Wednesday 8th February – The Extra-terrestrial Highway

We awoke in our isolated rest area surrounded by cloud.  We were tucked between some mountains and you couldn’t see the top of any of them, the cloud cover was so low.

We retraced our steps from yesterday along the 6 towards the junction of the 375 picking up another Hitch-hiker on our way.  This is becoming a habit!  Eddy had been abandoned in Tonopah last night when his alleged best friend had done a runner with his money whilst Eddy was in burger king.  Eddy was attempting to get miles up north to Idaho for his Grandmother’s funeral and had become infuriated at the lack of phone signal anywhere around Tonopah.  We only took him about 20 miles but every little helps I guess!  We abandoned him, still with no phone signal, as we turned right down the Extra-terrestrial Highway.

There was nothing but open plain and the road in front of us for the 60 miles into Rachel where we finally made it to the Little A’Le’Inn.  If you are a fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost you will know this location from their film ‘Paul’.  If not, hopefully these pictures will go some way to explaining this alien-themed Bar/Motel/restaurant in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Signed memorabilia from the cast of Paul

Our visit to this part of Nevada was to achieve three goals –

1) Visit legendary ‘alien’ territory which included the Inn and the black mailbox (see later)

2) Get as close as possible to the ‘secret’ military installation where the conspiracy theorists say all of America’s alien evidence is stored – Area 51

3) Observe some of a military training exercise known as ‘Red Flag’ which is a multi-national operation running until February 10^th involving US forces and their allies (including Britain).  This was the reason we had covered so many miles during the last week as Simon had requested we made it here by 8^th February so that he could see this.

At the A’le’Inn the owners, Pat and Connie, couldn’t have been more helpful.  We purchased a map for 33 cents showing the alien and area 51 locations we needed to explore and took their advice on how accessible these areas were in an RV and how not to get in trouble with the troops guarding area 51.  They also had knowledge of the best locations to view red flag, including the fact that night manoeuvres are practised right above the Inn.  It doesn’t sound like all that much to do but in fact it was going to take us the rest of the day to work through the itinerary!
 

Our first visit was to the ‘back gate’ of area 51.  To reach this we had to traverse 10 miles of unmade gravel track, away from the ‘hub’ of Rachel.  We were doubtful that we were on the right track for the whole drive as we just seemed to be heading nowhere.  Before we reached the gates, we heard an incredibly loud double ‘booming’ noise overhead.  Thousands of feet above us, fighter jets had broken the sound barrier and this noise was the sonic boom.  Epic.  Just like in Top gun, the ‘best of the best’ were practising dog fighting techniques above us and the Nevada desert.  The noise was so loud it made all of the windows in the RV vibrate.

The ‘back gate’ of area 51 appeared quite active, with a manned security booth (right).  We had been warned of the dire consequences of treading beyond the warning signs – from arrest, hefty fines and custody, to having loaded weapons pointed in your direction…. Or all of the above!  We did a U-turn well before the gate to clearly show our intentions were completely innocent and we were not approached.

Someone must've told a bad joke..... tumbleweed blocking our path.

Making it back from the dust roads to the 375 it was then 20 miles onwards to reach the location of the ‘Black mailbox’.  Legend has it that this mailbox, which appeared at the side of the highway from origins unknown, is a method of communicating with extra-terrestrials.  This legend has grown and has resulted in some idiots breaking into mailboxes at the site, graffitiing etc, which means that the mailbox was removed and the people who live on the adjoining ranch now do not get mail delivered and have to drive 30 miles into Alamo to collect their post!  Shame some people ruin it for others.  However, someone has very recently installed a new black mailbox as a monument to the myth (above right) and people leave gifts and notes inside for the ‘aliens’.  We found a Twix bar, some coins and notes in there.  We didn’t feel the need to add to the collection!  But it was a good spot to stop for a spot of lunch and a spot of bird-watching (below right)

Shooting at stop signs seems to be a popular past-time around here

The mailbox was also at the junction we needed to take to reach the main entrance to area 51, this time more than 15 miles off the main Highway!  The ground was a mixture of sand, dust and mud.  We couldn’t go faster than about 25 mph without risking damage to the RV and again, we were unsure we were heading in the right direction.  It is difficult to describe the vastness and emptiness of the land we were driving over, so here's an example of the road conditions:

Where on earth is area 51?!

The men in white

It felt like madness…. Until we saw a white truck that was originally heading towards us suddenly turn around and disappear in a cloud of dust.  We continued on and, as we approached some more military warning signs, the white truck was parked at the peak of a nearby hill – obviously watching our every move.  This entrance to area 51 didn’t even have a gate and appeared more minor than the ‘back gate’ we had already visited.  The other issue was that there was no wide roadway to turn a 30’ RV around in easily!  I gave up trying to manoeuvre and let Simon do an ‘Austin Powers’ style multi-point turn whilst our military friends looked on!  I was expecting them to head towards us at any point.  We did not hang around.
 

The 'main' entrance to area 51 - daring you to just step across the boundary....

How close we parked to area 51 and our eagle-eyed military friends, circled, watching us from on high!

It was such a relief to get back onto the tarmac of the 375! We drove another 20 miles back towards Rachel, stopping at Coyote summit around 430pm.  This is where we had been advised to park up to watch the military planes but none were about at that time.  This didn’t stop us from scaling the mountain for a sunset view of the area.  It was a good workout!

Oooh, maybe there are aliens around here?

We returned to the A’le’Inn in the dark and headed in to borrow some Wi-Fi having been off the grid for a few days. 

Is it a UFO?  Is it a plane? No, it's a bad photograph of a military flare.....

We took the opportunity to book ourselves a couple of nights in Vegas at Treasure Island hotel for the next couple of days.  We paid $20 to park up behind the Inn and spend a night in the desert.  It wasn’t until after 10pm that the hum of aircraft above us got more frequent.  We stepped outside into the cold evening air.  At first we couldn’t see anything apart from some vapour trails.  Then we started seeing some aircraft lights and with the help of the night security guard we got an idea of what was going on.  Some larger aircraft were dropping paratroopers over the desert and they were setting off flares as they descended towards the ground.  The sound and the lights were amazing along with the thought that camouflaged troops were touching down in the desert all around us. 
Eventually it got too cold and the activity reduced enough for us to call it a night. We were so glad we spent a night out in Rachel.