desert are exactly how you imagine the American Far West to be. Stunning red sandstone hills and cliffs. Psychedelic rock formations. Arid valleys of cactus and scrub.
Red Rock Canyon is just beyond Vegas city limits to the west, while the Valley of Fire is about an hour northeast.
You can hike, climb, or drive around both, and they’re perfect for picnics or mini road trips. Be sure to stay until late afternoon when – as their names suggest – the peaks seemingly catch ablaze in the setting sun.
Nellis Bombing and Gunnery Range. No trespassing. Photography prohibited.
I looked at the signpost in the middle of the high desert scrubland with slight concern.
It seemed innocuous enough, but I knew just beyond was the infamous Area 51, the top secret US Air Force base at the heart of UFO folklore.
It’s where conspiracy theories say alien bodies were taken after crashing at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. Where UFOs have allegedly been spotted overhead. Where people claim to have been abducted nearby and experimented on by aliens.
Yikes. What was I doing there under the bleaching sun in so remote and inhospitable a landscape?
An alien road trip, that’s what.
ET DRIVE HOME
ET HIGHWAY
Alien road trip country
Sunday People
LAS VEGAS
Historic Sin City
Sunday People
VIVA VINTAGE VEGAS
Vintage neon blazing against the night, the high sun bleaching the day.
Old-school casinos with their slot-machine jungles. Scantily clad croupiers serving low-rolling gamblers. Candy-coloured wedding chapels, tourist hordes, and oh-so colourful locals.
Old Vegas is back.
Though it never really went away. It’s just that most tourists these days don’t get beyond the Strip – the four and a half mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard crammed with mind-boggling megaresorts and their warrens of casinos, bars, shops and restaurants.
But Downtown is the true heart of Vegas. The Old Vegas from dozens of movies. For many years neglected, the city blocks surrounding the palm-lined Fremont Street have now been revitalised.
