You know, at some point between Wells, Nevada, and Elko, Nevada (see below for HST's apt description of this part of the world), on the I80 there's an unnumbered exit onto some two-bit tarmac road that leads two tiny towns that don't even merit the term "one-horse" These two towns are called Deeth, and Starr.
So when you're really tired, driving down the I80 in the middle of the night after driving for 48 hours without breaks, and you come across a freeway sign that says
"Deeth Starr 1/2 mi.", you really think you've gone to a galaxy far, far away.
This is a
fitting tribute to
HST. I suggest everyone read it.
He has the
best description of Northern Nevada that I ever heard.
So what? I thought. I know this road -- a straight lonely run across
nowhere, with not many dots on the map except ghost towns and truck
stops with names like Beowawe and Lovelock and Deeth and
Winnemucca....
Jesus! Who made this map? Only a lunatic could have come up with a
list of places like this: Imlay, Valmy, Golconda, Nixon, Midas,
Metropolis, Jiggs, Judasville -- all of them empty, with no gas
stations, withering away in the desert like a string of old Pony
Express stations. The Federal Government owns ninety percent of this
land, and most of it is useless for anything except weapons testing
and poison-gas experiments.