Day 17: Battle Mountain, NV - Cedar City, UT

A brief summary of the physical geography of northern Nevada: there are wide shallow valleys - such as that of the Reese river south of Battle Mountain - separated by mountains.  The valleys run from south to north.  Thus, when you are travelling from north to south the roads are long and straight and flat.  When you are travelling from west to east. the roads are also long and straight and flat, unless said road happens to be crossing the mountains.  In this case there will be Corners.  The flora consists mainly of the same pale green and yellow scrub which fills most of the landscape from Canada to Mexico, with a few trees on the passes over the mountains, and the odd bit of cultivation where there is water.  This is all you need to know.  Here is a typical piece of scenery:

This differs only from anywhere else in this part of the world in that:

1. It is actually the end of the WHPSC course, and
2. There is an alien spacecraft in the top left of the picture

Near here lives Georgi Georgiev's new best friend, Boris.  Boris is a Cat Spider.

Boris is smack in the middle of the photo.

As mentioned above, water is an important resource hereabouts, and owning a piece of land does not necessarily confer the rights to any water found thereupon.  I am told that this is something not easily understood by City Types, and thus when a local rancher died and left the property to a relative in California, he promptly shut off the taps.  Two other ranches rely on this supply for their cattle, hence there is a good old-fashioned Wild West water dispute brewing in the Battle Mountain area.  Meanwhile, the unfortunate cows are forced to come down to the gravel depot we use as the staging area in order to get a drink, as enough leaks out of the tank there to quench their collective thirst.  They'd rather be higher up the mountains where it's cooler.

That is about all there is to say about today, except that the TwatNav gave me a slightly unexpected route, so I didn't get to pass the famous Black Mailbox again.

The Black Mailbox in 2005.  Yes, I do realise that it's white, thank you...

Curious thing seen on the road: nothing, except possibly a local copper who followed me into town this evening, clearly dying to nick me but unable to thanks to the miracle of cruise control.  Out-of-state plates mean you're allowed to be a bit uncertain about where exactly you want to turn right, too.