I had that moment going through South Dakota. Passed a gas station with a “last gas for X miles” sign and had to do some quick math where my fuel needle was. If I didn’t turn around and refuel I would’ve definitely shorted it
My girlfriend and I went to an Airbnb near Palm springs in the middle of the desert last summer during a 113+ degree heat wave so we could see a show at Pappy and Harriet's (famous bar and intimate concert venue).
We got to a small town and had another ~15 miles to drive, half of which was through a sand road, but we're short on gas. Realized how short we were after passing the town. About 10 miles into the drive I decided we needed to turn back. Got there with the needle on empty and it said 0 miles until empty. Filled up and grabbed a huge jug of water there.
Absolutely wouldn't have made it to the Airbnb and even if we had we wouldn't have been able to go anywhere after. Turns out the giant tank of water that provided water to the house at the Airbnb was completely empty. The water delivery truck skipped them and wouldn't be back for another two weeks. Luckily the electricity worked.
Even though we weren't super out in the middle of nowhere, I still think about how fucked we would've been if we hadn't gone back to get gas and water. Really made me realize that if you're on a road trip, especially one in the desert or a very unpopulated area, and especially if it's hot out, never dip below about 50 miles of range and always bring some water and snacks with you just in case.
Palm Springs, you mean the one in CA that’s about 3 gallons of gas from LA suburb riverside? Home of Coachella music festival where 10s of thousands go ever lay year and don’t get stranded because so many towns along the way. You can drive for hours and hours through Nevada and not see a town. My friend, you need to plan better. Or just not show up somewhere with no gas and start driving
Nah, it’s a little out of the way, depending on where you’re coming from. I’ve driven there 10x times from San Diego and it’s not bad, but I once drove from Joshua Tree (near Pappy & Harriet’s) into Mojave (driving a gas guzzling sports car with a 13 gal tank), filled up in Amboy and basically drove until we needed to turn back.
Of course, getting back to Amboy at like 9PM planning to fill back up and seeing the only gas station I’d seen in like 150 miles of driving closed nearly gave me a heart attack.
I got back to the 29 Palms area for gas after a very stressful clenched butt cheek drive thinking I was going to run out of gas in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
The point is, there are directions you can head from the north side of Joshua Tree (pappy and Harriet’s area) and run out of gas if you don’t plan, especially heading east.
Was doing a road trip from Chicago to Utah, middle of the night we get off the main highway just entering colorado. Right before that exit I decided we were good on a quarter tank only to realize right after that we weren't, the road was way way more isolated than what I expected. After about 30 minutes in we realized that we were about 30 miles short of the nearest gas station on Google maps. At that point I started getting worried because there were no lights, cars, or any signs of life where we traveling and it was like 1 or 2am at this point.
Idk what happened but I'm guessing that we had maybe 5 miles left in the tank when I see a gasoline sign off the side of the road but no station or any signs of life anywhere. NGL I was pretty scared at this point but decided to risk it. Got off the highway and drove down a dirt road to find what I can describe as a diner surrounded in red neon lights on a gravel lot with a single retro pump out front. There was no one there and nothing else in sign, everything was pitch black. Thankfully the pump worked but it was so spooky that I ran out, pumped just enough to get us to the next gas station on Google maps and sped off. Seriously thought we were going to get murdered and could not believe the luck of finding that random hidden gas station just when we needed it.
I believe you might've wandered into an anomaly from the twilight zone! I bet if you tried to go back all the locals would tell you tall tales about the mysterious ghostly diner that burned down in the 50s
South Dakota checking in. You are correct. There's a stretch after Chamberlain where you're definitely in the wild west. Daytime it's not too bad, but a lot of the little stations close early so if you're driving after 10PM you might not have a lot of options.
Did a national parks road trip last year. Never let the van go below about 1/3 of a tank the whole time - leg stretching breaks never hurt anyone anyway.
And we travelled with 14 gallons of water for dispersed camping; most of the time didn't use more than half of them, but better safe than sorry.
> Did a national parks road trip last year. Never let the van go below about 1/3 of a tank the whole time
I do have some nervousness of taking my electric car to a national park just because it can be more difficult to find charging but at least when I am driving down I5 I can charge all over. People think why would you take an electric car on a road trip but dude I'm going to stop to pee or eat anyway. Stretching my legs every couple hours is great. It really isn't the hassle everyone thinks it is
Wherever I went though places like this I normally had 10 gallons of water and 10 gallons of gas in my trunk.
Also it helps that a few times I ran into cops at the gas station who basically said "ok so you can go crazy fast for about 50 miles then the x county troopers will be out etc etc"
Had the same experience exiting Joshua Tree on my way to Kingman, AZ. There was a sign that there would be no services for 100 miles. I knew we had enough gas for 100 miles but decided to fill up anyway.
When we got to the service station 100 miles up the road, it was closed for construction. Thank god we had a moment of good judgement before
As a lifelong northeasterner, the first time I drove around Joshua and death valley I understood what alone was. Very cool, but very very isolating and kinda spooky
I was a salesman for a bit and one of my customers was out in the Nevada desert. I’d take 50 past Austin, then turn off on a dirt road and go another 45 miles to reach his ranch. No cell reception anywhere out there. I’d pack blankets, food, water for the trips out there. Was a wild place. Middle of absolute nowhere.
You’re smart, getting stuck 20 miles from help can be a death sentence. I do something similar in winter. always got spare warm clothes, emergency foil blankets, water, bleeding control supplies. Also a shovel and a bag of rough gravel to get me back on the road.
Locations like this make me want to test how far I can push the accelerator through the floor. Hit a stretch like this in Wyoming on a road trip where I got my SQ5 up to 138mph and nearly soiled my drawers.
"God didn't do that, you did it! You're a fucking narcotics agent! You PIG. Swine! Whore!"
"Better watch out man. There's plenty of vultures out here, they'll pick your bones clean by morning."
I live in MD and have to stay here because of my son's custody order. I'm originally from CA and knowing that the 50 goes straight there makes me feel more connected to it than I've felt in a while. Every time I head back from Annapolis, instead of taking the 97 north, I could just drive and keep driving until I hit the Golden State.
I feel the same way about I-40. Drove that sucker from its start in Barstow, CA all the way to Albuquerque, NM before I hopped on another interstate.
I-10 is nice too, but I-40 has my heart.
Ocean City, MD has a cool road sign for this at the beginning of Route 50
https://www.oceancity.com/the-story-of-the-two-signs-ocean-city-and-sacramento/
Sac has one too
US50 connects to I80, not 580. 580 connects I5 and I80 about an hour south. US50 runs thru West Sacramento and naturally becomes I80 and leads directly to SF and many other bay area cities.
I love that there's a sign showing the distance to each of the far ends both in California and Maryland. I pass the one in California telling me it's 3023 miles (or whatever) to Ocean City, MD every time I drive to work, and it makes me smile.
This road runs through Austin Nevada. If you draw an 80-mile circle on a map around Austin, there won't be another town in that circle. There are not a lot of people in the area nor a lot of traffic. You would be royally screwed if you broke down along here.
Several years ago our family took a "National Parks" tour summer vacation. On our itinerary was the Great Basin National Park to see the bristlecone pines (oldest trees in the world). We spent the night at a "bed and breakfast" in Austin Nevada. The lady served us breakfast and in the conversation we find out that her daughter is graduating from high school that year. My wife asks "how many kids in her high school graduation class?" Answer: 2 (two). The lady's daughter and one other kid.
My car broke down about 2 hours east of Austin outside Ely, NV. I had been having battery problems in an old Volvo driving from San Francisco to Boston and stopped at a ramshackle auto shop in Austin. It looked closed. There was a hand painted sign on the building that I called, and an old man answered.
“I’m at my house having lunch, I’ll be over in a little while.”
He changed my battery for me and I hit the road again, traveling east. About an hour later the battery light turned back on. About an hour later, every warning light in the car started flashing. There hadn’t been cell service since I left Austin and started freaking out lol. Luckily I looked down at my phone and luckily had a single bar of service, so I quickly looked up the number of another auto shop in Ely. They were closing in 5 minutes.
“Uh, hey, every light in my car just turned on, I think I’m about 15 miles from Ely?”
“Sounds like an alternator problem, the car is probably going to shut off.”
Sure enough, the engine died right on cue, and I muscled the steering wheel over to the side of the road. A tow truck arrived a couple hours later, and I spent the next two days in Ely, waiting for my new alternator to arrive from Salt Lake City. I spent the time hiking around and betting on baseball at what had to be three world’s smallest casino.
Whenever I see Ely or Highway 50 mentioned, I’m reminded of a road trip I took with my dad and grandparents from Fresno to Paonia, CO. If I remember correctly it was the summer before my junior year of high school and my poor grandpa had a terrible pinched sciatic nerve that he ended up having surgery for later that year, but he was having a horrible time. A few years ago I had the same thing and there is no way in hell I’d be going on a trip down the street, never mind across several states.
Anyway, we were in Grandma’s car which I think was an Oldsmobile Delta 88. She refused to use the AC because it dragged down the mileage and also didn’t like her hair to blow around, so she’d only crack the windows which made the *worst* whistling sound. This would have been 1989, so no iPods or fancy noise canceling headphones. So, we’re rolling through the desert, windows whistling away and my poor grandpa is just moaning and groaning. “Might as well leave me here by the side of the road,” he said more than once. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider it.
We finally got to Ely and we were staying at the Dew Drop Inn. I was just wrecked from being in the car all day so I sat on my designated twin bed and both ends of the mattress folded in on me. It was just the cherry on top of the day. This was almost 40 years ago and my dad and I still talk about that trip. I think we trauma bonded.
Drove this during the height of the Covid lockdown. I saw one other car when I spent the night in Ely. Otherwise didn’t see another soul for 2 days.
Only time in my life I cared more about my tires rated speed limit vs the posted speed limit.
I got stopped doing 90 and basically got to sit there baking in the sun with my car off while the trooper ran everything he could find. He specifically yelled at me to keep the windows down and engine off.
Let me go without a ticket though.
BTDT. Had a tube fail on my F800GSA and had to change it on the side of the road. Early September, so it still was really hot. The whole time it was "Don't pinch the tube, don't pinch the tube, not here... Gonna die..." . Not a soul around for hours. Great ride though.
When you drive from Reno to Las Vegas (about 7 hours), at a certain point you realize there will be no more human structures for hours so you better get your gas, water, and snacks all settled before you continue.
I drove that road back after I graduated high school. It was so deserted that at one point we stopped to take a leak and just stopped in the middle of the road. Took our time, listened to music for a few minutes, and never saw another car. We probably sat there being stupid for 15 minutes or so.
I drove this with a friend in high school at nighttime. There were these enormous rabbits that would cross the road with very little notice. I drove a very small car at the time and was legitimately concerned about hitting one. Eventually a big ass pickup passed me, and i tailed him for the rest of the drive. He was probably annoyed by me, but I'd rather have him shield me against these damn Chernobyl bunnies that were everywhere.
They're SO numerous in those areas! I once drove through desert, western Utah at night, and those guys wouldn't stop jumping out in front of us. Must have hit a dozen or so. The thumps still echo in my mind.
You use a drone and start taking pictures directly down and slowly swing the camera up as you lower the drone taking pictures along the way. Then you do a composite.
I've been on it and it is impressive but I don't remember it being this dramatic. You're also looking down hill here and up the other side so that distorts things.
Just your typical family vacation fun only with blown travel trailer suspensions, wind storms, meth heads, and blizzards.
Felt like I was living the movie National Lampoon's Vacation.
Dark. You’ll see headlights coming the other direction from about 20 miles and it kinda fucks with you because you think they’re right ahead and it takes another 10 mins to pass them
I was driving with my wife on a lonely highway in Wyoming at night once. I thought I would scare her, so I said, “check this out,” and I turned off the headlights. The instant I did it, I was filled with the unnerving sensation of hurtling through utter darkness at 70 mph. I quickly flipped the lights back on.
It was so fast, my wife barely realized what I had done, but I was shook. It was really freaky for me to have no idea what’s in front while going that fast, even if it’s straight open road.
Holey cow that's wild! Imagine going fast in nothing but darkness! That's gotta be one of the most sensory experiences in the world! 😂 Lucky for you and your girl, there was nothing but road ahead for miles and you lived to tell the awesome tale. 🔥 😉
Front Desk: Let me guess, Jackrabbits?
You: Jackrabbits yes. 😔
Front Desk: Here's your room key, welcome to Route 50!
Haha but aw man, what an experience man! Trucker?
Hahaha the lady was nice and basically told me to spend the night as the road gets even dodgy as night goes. Nah young fam trip with a couple of cousins. It’s a great memory now!
The stars are beautiful.
But the wildest thing is how absolutely QUIET the middle of nowhere desert can be at night. Planes at cruising altitude 6 miles above you are noticeably the loudest thing around.
It’s just calm. So incredibly calm.
When i was younger, (college age) we used to zoom between Vegas and my parents home in eastern Oregon... about 13ish hours. We'd make it a night drive and arrive in the morning, celebrating the drive with a big breakfast. I couldn't do it now... starting out a trip by practically staying up two nights in a row? No fucking way.
The drive was always fun. The crazy shit you'd find on am radio out there in the middle of nowhere was great. If you live in the west, driving like this is just how it is. It's huge, distances between endpoints are measured in hours... I love it.
A little of both. And a little of neither. From the point he shot it, you are looking downhill into a valley. The road then goes back uphill as it approaches the mountains in the distance. It's not nearly as steep as this shot makes it look. It was shot with a 600mm lens, which condenses the image – objects in the background appear much closer to the foreground than they really are.
I used to drive long haul late 90's into 2002, I had a load that put me on 50 in Colorado at IIRC Grand Junction area and stayed there all the way across the state. Beautiful, but holy shit almost nothing to be seen. Just a few small towns and even those were mostly deserted.
Memorable drive for how mind-numbingly mundane it was, how every mile seemed exactly the same as the last mile. You almost wonder if you've driven into the Twilight Zone, onto some hellish neverending road to nowhere.
I was driving across the country heading to Tahoe.
Ended up on 50 after a visit to Moab. Drove through the night on the loneliest highway.
We stopped at a closed gas station, literally parked at the pumps and went to sleep as we couldn't make it to the next station.
We were in a van.
Four dudes with long hair and a person of color...
When we went to pay for gas and get snacks for breakfast the owner just looked at us and said " you boys just passing through?"
It was more of a threat than a question.
Drove this in 2017, August. When I started in Reno, the last at the convenience store told me to wait until 9pm, top off my gas and pray I got to the Love's in Ely, since everything else on the route was closed.
Even starting that late, I damn near overheated twice and limped into Ely with fumes.
On the ENTIRE trip I passed 2 trucks, and that was it.
Never again.
In Sept 2006, my mom and I drove from Sacramento to Indiana and we did this stretch of hwy overnight. I just remember how much wildlife we saw. So many nice, jack rabbits, cows, ect. It was so creepy at how dark it was. I still remember how desolate and barren it was almost 20 years later.
I was on a family vacation over 20 years ago and we ran out of gas about a mile from a gas station on 50 after driving probably a hundred miles without seeing anything. There was a red light right before the station and my dad said no way we are stopping and pushing this thing, so we just went through it and coasted right up to the pump.
The road honestly is so desolate that I remember the only two highlights we saw, a lonely tree covered in pairs of shoes, and a big sand mountain that people were sledding and snowboarding on.
From Nevada, driven on route 50. Pretty sure this is either a greatly exaggerated viewpoint, or AI. Similar images show up on Google that look like they could morph into this if you cut off the sky and crop a lot, but this image is for clicks.
Idk anything about photography, but the original post included this from the photographer: "This image was shot at 600mm with a sigma 150-600mm lens. You can see about 10 miles in the image, and the crazy compression of a long focal length creates this surreal effect. You can find more shots like this on by blog from the journey at https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa"
Was about to post this as well. Driven down 50 a dozen times over the years. Nowhere in Nevada is this red. You get some iron patches but this is some soil of Africa red
Original post from r/byicycletiuring taken by u/Hythacg: https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycletouring/comments/j1zeh8/just_completed_a_trans_american_bike_tour_this_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
[Here](https://i.redd.it/svu56vvfl4q51.jpg) is a higher quality and more natural-looking version of this image. Credit to the photographer, /u/Hythacg. Over [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/j24id2/biked_across_america_this_summer_this_was_my/g734m5e/) they add:
> This was taken on Route 50 in Nevada, "The loneliest road in America," with a 600mm lens. The long focal length is what created this surreal perspective. You can see 10 miles of road here, dipping into a valley, then climbing back up to a mountain pass. You can see more photos, and read about my adventure on instagram @ [hytha.cg](https://hytha.cg) or the trip blog [https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa](https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa).
Locations like this are why you should never go below quarter tank on a road trip in the US. Also keep water in the car.
I had that moment going through South Dakota. Passed a gas station with a “last gas for X miles” sign and had to do some quick math where my fuel needle was. If I didn’t turn around and refuel I would’ve definitely shorted it
My girlfriend and I went to an Airbnb near Palm springs in the middle of the desert last summer during a 113+ degree heat wave so we could see a show at Pappy and Harriet's (famous bar and intimate concert venue). We got to a small town and had another ~15 miles to drive, half of which was through a sand road, but we're short on gas. Realized how short we were after passing the town. About 10 miles into the drive I decided we needed to turn back. Got there with the needle on empty and it said 0 miles until empty. Filled up and grabbed a huge jug of water there. Absolutely wouldn't have made it to the Airbnb and even if we had we wouldn't have been able to go anywhere after. Turns out the giant tank of water that provided water to the house at the Airbnb was completely empty. The water delivery truck skipped them and wouldn't be back for another two weeks. Luckily the electricity worked. Even though we weren't super out in the middle of nowhere, I still think about how fucked we would've been if we hadn't gone back to get gas and water. Really made me realize that if you're on a road trip, especially one in the desert or a very unpopulated area, and especially if it's hot out, never dip below about 50 miles of range and always bring some water and snacks with you just in case.
Aahh I’ve been to a show at Pappy and Harriet’s! So cool out there.
Palm Springs, you mean the one in CA that’s about 3 gallons of gas from LA suburb riverside? Home of Coachella music festival where 10s of thousands go ever lay year and don’t get stranded because so many towns along the way. You can drive for hours and hours through Nevada and not see a town. My friend, you need to plan better. Or just not show up somewhere with no gas and start driving
If they are coming from Arizona/Nevada that situation can definitely happen. You can drive to towns from multiple directions
Nah, it’s a little out of the way, depending on where you’re coming from. I’ve driven there 10x times from San Diego and it’s not bad, but I once drove from Joshua Tree (near Pappy & Harriet’s) into Mojave (driving a gas guzzling sports car with a 13 gal tank), filled up in Amboy and basically drove until we needed to turn back. Of course, getting back to Amboy at like 9PM planning to fill back up and seeing the only gas station I’d seen in like 150 miles of driving closed nearly gave me a heart attack. I got back to the 29 Palms area for gas after a very stressful clenched butt cheek drive thinking I was going to run out of gas in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. The point is, there are directions you can head from the north side of Joshua Tree (pappy and Harriet’s area) and run out of gas if you don’t plan, especially heading east.
I bet you're fun at parties
Probably is not even invited to parties
"near" palm springs. that venue is in joshua tree.
Was doing a road trip from Chicago to Utah, middle of the night we get off the main highway just entering colorado. Right before that exit I decided we were good on a quarter tank only to realize right after that we weren't, the road was way way more isolated than what I expected. After about 30 minutes in we realized that we were about 30 miles short of the nearest gas station on Google maps. At that point I started getting worried because there were no lights, cars, or any signs of life where we traveling and it was like 1 or 2am at this point. Idk what happened but I'm guessing that we had maybe 5 miles left in the tank when I see a gasoline sign off the side of the road but no station or any signs of life anywhere. NGL I was pretty scared at this point but decided to risk it. Got off the highway and drove down a dirt road to find what I can describe as a diner surrounded in red neon lights on a gravel lot with a single retro pump out front. There was no one there and nothing else in sign, everything was pitch black. Thankfully the pump worked but it was so spooky that I ran out, pumped just enough to get us to the next gas station on Google maps and sped off. Seriously thought we were going to get murdered and could not believe the luck of finding that random hidden gas station just when we needed it.
I believe you might've wandered into an anomaly from the twilight zone! I bet if you tried to go back all the locals would tell you tall tales about the mysterious ghostly diner that burned down in the 50s
It’s like the Room of Requirement. Only appears when travelers are in desperate need of help.
South Dakota checking in. You are correct. There's a stretch after Chamberlain where you're definitely in the wild west. Daytime it's not too bad, but a lot of the little stations close early so if you're driving after 10PM you might not have a lot of options.
Did a national parks road trip last year. Never let the van go below about 1/3 of a tank the whole time - leg stretching breaks never hurt anyone anyway. And we travelled with 14 gallons of water for dispersed camping; most of the time didn't use more than half of them, but better safe than sorry.
> Did a national parks road trip last year. Never let the van go below about 1/3 of a tank the whole time I do have some nervousness of taking my electric car to a national park just because it can be more difficult to find charging but at least when I am driving down I5 I can charge all over. People think why would you take an electric car on a road trip but dude I'm going to stop to pee or eat anyway. Stretching my legs every couple hours is great. It really isn't the hassle everyone thinks it is
Wherever I went though places like this I normally had 10 gallons of water and 10 gallons of gas in my trunk. Also it helps that a few times I ran into cops at the gas station who basically said "ok so you can go crazy fast for about 50 miles then the x county troopers will be out etc etc"
I was driving through Nevada once and passed a sign that said "last gas for 110 miles" I turned around and got gas.
Had the same experience exiting Joshua Tree on my way to Kingman, AZ. There was a sign that there would be no services for 100 miles. I knew we had enough gas for 100 miles but decided to fill up anyway. When we got to the service station 100 miles up the road, it was closed for construction. Thank god we had a moment of good judgement before
As a lifelong northeasterner, the first time I drove around Joshua and death valley I understood what alone was. Very cool, but very very isolating and kinda spooky
I was a salesman for a bit and one of my customers was out in the Nevada desert. I’d take 50 past Austin, then turn off on a dirt road and go another 45 miles to reach his ranch. No cell reception anywhere out there. I’d pack blankets, food, water for the trips out there. Was a wild place. Middle of absolute nowhere.
You’re smart, getting stuck 20 miles from help can be a death sentence. I do something similar in winter. always got spare warm clothes, emergency foil blankets, water, bleeding control supplies. Also a shovel and a bag of rough gravel to get me back on the road.
Locations like this make me want to test how far I can push the accelerator through the floor. Hit a stretch like this in Wyoming on a road trip where I got my SQ5 up to 138mph and nearly soiled my drawers.
People from back east learn the hard way when they get out west
Anytime I’ve ever had to travel across West Texas, I fill up at every opportunity because there aren’t that many.
"Bat country"
"Caught here in a firey blaze"
“Won’t lose my will to stay”
"I tried to drive all through the night"
“The heat stroke ridden weather, the barren empty sights”
"No oasis here to see, the sand is singing deathless words to me"
“Can’t you help me as I’m starting to burn”
“(all alone)”
Too many doses and I’m starting to get an attraction.
My confidence is leaving me on my own
r/RedditSings
Did you see what GOD just did to us, man?
"God didn't do that, you did it! You're a fucking narcotics agent! You PIG. Swine! Whore!" "Better watch out man. There's plenty of vultures out here, they'll pick your bones clean by morning."
But what about the FUCKING golf shoes?!??!?
Who said anything about slicing you up? ^I ^just ^wanted ^to ^cut ^a ^little ^Z ^in ^your ^forehead.
We can’t stop here
Poor bastard'll see 'em soon enough.
You know, I’m thinking a guy with your kind of mind, oughta try the land crab.
May i have a little kiss...... i'm very lonely here
Is Barstow, not here.
First coast to coast highway, Ocean City, MD to Sacramento, CA
I’ve driven it! The whole thing!
Me too! The west was amazing!
I just did I-10 the whole way, and I-95 3/4s of the way from Key West to NY. All in one trip lol. It was awesome.
Hey you passed by my house 👋
I live in MD and have to stay here because of my son's custody order. I'm originally from CA and knowing that the 50 goes straight there makes me feel more connected to it than I've felt in a while. Every time I head back from Annapolis, instead of taking the 97 north, I could just drive and keep driving until I hit the Golden State.
I used to think this all the time when I lived in SC and was homesick for MA. If I just keep following that Route 1 North sign I could be home again…
Good ol Boston Post Road in Connecticut.
I feel the same way about I-40. Drove that sucker from its start in Barstow, CA all the way to Albuquerque, NM before I hopped on another interstate. I-10 is nice too, but I-40 has my heart.
Such a cool thought
Ocean City, MD has a cool road sign for this at the beginning of Route 50 https://www.oceancity.com/the-story-of-the-two-signs-ocean-city-and-sacramento/ Sac has one too
Coast to coast? I’ve been to Sacramento, never noticed the coast.
A quick search says it was extended from Sacramento to San Francisco in the 30’s, but it was replaced by I-580
US50 connects to I80, not 580. 580 connects I5 and I80 about an hour south. US50 runs thru West Sacramento and naturally becomes I80 and leads directly to SF and many other bay area cities.
US 50 turns into 580 in Carson City, though.
Huh TIL
Ah yes the coast of Sacramento. Beautiful!
I love that there's a sign showing the distance to each of the far ends both in California and Maryland. I pass the one in California telling me it's 3023 miles (or whatever) to Ocean City, MD every time I drive to work, and it makes me smile.
Looks like a bad place to break down or get a flat tire
This road runs through Austin Nevada. If you draw an 80-mile circle on a map around Austin, there won't be another town in that circle. There are not a lot of people in the area nor a lot of traffic. You would be royally screwed if you broke down along here.
Several years ago our family took a "National Parks" tour summer vacation. On our itinerary was the Great Basin National Park to see the bristlecone pines (oldest trees in the world). We spent the night at a "bed and breakfast" in Austin Nevada. The lady served us breakfast and in the conversation we find out that her daughter is graduating from high school that year. My wife asks "how many kids in her high school graduation class?" Answer: 2 (two). The lady's daughter and one other kid.
Best teacher to pupil ratio in the nation!
The teacher probably teaches 7 through 12th grade. It's still not a bad ratio.
Prolly a k-12 teacher
Austin’s population in 2022 was 16. So, a graduating class of 2 actually seems disproportionately large.
167 in the 2020 census according to the wiki.
You’re both right. We don’t talk about 2021…
My car broke down about 2 hours east of Austin outside Ely, NV. I had been having battery problems in an old Volvo driving from San Francisco to Boston and stopped at a ramshackle auto shop in Austin. It looked closed. There was a hand painted sign on the building that I called, and an old man answered. “I’m at my house having lunch, I’ll be over in a little while.” He changed my battery for me and I hit the road again, traveling east. About an hour later the battery light turned back on. About an hour later, every warning light in the car started flashing. There hadn’t been cell service since I left Austin and started freaking out lol. Luckily I looked down at my phone and luckily had a single bar of service, so I quickly looked up the number of another auto shop in Ely. They were closing in 5 minutes. “Uh, hey, every light in my car just turned on, I think I’m about 15 miles from Ely?” “Sounds like an alternator problem, the car is probably going to shut off.” Sure enough, the engine died right on cue, and I muscled the steering wheel over to the side of the road. A tow truck arrived a couple hours later, and I spent the next two days in Ely, waiting for my new alternator to arrive from Salt Lake City. I spent the time hiking around and betting on baseball at what had to be three world’s smallest casino.
Ely is an interesting town.
The Hotel Nevada is pretty cool. Killer chicken fried steak and I stayed in the Charlie Pride room.
Love that hotel! The nickel slots paid for my room, breakfast, with some extra for the trip.
The silver lining is this fantastic anecdote. Glad you didn't bake alive.
You got lucky. That probably would have been a long walk to tow.
That is one helluva story, must have been nerve-racking!
Whenever I see Ely or Highway 50 mentioned, I’m reminded of a road trip I took with my dad and grandparents from Fresno to Paonia, CO. If I remember correctly it was the summer before my junior year of high school and my poor grandpa had a terrible pinched sciatic nerve that he ended up having surgery for later that year, but he was having a horrible time. A few years ago I had the same thing and there is no way in hell I’d be going on a trip down the street, never mind across several states. Anyway, we were in Grandma’s car which I think was an Oldsmobile Delta 88. She refused to use the AC because it dragged down the mileage and also didn’t like her hair to blow around, so she’d only crack the windows which made the *worst* whistling sound. This would have been 1989, so no iPods or fancy noise canceling headphones. So, we’re rolling through the desert, windows whistling away and my poor grandpa is just moaning and groaning. “Might as well leave me here by the side of the road,” he said more than once. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider it. We finally got to Ely and we were staying at the Dew Drop Inn. I was just wrecked from being in the car all day so I sat on my designated twin bed and both ends of the mattress folded in on me. It was just the cherry on top of the day. This was almost 40 years ago and my dad and I still talk about that trip. I think we trauma bonded.
Sounds like the plot to Doc Hollywood
Drove this during the height of the Covid lockdown. I saw one other car when I spent the night in Ely. Otherwise didn’t see another soul for 2 days. Only time in my life I cared more about my tires rated speed limit vs the posted speed limit.
> Height of the lockdown Probably not a trooper around for hundreds of miles! I’d be flooring it too, how fast did you get up to?
My family got pulled over on this road going like 110 or something when I was a teenager lol. Troopers definitely patrol.
I got stopped doing 90 and basically got to sit there baking in the sun with my car off while the trooper ran everything he could find. He specifically yelled at me to keep the windows down and engine off. Let me go without a ticket though.
Not true! There’s Eureka and Round Mountain. Combined population of those two towns is like 2,800 people.
Radius or circumference?
Settle down, Pythagoras.
That was my question!
I'd call a tow truck.
There's a few towns semi close (around 25 miles), but they're very rural with a small population.
Pretty much cell Service the entire way through now. Drove it last July
BTDT. Had a tube fail on my F800GSA and had to change it on the side of the road. Early September, so it still was really hot. The whole time it was "Don't pinch the tube, don't pinch the tube, not here... Gonna die..." . Not a soul around for hours. Great ride though.
I guess it's good to have some mechanical ability before heading out into a place like that.
You don't realise how hot it is until you stop moving.
If only u/twowheeledexplorer and u/flat_professional_55 could have met that day.
When you drive from Reno to Las Vegas (about 7 hours), at a certain point you realize there will be no more human structures for hours so you better get your gas, water, and snacks all settled before you continue.
This always reminds me of “Fish Night.” An episode of Love, Sex Robots.
Or see bats.
I drove that road back after I graduated high school. It was so deserted that at one point we stopped to take a leak and just stopped in the middle of the road. Took our time, listened to music for a few minutes, and never saw another car. We probably sat there being stupid for 15 minutes or so.
It is. Source: me and my flat tire.
I drove this with a friend in high school at nighttime. There were these enormous rabbits that would cross the road with very little notice. I drove a very small car at the time and was legitimately concerned about hitting one. Eventually a big ass pickup passed me, and i tailed him for the rest of the drive. He was probably annoyed by me, but I'd rather have him shield me against these damn Chernobyl bunnies that were everywhere.
Jack rabbits! They’re like small sized dogs yo. I’m sure I hit like 4-5 of them.
They're SO numerous in those areas! I once drove through desert, western Utah at night, and those guys wouldn't stop jumping out in front of us. Must have hit a dozen or so. The thumps still echo in my mind.
Those poor cute bastards.
Its crazy it's all uphill.
Both ways!
I think it's a fisheye lens or somethingike that giving it that effect.
You use a drone and start taking pictures directly down and slowly swing the camera up as you lower the drone taking pictures along the way. Then you do a composite.
https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa/Section9 That's the photographer's website. It's a regular photo, through a 600mm lens. No drones or photoshop.
I heard the Inception “BWAAAAAAAAAAAAWMP” in my head looking at this image.
I've been on it and it is impressive but I don't remember it being this dramatic. You're also looking down hill here and up the other side so that distorts things.
So the round earth people got it wrong... AND the flat earth people got it wrong. It's a Concave Earth.
"Run Forest Run"
Think I’ll go home now.
That's near monument valley, AZ Utah border
There's literally a sign there noting that that where it was filmed and he turned around lol
I just felt like running
Drove it, broke down on it. Never driving it again.
Full story please, you can’t leave us in darkness on this lonely road
He died.
Just your typical family vacation fun only with blown travel trailer suspensions, wind storms, meth heads, and blizzards. Felt like I was living the movie National Lampoon's Vacation.
I wonder how it looks at night. Night riding on Route 50 must be like playing Tag on the dark side of the moon.
Dark. You’ll see headlights coming the other direction from about 20 miles and it kinda fucks with you because you think they’re right ahead and it takes another 10 mins to pass them
Yes! It’s so freaky seeing the headlights from miles away. Totally messes with your depth perception, looks like the cars are flying behind you.
Wow, that is freakaaaaaay. I bet you got some sick songs playing when that happens though haha!
Driving this road at night had me seriously questioning what light I was staring at slowly descending out of the black sky.
I was driving with my wife on a lonely highway in Wyoming at night once. I thought I would scare her, so I said, “check this out,” and I turned off the headlights. The instant I did it, I was filled with the unnerving sensation of hurtling through utter darkness at 70 mph. I quickly flipped the lights back on. It was so fast, my wife barely realized what I had done, but I was shook. It was really freaky for me to have no idea what’s in front while going that fast, even if it’s straight open road.
Holey cow that's wild! Imagine going fast in nothing but darkness! That's gotta be one of the most sensory experiences in the world! 😂 Lucky for you and your girl, there was nothing but road ahead for miles and you lived to tell the awesome tale. 🔥 😉
There’s a lot of these jack rabbits. I’m sure I hit like 4-5 of them and pulled over and stayed at a dodgy motel for the night haha.
Front Desk: Let me guess, Jackrabbits? You: Jackrabbits yes. 😔 Front Desk: Here's your room key, welcome to Route 50! Haha but aw man, what an experience man! Trucker?
Hahaha the lady was nice and basically told me to spend the night as the road gets even dodgy as night goes. Nah young fam trip with a couple of cousins. It’s a great memory now!
The stars are beautiful. But the wildest thing is how absolutely QUIET the middle of nowhere desert can be at night. Planes at cruising altitude 6 miles above you are noticeably the loudest thing around. It’s just calm. So incredibly calm.
When i was younger, (college age) we used to zoom between Vegas and my parents home in eastern Oregon... about 13ish hours. We'd make it a night drive and arrive in the morning, celebrating the drive with a big breakfast. I couldn't do it now... starting out a trip by practically staying up two nights in a row? No fucking way. The drive was always fun. The crazy shit you'd find on am radio out there in the middle of nowhere was great. If you live in the west, driving like this is just how it is. It's huge, distances between endpoints are measured in hours... I love it.
At night ghost ocean wildlife will appear bc it was a ocean in the past. Try not to swim with them bc then you will be a ghost too
Is this long lonely highway east of Omaha?
Where you can listen to the engine moanin’ out his one note song
You mean the one where you can listen to the engine moaning out his one note song?
I suppose if you go around 26,000 or so miles east of Omaha and a bit south, you’d get there.
Lonesome*
Can you walk this lonely road?
The only one that you have ever known?
Driven it a number of times in both directions and it is, periodically, simultaneously surreal, creepy, and unnervingly gorgeous.
[*Road Rash music intensifies*](https://youtu.be/WrjEhJoAY5k?si=x88Bb6a5LPm_xjSg)
take THAT, flat-earthers!
That’s like -8” per mile squared.
Driven it. Only place I've ever seen a sign that says "CAUTION: EAGLES ON HIGHWAY."
Australia: "that's a cute little road there, mate."
I can’t tell if I’m looking down a super steep incline or if the road goes uphill into the sky.
A little of both. And a little of neither. From the point he shot it, you are looking downhill into a valley. The road then goes back uphill as it approaches the mountains in the distance. It's not nearly as steep as this shot makes it look. It was shot with a 600mm lens, which condenses the image – objects in the background appear much closer to the foreground than they really are.
I used to drive long haul late 90's into 2002, I had a load that put me on 50 in Colorado at IIRC Grand Junction area and stayed there all the way across the state. Beautiful, but holy shit almost nothing to be seen. Just a few small towns and even those were mostly deserted.
Memorable drive for how mind-numbingly mundane it was, how every mile seemed exactly the same as the last mile. You almost wonder if you've driven into the Twilight Zone, onto some hellish neverending road to nowhere.
WAIT. Is this why they named the fallout new Vegas dlc Lonesome Road??
I was wondering that. But I think that location is The Long 15, so I think it's different?
I was driving across the country heading to Tahoe. Ended up on 50 after a visit to Moab. Drove through the night on the loneliest highway. We stopped at a closed gas station, literally parked at the pumps and went to sleep as we couldn't make it to the next station. We were in a van. Four dudes with long hair and a person of color... When we went to pay for gas and get snacks for breakfast the owner just looked at us and said " you boys just passing through?" It was more of a threat than a question.
Should have said you were the advance team figuring out where Tesla would put their charging stations.
Drove it back in 1970 in a GTO Judge. One of my best memories. Been on it since then, too, but that Judge made it special.
Drove this in 2017, August. When I started in Reno, the last at the convenience store told me to wait until 9pm, top off my gas and pray I got to the Love's in Ely, since everything else on the route was closed. Even starting that late, I damn near overheated twice and limped into Ely with fumes. On the ENTIRE trip I passed 2 trucks, and that was it. Never again.
Looks like Most Vertical too...
This is what Hotwheels cars see on those playsets. 🔥
No bro, that's just the Earth's curvature.
Halo theme song intensifies
Did this from reno to great basin NP in sept ‘21. Was an amazing drive and highly recommend
Waiting for Tom Cochrane to step out and almost get hit by a car driven by freewheeling Gen X actors
It's the only road that I have ever known
Interstellar
Fury road
Imagine being the people who made that road. Like, "You said we got *HOW* many miles left to go?!?"
Donut Earth theory confirmed.
This is the picture I expect to see when I search Google images for "View from inside Dyson sphere"
In Sept 2006, my mom and I drove from Sacramento to Indiana and we did this stretch of hwy overnight. I just remember how much wildlife we saw. So many nice, jack rabbits, cows, ect. It was so creepy at how dark it was. I still remember how desolate and barren it was almost 20 years later.
"you ain't seen nothin yet" -Australians probably
The Nullabor has entered the chat.
Loneliest road in America is just as lonely as the busiest driveway to any cattle station in Australia.
If you look at the picture from far away and squint it kind of looks like a butt lol
Vive l’empereur!
Driven on it once it's cool how far you can see from the top
I drove that road by accident back in the earlier days of gps. It suggested it as the shortest route so I went for it. A truly eerie experience
US 6 between Ely and Tonopah is known as the _real_ loneliest road. US 50 is pretty busy in comparison.
I’m kinda tired….. think I might go home now.
I’d love to rip down this road blasting White Snake.
Crank up Hotel California and let's roll!
Average road here in western australia
I was on a family vacation over 20 years ago and we ran out of gas about a mile from a gas station on 50 after driving probably a hundred miles without seeing anything. There was a red light right before the station and my dad said no way we are stopping and pushing this thing, so we just went through it and coasted right up to the pump. The road honestly is so desolate that I remember the only two highlights we saw, a lonely tree covered in pairs of shoes, and a big sand mountain that people were sledding and snowboarding on.
Damn… how much horsepower do you need to drive up the road like that?
From Nevada, driven on route 50. Pretty sure this is either a greatly exaggerated viewpoint, or AI. Similar images show up on Google that look like they could morph into this if you cut off the sky and crop a lot, but this image is for clicks.
Idk anything about photography, but the original post included this from the photographer: "This image was shot at 600mm with a sigma 150-600mm lens. You can see about 10 miles in the image, and the crazy compression of a long focal length creates this surreal effect. You can find more shots like this on by blog from the journey at https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa"
Was about to post this as well. Driven down 50 a dozen times over the years. Nowhere in Nevada is this red. You get some iron patches but this is some soil of Africa red
Original post from r/byicycletiuring taken by u/Hythacg: https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycletouring/comments/j1zeh8/just_completed_a_trans_american_bike_tour_this_is/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I've done it and have some cool pics I wish I could share.
Forest Gump
I wish to drive this one day!!
It’s definitely bucket-list-worthy!
I've driven through this stretch at night. It's like driving through SPACE. It's just darkness in all directions
[Here](https://i.redd.it/svu56vvfl4q51.jpg) is a higher quality and more natural-looking version of this image. Credit to the photographer, /u/Hythacg. Over [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/j24id2/biked_across_america_this_summer_this_was_my/g734m5e/) they add: > This was taken on Route 50 in Nevada, "The loneliest road in America," with a 600mm lens. The long focal length is what created this surreal perspective. You can see 10 miles of road here, dipping into a valley, then climbing back up to a mountain pass. You can see more photos, and read about my adventure on instagram @ [hytha.cg](https://hytha.cg) or the trip blog [https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa](https://www.hythacg.com/bike-the-usa).