On Wednesday morning I woke up in WINNEMUCCA Nevada and left the hotel at 6:45am. Before leaving town I had breakfast at a Dennys / casino . While at breakfast I did some map reading and saw that my destination of GERLACH Nv., was 100 miles straight west. The road on the map was unmarked . I asked the waiter if he might know the name of the road that heads west to Gerlach. He said there was a dirt road called Jungo Rd.  The only other way to get to Gerlach, was 150 miles S.W. on I-80 toward RENO, and then another 110 miles north on Rte 447. That would be over 250 miles. I also had to be back in ELKO that evening.
    So I choose to take the direct way. This was a big mistake because Jungo Road was a verry rough dirt and gravel road that would not let me travel faster than 45mph. Some spots were so bad I could only drive at 10mph. It took 6 hours to drive 96 miles.
During the last 4 hours I saw only 2 trucks. There was no one anywhere. The Black Rock Desert is a very dry and Remote area.
I finally reached Gerlach at 2:15 pm. The post office had closed. Its hours are 10am - 1pm.
    The Dry Lake bed of the Black Rock Desert is where the last  3 World Land Speed Records were made. 1983:633mph, 1997:714mph, 1997:763mph (supersonic). I very much wanted to drive my car on the dry lake bed , however the dirt access roads were too treacherous. I may have found a good road if I had searched more, however It was getting late and I was in the middle of nowhere. Gerlach is a very tiny town and I wanted to get back to an area where I could get help if needed. So I choose to drive 100 miles south on PAVEMENT to WADSWORTH on Rte 447.
    At 3:40pm I reached Wadsworth and filled up my fuel tank. Then I began the long drive Northeast on I-80 to ELKO. At around 6 pm I saw the sky slowly change to a brown color. It became dark and spooky. Then I saw that there were large fires in the mountains. I was near Mill City Nevada. There were road crews directing traffic to the left lane. The fires were getting close to the road. I stopped in Winnemucca for some food. I tried to use a pay phone to call my family, but the stupid thing would not take coins without giving me a recorded error message. There also was no Cell phone coverage. I had to dial the operator and call collect.  At 10:15 pm I finally reached ELKO. It was a 17 hour day.  My trip mileage: 2294
 
 

 
 

Here are some photos of that day.

Winnemucca @ 8am:
 

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JUNGO RD:

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Dry Lake Bed:

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Gerlach:

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Empire:

Wadsworth:

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ELKO 9:42 PM: