Beatty, NV to Flagstaff

We left the Stagecoach Hotel and Casino where I did not invest the children's college fund in the slot machines in hopes of hitting the jackpot, and headed to Rhyolite, the nearby ghost town which shut down after the Panic of 1907.  One house was made completely of adobe and glass saloon bottles.  What a dilemma in moderation building that house must have posed. What time in the morning would you have to start drinking in order to ensure enough building materials for the day?  What time to stop before your building materials were more plentiful than your competence?

Beatty's two saloons had not looked promising for coffee, so after Rhyolite we headed down the Extraterrestrial Highway and stopped in Crystal, NV at a gas station.  I looked up at the 50' billboard above the station which advertised it as housing the Brothel Art Museum.   Liam and Kai and I went in to the store to use the bathroom and buy coffee.  The place was full of space alien memorabilia: souvenirs of Area 51, a poster of the Southpark kids being visited by UFOs, signs promising to wipe our memories on the way out.

It also had a table with four guys and a woman in a bright blue chenille jumpsuit. When the kids returned from the bathroom, another guy had joined the table.  I went to the counter to order coffee and then realized the woman was stripping down to her bra as Liam and Kai watched, captivated.  So much for coffee.  (Or for good answers to their questions about why we left without my coffee, or what a brothel is, or what Mama and Daddy were saying to each other.  When would the extraterrestrial memory wipe kick in??)  Fortunately Las Vegas had a brothel-free Starbucks.

The Hoover Dam was, well, big.  And the River Colorado very deep. And how did they get the cement in place at the base in the first place??  I couldn't help feeling sorry for whoever it was who drew the short straw on  that one.  Must have been pretty easy diving to the bottom holding the cement block, but coming back up without it must have been a bit hairy.  

From there we made a run to Flagstaff.  The road signs in Nevada and Arizona are very informative.  They say things like "Watch for Elk" and "Watch for bighorn sheep" and "Watch for Deer" and "Watch for Rocks."  We watched.  Guess which one we saw?

-Juliet