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by Reid Smith

Our four-day tour in May explored three of Nevada’s storied highways. 

DAY 1 – Great Basin Highway: Our meetup location was originally set for the Petro Travel Center at the Speedway. After discovering that was the last morning of the EDC Festival and there would be 185,000 blurry-eyed concert goers trying to escape, we wisely switched to another location. Good move! Lunch in Caliente at the Knotty Pine Restaurant, and on to Ely. Absolutely gorgeous snowy mountains made this leg of the trip picturesque. Dinner at JT’s Steakhouse was mouth-watering with grass-fed beef from the owner’s own ranch.

Day 2 – Loneliest Highway in America: In 1986, Life Magazine labeled HWY 50 the “Loneliest Highway in America” and described it as a road with nothing to see. A rep from AAA stated “there are no points of interest. We don’t recommend it, unless they’re confident of their survival skills” We beg to differ. Long straight stretches of highway with twisty mountain passes provided us Porschefiles with a great drive. After breaks in Eureka and Austin, we stopped for lunch at a wide spot in the road called Middlegate. When a restaurant requires a diesel generator for electricity, you know you are in the middle of nowhere. The burgers were great! We overnighted in Fallon.  

Day 3 – Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park: Dropping down from HWY 50, we visited an unusual NV state park. The last five miles into the park included a section of asphalt with potholes that resembled a bombing range followed by two miles of unpaved road. We took our time and even club member Michael with his recently purchased McClaren 600LT, was game for back-roading!  We had arranged a tour of this fossil site of this ocean-going reptilian sea creature that grew to 70 feet long. Earth has certainly transformed to raise these fossils from sea level to the 7000-foot level. We continued to Tonopah where lunch/dinner were on our own. Some of us went to Tonopah Brewery for some good beer. A big letdown was that the Brewery does not have their famous BBQ anymore. Their pizza was pretty good, though. After dinner we took over the lounge of the Mizpah Hotel. We actually closed the bar on our own after the bartender finally said “goodnight” and was out of there!

Day 4 – Extratterestial Highway: Our last day included a trip to Rachel to visit the Lil A’Le’Inn where we hoped to hobnob with the Area 51 aliens. We didn’t find any, but did pick up some souvenirs and took lots of pictures.

Dana and I really enjoyed our time together with an exceptional group of club members. We are not just acquaintances, we are good friends. If you have never taken a Porsche Club tour, you are missing out. Dana and I are planning an Idaho tour for September. Stay tuned! 

Enjoy the pics!