It got cold in the early hours of Saturday morning, and Tom woke up around 6:30 with chilled feet and couldn't fall back asleep, although Christine managed to sleep until 8:30. Checking the mouse deterrent lights, we found them still brightly lit as they should be - so it looks like supporting the wire weight was definitely the answer to our previous problem. After our morning routine, Tom topped off the air in the tires (since tire pressure had dropped with the cold temperatures), filled our gas tank at our host Shell station, and then headed back into Ely again.
Most of the buildings had their curtains drawn, but we could read the placards on the outside describing the community that would've been represented inside. A few had a window or two with an open curtain, so we could actually peek inside to get a taste of what we would've seen had the buildings been open like they were supposed to be. The first of these was the Basque House.
The Slavic House was near and dear to Christine's heart, and also had a couple of uncovered windows to peek through.
The curtains of the Italian House were all drawn closed so we couldn't see inside, but they had a cute little painted milk jug on the porch.
We could peer into the Greek House living room as well.
The Chinese and Japanese cultures share representation in the Asian House.
A flight of steps takes you up the hill behind the Village to the train tracks, from which you can get an obstructed view of the Ely rooftops. A replica of a Miner's Cabin is along the staircase.
Also on our list of "possible things to do in Ely" was a walking tour of the town's murals. We had read that maps were available at the Visitor's Center located in the Bristlecone Convention Center in town, but that was a somewhat confusing experience as well. Finding the Convention Center itself was easy - but as far as we could tell when walking into the lobby, there wasn't a "Visitor Center" to speak of (the "convention center" itself seemed to just be a large auditorium on the other side of the lobby) except for a rack of brochures alone one wall - none of which seemed to be for the murals. Eventually, though, a nice woman saw us through a window of the office and came out to help us; she apparently was the "visitor center" and got us the missing map we needed, as well as recommended a few other sights to see while in town.
As we were getting ready to start our walk, Tom checked his email and saw that he got a reply from the Renaissance Village contact. Searching up "Art Bank" on Google Maps and correlating it against our walking map showed that we'd be passing right by it, so we figured it wouldn't hurt to stop in as we were passing by.
We decided that it made the most sense to walk to the nearest end of town (ignoring murals along the way) and then walk to the other end from there looking at all the murals, which meant that the "first" mural on our list was "Richfield Gas Station" - a mural that is cleverly painted on the inside of the windows of the old gas station to make it "look" like it did in the 50's - complete with posters and advertisements inside.
Next on our route was "Blacksmith Shop", which had the numbered medallion on it with a phone number to call from which you're supposed to be able to get a little audio blurb describing the mural (each mural is supposed to have one, but we couldn't find one on "Richfield Gas Station"). Unfortunately, when we tried calling the phone number we got a "We're sorry. Your number cannot be completed as dialed." error recording (tried on both AT&T and Verizon); between this and the Renaissance Village snafu earlier in the day, we were seriously doubting Ely's dedication to the tourist industry! Luckily there were short descriptions available online as well, so we weren't totally in the dark.
Next up were "Cattle Drive", "Liberty Pit", and "Greek Heritage" - the last of which happened to be on the side of the aforementioned Art Bank building.
We found Virginia - a very nice older lady - and her husband moving some large items out the door, and she invited us to go inside and browse for a few minutes while they finished loading their items into a truck. The Art Bank actually ended up being an interesting little place. A former art-deco bank used today as an art gallery, it still contains the original bank vault in the back with it's time delay locking mechanism visible.
Virginia eventually found us and explained that they were in process of clearing out the contents of the Garnet Mercantile next door. Originally built as a JC Penny (using the "classic" JC Penny floorplan) it most recently was an artist collective space, but has now been leased out to a new renter so they're busy clearing everything in it out - donating a lot of items to the local schools to use in their auctions, etc. (her husband implied that
this is why they weren't at the Village, so it's unclear whether the Village was really
supposed to be closed for the season or they just decided to close it because they had few visitors and better things to do). The "gift" she had for us was a book they sell in the gallery that is a companion to the
A. Robin Knows short film you can find on their website / YouTube that tells about the houses in the Village through the eyes of a robin (tagged as a $15 item!) So instead of paying $5 each for tour tickets as expected, we ended up leaving with a "$15 value" souvenir - not a bad way to avoid getting a negative Google review. 😉
Back on the walking tour again, we passed by "Where the World Met & Became One", "Hotel Nevada", the unofficial mural outside the Liberty Club, "Italian Railroad Workers", "Ward Charcoal Ovens", and "Bristlecone Grove" (that invites you to step in - or at least sniff).
Next on the tour was the Sculpture Park - which technically doesn't have a single mural in it, but still shows up in the "Downtown Mural Tour" map. It has some cool art in it (including some bunnies), though, so we won't gripe about it
too much. 😜
Back on the mural quest again, we came across "Locomotive 40" (aka "The Ghost Train of Old Ely" - a story we'd find out more about later in the afternoon), "Tribute to the Rancher", and unofficial but pretty elk, and "Basque Restaurant Remembered" / Plaza Hotel in the Thirties" which - like the first mural on our tour - recreates scenes that would've been seen through the windows
in the window openings.
Our tour brought us to the park in front of the Library-of-Insuffient-WiFi from yesterday, where we found a Bristlecone Pine tree for Christine to pose in front of (since we weren't going to get to see the ones in Great Basin NP, thanks to the government shutdown), as well as some ducks and geese swimming around in the pond (who rapidly approached us when we first walked up, and then lost interest just as quickly when the realized we had no food).
The library also had the "Shoshone Woman Gathering Pine Nuts" sculpture out front (another non-mural on the mural map) and "In Tribute" mural along its upper wall.
Up next were a pair of murals that sort of tell a continuing story: "Pony Express" on one side of the building, and "Communications Then and Beyond" on the other.
"Lehman's Illumination" gave us a glimpse into another "missing in Great Basin NP" adventure (we
had tickets), "Ghost Signage" (which isn't so much a deliberate mural as a wall where countless business have advertised in the same place for decades, and varying erosion of the whitewash in between layers had left behind a collage of logos), another pretty but unofficial mural, "Cherry Creek Hot Springs", the pet-able "Horse Races", and the new "The Miss in Missing".
That was it for the murals that were clustered "downtown" within a comfortable walking distance from each other. But there were a few strays that were on our way out of town, so we took photos of "1919 Transcontinental Military Convoy" and "Basque Sheepherder" from the car - but had to get out on foot for a proper photo with "Cave Bear".
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It was still pretty early in the day at this point (around 2 pm) since we hadn't spent nearly as much time at the Renaissance Village as originally planned, so we had some time to burn. We're not really "train people", but the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in East Ely is pretty well reviewed (and had also been recommended by both Keith at the McGill Drug Store Museum yesterday, and the Visitor Center woman earlier today) so we decided to give it a whirl. It was quite apparent as we approached that the train depot had been decked out for Halloween already.
We entered the depot lobby and looked through through the few display cases of items there. Mildly interesting, but we definitely didn't see what all the rave reviews were about.
We went into the small gift shop / ticket office next door, where someone was inquiring about tours. Among the more generic "train" type souvenirs was a number of books, shirts, etc. featuring "Dirt the Cat" - which seemed like kind of a strange mascot for a railroad, but who were we to judge? We asked for more information about tours as well, and found out they were quite pricey ($30 on up per person), but that we could wander around the train yard on our own too. We opted for the latter, and exited out the back door and started taking photos of the train yard.
We then realized that what the gift shop lady had failed to mention was that the
real museum was upstairs - and that it was
free. After signing in to the guest book, we were free to wander through several rooms of displays at our leisure. Among the artifacts in the first room that we found particularly interesting was the impeccable penmanship in the "original ledger" from the early 1900's.
The next room was the second "snapshot from the '80s" we've visited in the past two days.
The next two rooms were the Traffic Manager's Office (with all-original 1907 artifacts on the desk, including a telegraph, typewriter, fan, and stapler), Payroll, and the General Superintendent's Office (which came with a good-sized fancy house outside the window, which you unfortunately can't see because of the glare).
And then there were a few rooms with a mishmash of displays.
When we were done in the museum rooms, the docent told us that we were free to roam the railway yard and could go in anywhere where a door was open - but there probably wouldn't be many of those today until we got down to the Machine Shop at the far end. As we began walking down the length of the yard, we passed the grave of Dirt the Cat - and his relationship to the railroad was beginning to become a little bit more clear.
We also came upon Ely's "Loneliest Road" sign - once again without a tripod, selfie stick, or any other means of taking a decent photo of ourselves. Luckily a family with a friendly Dad came by and offered to take the photo for us, despite the fact that his two little girls were very eager to "see the cat" - which seemed a little odd, since we had just passed the grave a few feet back. But after snapping our photo, they were on their way down the yard.
The docent had not been wrong about no doors being opened today, so the rest of our journey down to the Machine Shop at the far end was fairly unimpeded.
The Machine Shop was quite an impressive sight to see, with tons of equipment and two locomotives in the process of being maintained. One of the crew came by to let us know that we were free to roam, but not to touch anything and to be careful of the open pits in the floor when walking around: good safety tip. And there to greet us at the bottom of the stairs was another statue of Dirt the Cat - cute, but not really the sort of thing you'd think a couple of little girls would get in a tizzy over.
As we wandered around the shop looking at various things . . .
. . . we saw the family from before gathered around one of the work stations, and realized they weren't watching a worker but rather a very-much-alive cat! Apparently, Dirt the Cat was the "original" shop cat (you can read his full story
here) but he has since been replaced by a trio of cats, one of which was this well mannered cutie.
We exited the back of the Machine Shop into the Engine House.
Among the engines stored there was "Locomotive 40" (aka "The Ghost Train of Old Ely") that we had seen in mural form earlier in the day, and we were able to read her story in the accompanying sign. (A different sign elsewhere describes how she is currently undergoing preservation and restoration, which is why she looks significantly different than her mural does at the moment.)
We passed through the Boiler Shop . . .
. . . into the Blacksmith Shop, which was similar to other blacksmith shops we've seen, but with most of the tools being much larger.
Then we passed through the Boiler Room to get back to the Machine Shop.
A passenger train had pulled into the station since our arrival, and all the passengers had disembarked. We got permission to go aboard and take some photos.
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Then it was time to take our leave of Ely. We drove an hour south to the Pony Springs Rest area (another Nevada "no services" rest area) for the night.
With the open fields all around, it was definitely a night for mouse deterrent lights! Dinner that night was rice, tinned fish, and peas for Tom and leftover IP Lasagna for Christine. We continued to work on the third Nevada blog post over weBoost-ed hotspot, until bedtime around midnight. The forecast lows for the night were 34-35 degrees, so we followed freeze protocol (since forecast temps have been known to be +/- several degrees) by turning on the tank heaters and setting the Truma at 55 degrees before bed.
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Next post: (coming soon)
Back on the walking tour again, we passed by "Where the World Met & Became One", "Hotel Nevada", the unofficial mural outside the Liberty Club, "Italian Railroad Workers", "Ward Charcoal Ovens", and "Bristlecone Grove" (that invites you to step in - or at least sniff).
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