At the old Riverside Gas stop
As I was now far enough south to be out of the cold and snow, I was not motivated to travel long distances to get to warmer climes. So today I had the luxury of only an hour and a bit drive to my next destination, west of Mesquite, Nevada. Good thing too, as I had to dump my tanks and get groceries. I hoped to be done by lunch so I had lots of time to explore around for my next spot.
The first thing on the list was dumping my tanks. I had used Shell’s Flying J app to find a location on the edge of Mesquite that has gas and septic dump facilities. The Flying J does cost a few bucks, but the facilities I have seen so far are nicely kept. Except in this case, I cannot find the facilities. It turns out at this “new” (year old) Flying J, they have not gotten around to building the septic dump yet, despite it being listed in the app. How annoying. But the lady at the till made up for it with an excellent tip for a place to dump at a storage facility five minutes east of me, where I was going towards next anyways for booze. Pioneer Storage turns out to be an excellent facility, even having a sink with paper towels and soap to clean yourself off with after your job. There is an air pump right there too. Well worth the $12(?) I paid for it. I’d only say big rigs might find it a bit challenging to get in for space.
My next stop for booze was Lee’s Discount Liquor. I dunno about the ‘discount’ part based on the prices, but the place is huge, with some of the best selection I have ever seen. My wallet leaving was a bit lighter than planned as there were a couple of $pecialty beers I just had to take back with me for a treat. Lastly, for groceries I hit Smith’s Food and Drug, rather than giving yet more money to Walmart. It was more of a mid-end store, not as nice as the Harmons Grocery I shopped at in St. George. Done with my resupply, I was off to boondock!
Virgin River view
I had scouted via the googles aerial some promising locations with a view of the Virgin River. After my third attempt to head towards the river was scuttled by unlevel spots and impassable roads, I decided to try a spot off the other side of the secondary highway 170 I was on. There looked to be an excavation of some kind off the road. I travel up the cart path, over a bit of a rough section that gets better as I round the corner of a cut in the hill.
First spot I tried, at least to have lunch
There is an excavation indeed here, and a level enough spot to stay in. But I am right beside the road, and there is a lot of junk around. Plus, I am only just out of sight of the highway. I have lunch, then go for a walk up the road to see if there is anything better I can still drive to up the road. Yes, I could have taken off the motorcycle, but the main spot I was checking out was only a few minutes walk away. The spot turns out to be a good loop away from the road going into the hills here, but there is still a lot of junk around. I decide to chance the somewhat sandy road up – it doesn’t feel like deep sand under foot – another reason to walk checking a road. I’m not experienced enough in ‘feel’ for the Grom’s tires in sand.
My much better spot with the setting sun
I only have about an hour of good light left, but decide to head up the road. I make it there just fine, but find another challenge in getting level – I need to do it and avoid all the nails around. People burn pallets out here, with nails left in the fire pit. Several old charred bits can be seen where firepits used to be. Every last one of them is full of nails, including one I drove over in the process of getting level. I’m lucky this time, no nail in a tire! Yet another good reason to not be driving into a camp in the dark. I look at the distant view with the setting sun and decide I definitely am in a better spot, despite the nails!
Target setup
As long as I didn’t look at the surrounding junk, the views in the distance are spectacular. The junk is mostly broken glass and ammo casings, with random cans and various other bits thrown out. Mattresses seem to be a thing out here: burned, leaving the wire bits behind and a large black stain on the ground. I can say I have never seen so many ammo casings about before – not a lot of shot gun shells but a lot of bullets, large and small. Once I started hearing the shots ringing out many times during the day, I understood why all the ammo discards existed. One guy drove in past my camp and set up his shooting range just on the other side of the berm. At least I knew he was there and made sure to not go anywhere near. I generally had to be careful walking through the desert, mindful that over the next ridge might be a target shooting area. If a shot rang out for the first time, my first task was to figure out what direction, and if possible how close they were. Then I would avoid the area. I learned there were a few areas like my camp they like to go shoot at, I just had to make sure approaching those that I wasn’t on the target side of the hill coming in.
I was reminded of how the wind and dust kicked up by it polishes the exposed desert rocks. You see the mirror smooth finishes reflected in low light, glinting in the distance. Then you get up to them and find that it is just another flat bit of smooth rock reflecting the light back at you.
Shiny rock
Same rock, not shiny
One of my first hikes was up to what I thought at first was a dam, but turned out to be an old roadway fill with a large concrete culvert across the wash I was in. The roadway fill had washed away, breaking off a good chunk of the large culvert. Realizing I was looking at a road, my thoughts turned to what this road might have been. While walking along it looked to be gravel, but I spotted several areas with bare pavement still remaining. This was the remains of a major road from sometime back, probably prior to WWII I would guess.
The road had other evidence of being major – it was carved straight through the little hills, only going around the more major ones. There were the remains concrete retaining walls in places too. This is not something built for a local road from way back – you would get a cart path with some small cuts carved out of the hills, with sharp turns and steep grades, not this large curved shallow grade path I explored up and down from the culvert.
Little red dotted route of the “original, original” Route 91. I was at the blue marker.
Having done some research, I know the secondary highway I came down from Mesquite was originally Route 91. It took a bit of digging to even find a 1954 topo map showing the original road I had found. I found a 1929 edition of the map that just shows a path along the river but that topo really has no updates since 1886 for that area. So I can only guess that the road I found was an alignment last used sometime prior to WWII.
Route 91 on the mesa south of Interstate 15
To compare, here is a stretch of Route 91 that is the straight bit on the left side of my map above. It has not been used since the late 1950s. I see the first topo from 1962 showing the new Interstate 15 to the north as complete. The old road continues on the ‘S’ down the cliff to Riverside. The pavement is still in good shape in most places. This is 60 year old pavement, so you can imagine how old my road must be to have progressed to almost obliviated pavement, even allowing for the 1920s(?) pavement technology used to surface the original road.
Walking along the old alignment, I was on the lookout for old camping spots. You find them mostly by their garbage at this age. The desert only rusts cans very slowly so these likely 80 year old and up cans are still in good shape. I scouted around, but all the good old bottles have been picked through by others coming through here. Did you know that these old garbage piles are considered archeological resources now? I can’t recall the source or I’d link it, but you are discouraged from taking stuff from these piles as they are now old enough to provide insight into the life of the times.
NEW Whipped Mashed Potatoes. I can’t tell you if they were wet in the can or if you had to rehydrate them. You can still buy something like this in a plastic cup from Walmart.
Speaking of insight, the can preservation is amazing in some cases, like this whipped potato can. You see, camping food used to mostly come in metal cans back in the day, especially anything wet. Being old enough to remember camping in the canned food world, I can tell you it was not gourmet. It was very salty. I wonder if American foods tendency to be very sweet and salty originates in the necessity of that for preservation back in the day where cans were your primary wet food source, over a long winter or out camping. More likely sugar and salt remain a way to cover poor quality ingredients in the day of the frozen dinner.
I had a few other old finds in my time near Mesquite, some amazing motorcycle rides into the Virgin Mountains, plus walks along the Virgin River. It was a full week, so you can join me next time in part two of me week in Mesquite!
