This is one of the pony express stops. A few years back Nevada decided to do some upgrading of their landmarks and
some of them look quite nice.
A bit about the stop.
Two riders taking a break.
This stop must not get a lot of visitors - this guy was quite brave.
Across the highway are ruins from the telegraph maintenance and repeater stations
More of the ruins looking east.
A bit about the station.
Rural Nevada rest stops used to be pretty nasty looking. These have been upgraded as well.
You could say these were built with scenery in mind.
Anyway, on to Eureka.
Next stop is the Hickison Petroglyphs, near Austin Nevada.
These guys seemed to like scratching holes out too, except here the rock is much softer.
The carvings are a bit more detailed.
This is a closeup of one of the carvings.
And here is another one.
It was a nice, short walk. Impressive boulders.
Aha! What have we here? This proves once and for all that Aliens visited earth!
I must forward this off to 'Coast to Coast' immediately!
This glyph must have really taken some time. Either that, or lots of bored indians.
The area has a number of picnic benches. I liked the way they constructed cover.
First stop in the outskirts of Eureka is Stokes Castle. The place was only used a year or so
and then abandoned. In its time, it was quite the home.
This is located maybe 50 yards away from the castle itself.
Looking north from Stokes Castle, it looks rather hazy. That is actually the result of all the wild fires in the area.
We were pretty lucky. An extra day here or there and we would have got stuck somewhere. Lots of roads were
closed several days later.
The Best Western in Eureka looked like a converted school, military barracks or some other government office.
It actually was not bad at all. Breakfast really sucked though. The microwave was broken and choice were
limited to bagels, oranges and muffins.
We had dinner at the 'Owl Club Casino and Restaurant'. It was not bad at all. Apparently we got there
a week or so after the air conditioning started working again, was a good thing.
Across the street was the 'Alpine Lodge', which seemed a bit out of place considering its location.
Up the street was the Colonnade Hotel. It was a very nice place to stay in its day.
Across the street from the hotel was this. It looks old enough to be a school house.
Looking around on the web, this could have had something to do with Reinhold Sadler, the ninth governor of
the state of Nevada.
We didn't have a lot of time to look around, because lots was planned for the next day. This would be a place to
spend more time. There was a walking tour and some interesting sites - like the Eureka Opera house, which
was supposed to be beautifully restored.
Time to hit the sack and do some rock hounding and fossil collecting tomorrow.
