Twin Falls, ID to Lovelock, NV: Day 4 of trip to CA

After leaving Twin falls it was a jaunt down to the state of Nevada where Jackpot the first town across the border, in the middle of nowhere. It has a giant casino, of course. Our drive through Nevada was interesting, meaning flat roads with large snow capped mountains surrounding you. Two stops of note are listed sequentially below

• The town of Elko, NV which claims itself to the biggest small town in the world, and was the focus of a piece entitled ‘Fear and Loathing in Elko‘ for a past rolling stone magazine. Reno also claims it is the biggest small ton in the world, but it much more believable to think of Elko as a small town rather that Reno (a stop tomorrow). The main sight I was aiming at seeing in Elko was the worlds largest polar bear, shot dead and taxidermy-ed in the one of the casinos. The casino appeared closed for the day (midday Sunday?) unfortunately, and I was able to only get a picture of the giant looking polar bear statue outside.
• After looking up the Thunder Mountain Native American Monument the night prior Curtis, who normally avoided my stops by using the slow speed of Uhaul-ing as an excuse, wanted to tag along. Located right before our hotel town of Lovelock, the town of Imlay looks like most of the other ‘No Service’ Exits along the route, except for this looming tower of stuff on the side of the highway. Exiting the freeway you can walk up to the monument which is surrounded by a barbed wire fence to keep the vandals at bay. It is a pretty epic scrap/junk structure ~50 ft high, which was built by some crazy and/or brilliant old native American man with the help of vagabond hippies in the 60s-70s. The place fell into disrepair after one of the buildings burned down and the old man decided it was his time to go with a bullet, but luckily his son now is trying to stop the site from going to hell. If you are ever on I-80 that way you should stop, just wear some bug spray while doing so.

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