"Going Down Under" in Tonopah [251009]

(Posted 260414)  After having explored a salt mine in Kansas and a coal mine in West Virginia while on our East of the Rockies Trek, we took the opportunity to check out the remnants of a number of silver mines in Tonopah.

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The Saulsbury Wash Rest Area was a refreshingly quiet place to spend the night, although we did hear the neighbors pull out around 7:15 a.m. Thursday morning and the wind started picking up shortly thereafter.  We managed to sleep in until 9:30, though!

After our morning routine, Tom cleaned the solar panels on the roof and we headed 24 miles west to Tonopah to visit the Tonopah Historic Mining Park.  We had to drive up a moderately steep and somewhat dodgy looking dirt road to get to the Visitor Center, but our new tires made it up the hill just fine.

At the Visitor Center we paid our $5 tour fee, and then browsed the interior museum displays.  (Unfortunately their projector was broken, so we couldn't watch their usual movie.)

We picked up our site maps, and after a brief orientation from the docent we were free to explore the exterior sites on our own.  The wind was blowing so fiercely outside that we couldn't wear our hats at all.  We started at the site of the old Silver Top Mine.

The Head Frame had a button you could push that would turn lights on down in the Production Shaft, so that you could see all the way down, down, down . . . and take photos through the grating in the floor as well, as long you weren't too afraid of accidentally dropping your phone through it (probably never to be seen again).

Then it was time for a lunch break.  Our usual Yelp/Google search for "buffets in the area" had turned up Hometown Pizza, just down the hill and a couple of blocks from the park, so we walked over there a little before noon.  The type of dough they use for their crusts isn't Tom's favorite, but at $11.99 for the pizza / salad bar / drink buffet, it was undeniably quite the bargain.  The nice folks there even made and put a Veggie Pizza out on the buffet when Christine asked for one.  (Veggie pizza appears to not be a big hit with the Hometown Pizza lunch crowd, though - we think we ended up eating most/all of it ourselves in the end 😉.)

With our tummies quite full, we spent a little time photographing some of the murals and other works of art around town on our way back to the Park.

Back in the Park again, we continued our exploration of historic mines by crossing over and looking down into an old stope.  (The first sign also describes a simpler time, before lawyers ruled the land.)

A number of signs described how a burro played a pivotal role in the discovery of silver in the area, and hence the establishing of Tonopah.

The docent had mentioned that the Burro Tunnel was a "visitor favorite" so we were excited to check it out, but ended up not being particularly awed by it - possibly because we had explored much larger salt and coal mines last year.

Next up was the Mizpah Mine, which we found to be much more exciting.  Like the Burro Mine, it had an interesting backstory.  Like the Silver Top Mine it had an illuminated shaft you could look down as well as an intact head frame and hoist house - but both of the latter were much larger.

Best of all, we were actually allowed to go into the Mizpah Hoist House.

The winds that had threatened to blow our hats away (even when "secured" by straps under our necks) earlier in the day had not subsided, and if anything had gotten worse.  The corrugated metal walls and roof of the hoist house seemed less than adequate against the current 42 mph gusts, and made a constant rattling sound that made us wonder whether a piece of something was about to blow loose and/or fall on us.

The Carpenter Shop housed a collection of old mining equipment and artifacts, as well as a furnished replica of a mining tent house (built as a scout's Eagle Project, back in 1999).

The Powder Magazine was a dug-out built into the slope of the hill, and used to house the dynamite used for blasting.  Shockingly, while the original storage shelves remain, the dynamite has all been removed. 😜

As we stood at the edge of the Glory Hole and read how "a large section on the east edge of the glory hole is cracking off and may double the size of the hole" - while looking at the T42 parked on the far side - we checked our compasses to see which side the "east" side would be.  Surely they wouldn't have their parking lot on unstable ground, would they?  (See below)

The Dynamite House at the old Montana-Tonopah Mine and Mill site looked more sturdy than the older Powder Magazine - but still didn't have any dynamite inside.

According to the sign, the Barbara Wood Graham house has a tangentially notorious connection to the Bay Area.  We also noted that the sign mentioned that the longest operating library in Nevada is located somewhere in Tonopah - a stop for later?

Remember the "Surely they wouldn't have their parking lot on unstable ground, would they?" question from earlier?  A few parking spaces away from the T42, we found this wonderful display.  While we're "sure" that it's "perfectly safe" to park on that part of the parking lot now - we probably would've parked on the other side of the Visitor Center had we known about this when we arrived.

Before leaving, we popped back into the Visitor Center to get video of the working model of a stamp mill.  The video doesn't do justice to how extremely loud that thing is when it runs, particularly in the nearly deserted Visitor Center; we can only imagine how deafening the full sized version we saw earlier in the Silver Top Mine section used to be.

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After leaving the Mining Park, we stopped at the local Raley's - ostensibly to pick up a few needed groceries, but also because we had a "free birthday cupcake" offer pending (but alas, Raley's was out of individual cupcakes - not that we really needed one, after our pizza-fest at lunch).  Afterwards we decided to seek out Nevada's longest operating library, finding it a few blocks away.  It appeared closed, but from the porch we were able to get a strong enough Wi-Fi signal to download Taylor Swift's recently released album to Tom's phone.

While waiting for our download to complete, we noticed several people walking past the building to the larger, more modern looking one behind it - and came to realize that that building was the actual "active" library.  So the "longest operating library" claim was a bit misleading, since it's not operating in its original building any more.  The Wi-Fi was much faster standing in front of the new building, and still reasonably fast from the parking lot next door, so we moved the T42 to the parking lot and worked a bit from there.

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After the library closed we made our way to the Love's on the far side of town, which was our planned lodging spot for the night.  We initially parked in one of the designated "RV" spots, which turned out not being particularly level.

We decided to move to one of the more level spots along the edge of the lot, which were long enough fit us if we backed in to them.  The largest block of free, level-ish spots happened to be in front-ish of a large pickup truck that was oddly parked in the corner of the lot, perpendicular across a number of parking spaces, with the long trailer he was pulling set at a right angle so that it too was perpendicular across another set of parking spaces on the adjacent side of the lot.  We settled in, and continued working.

Somewhat annoyingly, the truck would alternate between having his headlights on while he idled his engine for about 20 minutes before turning both off for a little while, only to start the cycle again.  This went on for a couple of hours.  At one point, a pickup truck marked "Ranger" pulled up opposite him and they chatted for long time before the ranger left again.  Finally, just after 9:30 a large flatbed tow truck arrived carrying another pickup truck.  The flatbed unloaded the pickup he was carrying elsewhere in the lot, and then backed up in front of our annoying pickup truck (coming much closer to us than we would've liked, but it was too late to move by the time we realized what was happening) to load it onto the flatbed.  It then hitched the truck's trailer to its hitch, and (after stashing Dad, Mom, daughter - and their little dog, too - into the cab of the tow truck) took it all away.

Relative quiet followed for a few hours, and Tom continued working on the Elko, Part 2 blog post, which he finished around 1 a.m. before turning in for the night.

Then around 1:30 a.m. a FedEx truck cab pulled in next to us, and the driver idled his engine and blasted his stereo while he ate his newly purchased midnight snacks.  Thankfully, 20 minutes later he finished and wandered back over to the designated "Trucks" parking area where he belonged.  Love's is rapidly working its way off our "okay places to stay" list...

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