Austin, Nevada

 The antepenultimate day of our trip found us on US 6 and US 50 (often dubbed "America's Loneliest Road) between Delta, Utah and Austin, Nevada where shortly after midday we checked into the Cozy Mountain Motel, one of several "quaint" motels (and not much else) there.

The drive was relatively short, but covered a variety of terrains from desert to mountain. 

Throughout this landscape we have noted the harshness of the desert which has defeated so many settlers

The town is an unincorporated city, formerly the seat of Lander County with a population of 167 people and almost as many abandoned buildings.

In truth there is not much left there, the stores mostly boarded up with one cafe that served burgers and a couple of sandwiches and a service station that dished up $7.00/gallon gasoline and burgers from a food truck. We opted for the cafe. It was better than we would have thought possible.

Several of the extant civic buildings pointed to bygone prosperity, but the rest of the town defined ramshackle. See for yourselves:

The town promotes itself as a tourist destination, but ironically says little about the landmark we found most interesting, the so-called Stokes Castle, built as a luxury retreat by Anson Phelps Stokes for his sons who used it for a grand total of two months before abandoning it. Be sure to read the plaque below.

The Cozy Mountain Motel, fashioned from several semi-conjoined single-wide trailers, was primitive, but clean.

The motel's long term resident host

Sharon relaxes in the concierge level

Despite his forbidding looks, our host was a real pussycat, curling around my legs and chatting with me