King Arthur in Nevada

  I checked out of the hotel in Tonopah and headed west as soon as it was fully delight. U.S. Highway 6 cuts through enormous open empty valleys on straight lines that go from one end of the valley to another. It is some of the best driving in the world.

By mid morning I came down off a low pass into the town of Hawthorn, which is the home of a collection of small military installations around the remnants of a giant ammunition depot that filled the entire valley, all the vintage concrete bunker tops that stretch out to the base of the mountains. In town I parked in the empty parking lot of the community park and took a phone call with the firm I work with in Portland, to clarify some issues regarding the work I'm doing for them. 

Then I drove north along Walker Lake which extends northward from the town. The road goes along the west side of the lake. Walker Kake is one of the endorheic lakes of Nevada---lakes that collect water in a basin that does not drain to the sea. The lakes of Nevada were once part of a mighty lake in prehistoric times. Walker Lake is a remnant of that lake. A long time ago I wrote a Wikipedia article about Walker Lake. I love these lakes, so wonderful in the barrenness around thme.

I had to get out and walk along the lakeshor. Along the west side of the lake, going down from the highway to the water, is a small town, a summer resort, called Walker Lake. I navigated down through the dirt roads on the steep hillside in the 4-Runner past trailers occupied by living occupations, military retirees by the flags they fly, and shuttered prefab homes, and some ancient resort cottages rotting in the Nevada sunlight, long abandoned from en earlier era. The town feels like the resort at the edge of civilization. People are here, living here. Everything was quiet and mostly deserted. 

From the waterline, looking back up the hill at the town, in the back of the town rose a line of mountains that were already snowcapped--outliers of the Sierra, high enough to have snow at this point of the season.. 

I park on the rock bech rocky beach by a crude pier used for watercraft loading in season. I went walking along the rocky beach and looked at the barren far shore. I was wearing the black leather jacket Lars gave me when he got rid of all his possession and left the U.S. It kept the wind off me.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and not too chilly. I walked along the rocks for an hour at least in meditation thinking about the election and other things before driving back up the hill. On the way back climbing the hill on what passes as the main thoroughfare to the highway I noticed the street sign King Arthur Way. Why King Arthur? I thought. Then I remembered the giant lake behind me in the enormous valley. Yes, of course.