Walking in Elko - Monday 12-16-08

A town is best experienced on foot to see its buildings, look into its shop windows, and pass its people on the sidewalk. The shops and business yield clues to its economy. Elko is ranching and mining. Elko is a town where the pickup trucks do real work.




On Monday, long after the Houston Guys flew away, I had the luxury of sleeping in. At 8 a.m. I called Avis and reserved a car. I took a cab to Elko Regional Airport and picked up a red Corolla. I made good use of my Costco card and used it to scrape the snow and ice off the windshield.

I spent a good share of the morning driving around looking for a shipping/packaging store for my hard hat and steel-toed boots, which I no longer needed and did not wish to lug them around to Salt Lake City, my next stop after Elko. I finally did the smart thing and went back to my room and looked in the yellow pages. Bingo! One listing, Ship It Postal Services on Court Street. Before I could complete the FedEx airbill, the shop woman had my hard hat and steel-toed boots neatly boxed and ready to ship.

Now I was ready to spend a little time exploring Elko on foot. I parked by the Elko County Library. My first stop weas the Elko County Courthouse, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I walked around covering several blocks taking pictures of all the intersting buildings and things; casinos, the post office, old gas stations, and an old locomotive in a city park.




I stopped in at Carlin Trend Mining Services, lured in by all the cool stuff I could see through the window; geological supplies, drafting supplies, books, mineral specimans, and other really cool stuff. I walked out with an NBMG bulletin on the geology of Elko County and one of those Arcadia Publishing - Images of America books on Elko County. I love these little paperback books that are now covering many locations across the country. The Northeastern Nevada Museum was closed being a Monday.


It was late in the afternoon and I was getting hungry. I spied a Taco Time next to the C-A-L Ranch Store ("A Ranch and Home Store and So Much More!"). I had to check out the C-A-L Ranch Store before eating. This place had everything; guns, camo, horse gear, stock tanks, hardware, work clothes, and everything Dickies and Carhartt.


No longer able suppress my hunger I picked up a combo burrito meal at Taco Time. I took my meal back to my hotel room and started to do some actual work. I wrote up a summary of the mine and mill tourand put some photos and captions together. I emailed these off to our office doing the coordination of the project and deliverables. All was going well until my laptop crashed about 10 p.m.