Desert Companion - May 2016

Three

people, eight days, anRV and one glorious

Silver State

SLINGIN’ THE BREWS

TOWERS OF POWER

FEAR WEARS A GIANT SMILE

Rural beer-makers can’t make headway in Vegas

Big solar and the environment struggle to coexist near Tonopah

Will Andrew Kiraly survive a night in the Clown Motel?

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Yousuf Karsh, Audrey Hepburn, Photograph, 1956, Gift of Estrellita Karsh in memory of Yousuf Karsh, © Estate of Yousuf Karsh

Yousuf Karsh, Humphrey Bogart, Photograph, 1946, Gift of Estrellita Karsh in memory of Yousuf Karsh, © Estate of Yousuf Karsh

ICONS

Tickets and information 702.693.7871 • bellagio.com/bgfa

OF THE

TWENTIETH CENTURY

YOUSUF KARSH

March 18 – September 5, 2016

EDiTOR’S Note

58

We tripping

N

ot to be weird or anything, but, question: Did mountains suddenly become beautiful and interesting when I wasn’t paying attention? I thought epiphanies were just a literary device, but I’m starting to suspect I went into some kind of transportive Joycean fugue state on the Desert Companion Great Big Nevada Road Trip. It was the afternoon of March 26 (our first day on the road, we were so well-rested, excited, responsibly coiffed and clean!), and we were trundling up US 6, our RV pointed like a torpedo toward Ely. To the west of us, the Pancake Range stretched out in the afternoon light, and, in one of those increasingly rare moments of unself-conscious, mindless-but-mindful, obliviating timelessness, I became captivated (yes, captivated!) by the landscape of limitless color and form: the purples, blues, fiery oranges, yellows and dramatic reds, the gentle slopes and jagged edges, the sweep and span, rise and reach. It was like I’d stumbled on the Tinder profile for Gaia herself. Sure, I’d seen plenty of mountains throughout Nevada over the years, but now I suspect up until that Pancake moment, I’d never truly appreciated their beauty, variety and personality. I think I spontaneously started soliloquizing about how awesome they were, because Chris and Heidi were suddenly giving me looks of hapless parental concern. Then I snapped back to reality. My drooling mouth was still full of beef jerky, but beneath, I was fundamentally transformed.

Background: In case you missed it, for our May travel issue, Art Director Christopher Smith, Staff Writer Heidi Kyser and I spent March 26-April 2 driving around the state in an RV, searching for the soul of Nevada, and then InsNext tagramming and blogging and MOnth tweeting that soul. For eight Oh, snap! Celebrate days, we wandered around small the winners of our towns and climbed big sand “Focus on Nevada” photo contest

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dunes. We interviewed fascinating people and hung out with the bones of terrifying ancient sea reptiles. We ate lots of beef jerky. We explored old mining burgs in their humbler second acts and considered the historical wounds of the state’s Native Americans. We sampled the goods at backcountry breweries and toured cuttingedge power plants. We ate more beef jerky, and then we washed it down with roadside burger-hut milkshakes.

Many of us Las Vegans think dismissively of the rest of Nevada as a sort of desolate backyard filled with rusted cars and old washing machines. (Okay, that’s true in Gabbs.) Heck, until this trip, I counted myself as one of them. But now, having traveled 1,400 miles around the Silver State, I can say with confidence and enthusiasm: It really is like the brochure!

Thus, a little how-to is in order. While a “typical” issue of Desert Companion spotlights a particular facet of Las Vegas, this special travel issue attempts to train the high-beams on everything else beyond Southern Nevada. And — at the risk of sounding like a brochure myself — while I hope this issue provides some good armchair vacation material, I can’t recommend enough taking such a trip yourself. You’ll not only have some great adventures in all that beautiful state that lies to our north, but it’ll also remind you that, as a Las Vegan, Andrew Kiraly you’re also a Nevadan. And, yeah, those editor mountains!

Follow Desert Companion www.facebook.com/DesertCompanion www.twitter.com/DesertCompanion

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May 2016

1

We begin with an update: In our August 2014 issue, local newsman George Knapp wrote about the 1981 murder of 18-year-old Jamey Walker, officially unsolved all these years. The case haunted Knapp — because the family had waited so long for resolution and because it was his first murder case.

Fast-forward to March 10, 2016. Former heavyweight boxer Willie “The Cannon” Shannon was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder. Knapp’s story had identified Shannon as the main suspect.

In May 1981, Walker, an honor student, cheerleader and community volunteer, was snatched from her home by Shannon and other unknown suspects. Calls to the Walker family demanded a cash ransom. Before the money could be raised, the kidnappers raped Jamey, then tossed her off of a bridge near Lake Mead. She died when her body smashed onto the desert some 50 feet below.

Knapp was working his first weekend for KLAS Channel 8 when her body was found. It was the first murder he ever covered, and over the next 30-plus years, he updated the story by interviewing a string of cold-case detectives who inherited the mystery. Jamey’s mother, Eleanor Walker, kept the story alive by engaging with detectives and with Knapp. Eleanor believed from the beginning that Willie Shannon was the likely culprit.

In 2010, because of advances in DNA technology, Metro detectives developed enough information to arrest Shannon, who was living in Florida. The case languished in the courts for five years; Shannon sought and received several delays. Eleanor Walker did not live to see the finale, but more than three dozen of her relatives and loved ones were in court for the

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letters@desertcompanion.vegas

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sentencing, as was Knapp.

Family members expressed dismay at the plea deal, which credited Shannon with time served, meaning he will serve a maximum of 10 years, and could be eligible for parole much sooner. Prosecutors explained that a trial would have been risky, Knapp tells us. Even though Shannon’s semen was found on Jamey’s underwear, the passage of nearly 35 years would have made it difficult to obtain a conviction for first-degree murder.

Although his criminal record is extensive, including a long stretch for the rape of another young woman two years after Jamey Walker was killed, Shannon’s lawyers described him as a family man and model prisoner, claiming that “all of the corrections officers just love him.”

Shannon had nothing to say in court and did not look at the Walker family as he was led away.

2

For April’s Open Topic, Launce Rake wrote a first-person piece about the trend of living alone. Some of the socialmedia discussion of the piece centered on the illustration, specifically on whether it depicted Launce — and more specifically on the triangular item the Launce figure is holding. “It’s an incense burner!” one said. “Gigantic spleef,” was another guess. “Paper airplane?” one person was overheard asking.

Please. Notwithstanding Launce’s own guess — “Pacific Northwest tree octopus” — it’s clearly a slice of pizza (see above), just what a person living alone might munch on while staring forlornly through the window in his underwear. Lord knows we’ve all been there.

four things we brought back from the road

Taffy from Barrels-OCandy in Virginia City!

Beer from Ruby Mountain and Tonopah brewing companies!

Plate from Planet X Pottery near Gerlach!

Novelty mustache from Virginia City!

Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 0 5

Feature

www.DesertCompanion.vegas

78 there *is* a

there out there!

Since travel broadens the mind, we set out to expand our knowledge of Nevada — by touring the state for eight days in an RV. Here’s what we learned.

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Christopher Smith

May 2016

Our family motto means without fear.

Welcome to the family.

TASTE RESPONSIBLY.

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May 2016

www.desertcompanion.vegas

Vo lU m e 1 4 I s s u e 0 5

23

40

departments All Things

40 Business

71 Dining

106 The Guide

23 voices Rural

Rural breweries fight for their right to party in Vegas

By Heidi Kyser

72 winnemucca

Oodles — yes, oodles! — of culture in May

Nevada speaks 26 zeit bites The year

the music died

Basque in tradition 73 road food! What we ate along the way

28 i, witness Rocking

48 Social Studies

76 fallon The return

the art world

Listening to the concerns of the state’s Native Americans

By Heidi Kyser

of a prodigal chef

30 object lesson A

man on the move 32 Open Topic

Something wicked this way comes — and it’s got a smile painted on its hideous face!

54 Environment Outside Tonopah, it’s big solar vs. the birds

By Andrew Kiraly 64 Society On the streets with a feral-cat rescue squad

By Dan Hernandez

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112 End note The wisdom of the road

By Andrew Kiraly & Heidi Kyser

on the cover Illustration Andi Meier, colagene.com

B a r i s ta , B r e w e r y a n d F o o d : C h r i s t o p h e r S m i t h ; C at v o lu n t e e r : B i l l H u g h e s

64

72

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p u b l i s h e D B y n e va d a p u b l i c r a d i o

Mission Statement Desert Companion is the premier city magazine that celebrates the pursuits, passions and aspirations of Southern Nevadans. With awardwinning lifestyle journalism and design, Desert Companion does more than inform and entertain.

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Publisher Melanie Cannon Associate Publisher Christine Kiely Editor Andrew Kiraly Art Director Christopher Smith deputy editor Scott Dickensheets senior designer Scott Lien staff writer Heidi Kyser Graphic Designer Brent Holmes Account executives Sharon Clifton, Parker McCoy, Favian Perez, Noelle Tokar, Markus Van’t Hul

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Contributing artists Gianfranco Gorgoni , Bill Hughes, Anthony Mair, Andi Meier, Chris Morris Editorial: Andrew Kiraly, (702) 259-7856; andrew@desertcompanion.vegas Fax: (702) 258-5646 Advertising: Christine Kiely (702) 259-7813; christine@desertcompanion.vegas

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Subscriptions: (702) 258-9895; subscriptions@desertcompanion.vegas Website: www.desertcompanion.vegas

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Desert Companion is published 12 times a year by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos, artwork and ad designs printed are the sole property of Desert Companion and may not be duplicated or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The views of Desert Companion contributing writers are not necessarily the views of Desert Companion or Nevada Public Radio. Contact Tammy Willis for back issues, which are available for purchase for $7.95.

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* Price varies depending on show, date and time and does not include tax and fees. Valid through May 31, 2016. Blackout dates apply. Valid on select seating areas and categories.

Cannot be combined with any other offer. Management reserves all rights. Subject to availability. Some restrictions apply. The offer for Criss Angel MINDFREAK® Live! and Zumanity * Price varies depending on show, date and time and does not include tax and fees. Valid through May 31, 2016. Blackout dates apply. Valid on select seating areas and categories. is buy one, get one for $29*. The offer for The Beatles LOVE and KÀ is buy one, get one for $39*. The offer for Mystère is 35% off; “O” and Michael Jackson ONE are 15% off tickets.

Cannot be combined with any other offer. Management reserves all rights. Subject to availability. Some restrictions apply. The offer for Criss Angel MINDFREAK® Live! and Zumanity is buy one, get one for $29*. The offer for The Beatles LOVE and KÀ is buy one, get one for $39*. The offer for Mystère is 35% off; “O” and Michael Jackson ONE are 15% off tickets.

Board of Directors Officers cynthia alexander, ESQ. chair Snell & Wilmer Jerry Nadal vice chair Cirque du Soleil TIM WONG treasurer Arcata Associates Florence M.E. Rogers secretary Nevada Public Radio

Directors kevin m. buckley First Real Estate Companies Dave Cabral emeritus Business Finance Corp.

Louis Castle emeritus Patrick N. Chapin, Esq. emeritus Richard I. dreitzer, Esq. Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, LLP Elizabeth FRETWELL emeritus City of Las Vegas bOB GLASER BNY Mellon don hamrick Chapman Las Vegas Dodge Chrysler Jeep Ram gavin isaacs Scientific Games Jan Jones Blackhurst Caesars Entertainment Corporation John R. Klai II Klai Juba Wald Architects Lamar Marchese president emeritus William mason Taylor International Corporation Chris Murray emeritus Avissa Corporation William J. “Bill” Noonan emeritus Boyd Gaming Corporation kathe nylen Anthony j. pearl, esq.

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05

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nevadans ne ar and far speak their minds

Can Andrew survive a night in Tonopah’s Clown Motel? page 32

Amy Smith of Virginia City

Locals speak “T other voices

Virginia City to Ely, Gerlach to Beatty, small-town Nevadans share a love of their places — and some concerns B y H e i d i K ys e r

he rurals.” It’s Greater Las Vegas shorthand for anything notcity. The places we pass through on the way to L.A., Reno, Salt Lake. On our Great Big Road Trip (see page 78), the Desert Companion RV crew didn’t spend as much time getting to know people in the towns we visited as we would have liked. But regardless of how long we stayed, in each town along the way we made a point of asking those we met about themselves.

Their responses both surprised us and confirmed some of our suspicions. Most had strong opinions about current affairs and the issues confronting their communities, but almost all said they wouldn’t live anywhere else.

The peace With a population of 2.9 million, or 25 people per square mile, Nevada ranks 42nd in the U.S. by population density, according to estimated 2015 census data. But take the 2.1 million people living in Clark County out of the equation, and that density dwindles drastically. Lincoln County, for instance, holds 0.5 people per square mile.

P h oto g r ap h y C h r i s to p h e r S m i t h

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23

ALL Things

other voices

That’s exactly what Sheila Mason likes about living in Alamo, a spread-out farming community in Lincoln County.

Sitting at the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge visitor center, where she volunteers on weekends, Mason described what appeals to her about the area: “The fact that we’re here in the middle of this lovely valley, and there’s nobody around us.”

People around the state gave variations of this answer when asked what they liked about living where they do.

“You go into Reno, and it’s, like, busybusy-busy-busy,” said Virginia City barista Amy Smith at the Roasting House coffee shop. But when she turns onto the road to Virginia Highlands and the home she and her husband recently bought, “It’s like your getaway, your retreat,” she says.

One benefit of isolation is that it makes

John Arant of Winnemucca

those few residents more reliant on one another. Transplants to rural Nevada told us they were drawn there by the closeness and friendliness of the people.

One example was Ken House, who invited us to the biscuits and gravy breakfast he and his wife, Kathleen House, cook at the Gabbs Senior Center every other Friday morning.

“Well, I couldn’t afford to live in the Bay Area, and I wanted to retire at 51,” House says. “I like the close-knit community. I’m actually elected onto our town advisory board.”

Bill Hally, a former California resident who’s lived in Ely since 2005, had a similar experience: “This is the smallest

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Tatsy Guild at Planet X outside Gerlach

town I’ve lived in,” he said. “It has a good community center, a lot of volunteer organizations. I was president of the Great Basin Service Club for a period of time, and we put on the Fourth of July fireworks, the parade, that kind of stuff. …”

Most of the people we spoke to said they enjoyed some form of recreation on nearby lands, from hunting and fishing to hiking and mountain biking. Jeanette Hink, a clerk at R-Place convenience store in Ely, lit up when we asked what she does in her spare time: “Oh, you go out in the hills and just have fun with nature! I like to walk around, go four-wheeling, going and looking for deer and antelope and elk — I don’t hunt, I just go looking.”

Based on 2011 and 2012 surveys, the Outdoor Industries Association found that 57 percent of Nevadans participate in outdoor recreation each year, and that’s not including hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing. The industry annually generates $15 billion in consumer spending, 148,000 direct jobs, $4.8 billion in wages and salaries and $1 billion in state and local taxes, according to the OIA. That economic boost is critical to many of the towns we visited, judging from some of the concerns their residents shared.

The struggle “The economy here,” Hally said, giving his No. 1 concern. “We have only one business in town, actually two. One is the mine, and the other is the Ely state prison that employs, I think, about 300 people.

The mine has 200 or 300. We have no heavy business here, none.”

Semiretired, Hally works part-time repairing inmate phones in prisons around the state. That puts him among the so-called under-employed not counted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics when calculating the unemployment rate, which is 7.1 percent in Nevada.

Most of the communities we visited were built on mining. Although the industry still thrives in some areas, it has faltered in others.

“It was a company town back then,” says Hazel Dunmar, describing the Gabbs of 1975, when she and her husband bought the local grocery store. The population was around 1,500, compared with fewer than 200 today. In the interim, the magnesium mine has gone through hard times. “The mine used to back us on stuff like that (the now-closed health care clinic),” Dunmar says. “It doesn’t anymore. That’s just the way it is.”

Some people, such as Winnemucca’s Hoby Studebaker and Vic Christison, blame the federal government for the faltering economy. A self-described libertarian, Studebaker said federal regulations are interfering with his ability to successfully run his small business.

He pointed to Obamacare.

“Well, where I’m at now, I’m under 50 employees, so I don’t have to provide health insurance,” he said. “They all want it, but I can’t afford it. And they can’t either. They can’t afford their own insurance, so they’re paying the penalties.”

Sitting next to Studebaker at the Martin Hotel bar on a Monday evening, Christison chimed in, “The BLM is so

oppressive right now, they’re ruining all the agriculture as far as the ranching industry in the state of Nevada.” Although he couldn’t give specific examples of offending regulations, he said he also feared that the region would lose what’s left of its gold-mining industry because the federal government is “just taxing us to death.”

Meanwhile, some Nevadans fear what would happen if the federal government lost control of the 84 percent of state land it manages. A proposal to transfer federal land to the state died in the 2015 Legislature, but the idea has been kept alive by supporters. This concerns Delaine Spilsbury, owner of Ms. Squaw Wholesale

end of last year,” Martin said. “There’s nothing. The only thing Tonopah has for medical services are the life flights, and they’ve been a great help to the whole community.”

John Arant, owner of the Martin Hotel restaurant in Winnemucca, voiced another health concern shared by a few others: a rise in drug use. “Part of any rural community on the interstate is drugs,” he said. “I mean, they just roll in here.”

Those we talked to were eager for Las Vegans to understand these challenges.

But they were far more eager for their urban counterparts to appreciate all the good their towns have to offer.

The good life

Rick and Delaine Spilsbury of McGill

and a tribal elder of the Ely Paiutes.

“It would only be state (property) for a short while until they sell it,” Spilsbury said. “I don’t think people realize that when that property becomes state property, it will be sold, and there will be no outdoor life. For anybody.”

And when it came to Nevada’s current iteration of the Sagebrush Rebellion, even libertarian Christison agreed that occupying a wildlife refuge and pointing guns at federal law enforcers isn’t the right way to get what you want. “I’m not a Cliven Bundy fan by any means,” he said. “I mean, I’m on the opposite side of that — but still, they (the feds) are wrong.”

As for more local issues, some, like Tonopah Historic Mining Park curator Jeff Martin, echoed the concerns of Dunmar and House in Gabbs, which lost its health clinic several years ago.

“Our biggest issue right now in Tonopah is, our hospital closed down

What would you like our readers to know about the place where you live?

“I guess how wonderful it is,” responded Tatsy Guild, caretaker of Planet X pottery studio and gallery, near Gerlach. Smiling broadly, Guild said, “I myself am not particularly drawn to big city life, nor the gambling or whatever, which is what Las Vegas is kind of known for. By reverse, I don’t know if people who are drawn to that would appreciate the resources here.” Guild captured the ambivalence inherent in many others’ answers. When people cherish what they have, they may fear losing it to those who don’t understand its value.

Rick Spilsbury, Delaine’s son, said, “I live in a beautiful place. … I find it to be a natural beauty that has been this way for the past 10,000 years for my ancestors, and I ... see that there are a lot of challenges to keep it that way”— for instance, plans to divert rural water to urban areas and to store toxic waste in remote areas.

By the same token, many wanted Las Vegans to experience the rest of the state. Hink, of Ely, invited everyone to get out and “enjoy the country life.” And Smith said of Virginia City, “If you love nature, this is the place.”

Whatever they might worry about, the love that the people we met have for their home showed. It showed in the most common refrain of all: “I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

Your smart wants to party.

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ALL Things

zeit bites

BULLETIN BOARD

Striking a sad note A new book looks at the history of Strip music and the 1989 strike that broke up the bands b y S c o tt D i c k e n s h e e t s

W

hen Janis McKay came to town 21 years ago and got a job playing bassoon behind Tony Bennett, the band’s older cats regaled her with stories about the grand old days of Strip entertainment. But those tales had a dour subtext: “I was always hearing, ‘You missed it,’” she says. “‘It’s all over.’”

Two things about this.

One: “These stories were not being preserved,” says McKay, a professor in UNLV’s music department. The daughter of a journalist, she knew what happens to uncaptured stories: They vanish. So she enlisted Dad to help interview musicians with the idea of compiling a book, sticking with the project after he died.

Two: What doomed those good old days was, mainly, a 1989

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE!

in what movie …?

In honor of Viva Las Vegas, which turns 52 this month, a quiz about Sin City cinema B y M i c h a l e T. T o o l e

1. In which Preston Sturgis comedy does this exchange happen?

Character A: “What’s in Las Vegas?”

Character B: “Everything; it’s an education.” a) The Mighty McGinty b) Sullivan’s Travels c) The Palm Beach Story 2. An early talkie reference to this city (“I’m from Las Vegas. I hear they finished the big dam — biggest in the world! And it’s making a lake 200 miles long!”) is uttered by Edward Brophy as he is led to the guillotine in this 1935 film … a) The Thin Man b) Safe in Hell c) Mad Love d) Little Caesar

strike by hotel musicians, during which casino corporations — eager to replace musicians (who are expensive) with recorded music (which isn’t) — outlasted the players and broke up the house bands. It was a drawn-out, acrimonious affair, front-page stuff thanks to the celebrities involved and the central role that showroom entertainment plays in the city’s swank image.

These rich veins of local history come together in McKay’s new book, Played Out on the Strip: The Rise and Fall of Las Vegas Casino Bands, from University of Nevada Press. Along with some surprising details — such as the existence of a Musicians’ Wives Club, which raised money for charity and sponsored jazz in the parks — her interviews and archive-foraging confirmed the wisdom of the old cats: Things were better back in the day.

“It’s clear we used to have a much richer cultural life than we did when I came here,” she says. Musicians drawn to the Strip’s steady checks formed jazz and chamber groups on the side, performing in community venues. As corporations took over casinos from individual operators and began bottom-lining such things as hotel orchestras — first they moved the players out of sight, under the stage or piped in from another room, then scrapped them after the strike — those cultural perks waned. “Things changed dramatically for the worse,” she says. “It was a really dark period after that.”

But she thinks something of a happy ending may yet be at hand. Thanks to Cirque shows, Smith Center productions and a few resort spectacles that embrace the aural intimacy of actual musicians, “there’s been something of a resurgence of live music,” she says. “I’m cautiously optimistic that things are getting better.”

3. Which two Hollywood starlets were major shareholders in the Huntridge Theater when it opened on October 10, 1944? a) Irene Dunne and Loretta Young b) Myrna Loy and Loretta Young c) Irene Dunne and Joan Crawford d) Jean Arthur and Myrna Loy 4. Which five casinos did The Rat Pack plan to heist in the 1960 classic Ocean’s Eleven?

5. What is Elvis’ occupation in Viva Las Vegas? a) Singer b) Casino mogul’s son c) Race car driver d) International gambler

THE BOTTOM LINE >> holidays we won't be celebrating this month: world goth day (May 22), star wars day (May 4), mother's day (may 8 — whoa, how'd that

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I L LU ST R AT I O N C h r i s M o r r i s

SENSE OF PLACE

home again

You can go back, but you can't go back all the way b y d a m o n h o d g e First of an occasional series in which local writers muse on meaningful locations in the valley. J&J Apartments and Woodhaven Homes, two neighborhoods nearly seven miles apart, continue to exert a gravitational pull on me. J&J, a low-slung, one-story complex at the southwest corner of Lake Mead Boulevard and H Street, is largely unchanged from my adolescent years there in the mid-1970s. I drive by several times a month, occasionally parking and walking through the complex, facetious explanation at the ready in case someone questions me.

The exercise jogs memories, good and bad: Hooping at Doolittle Park next door and trips down the street to Nucleus Plaza for clothes and knickknacks; men settling beefs with their fists and addicts stealing nearly every new television my mom bought. Though danger was palpable, I never felt fear. In 1984, we moved into a house in Woodhaven at Alexander Avenue and Lamb Boulevard, two miles west of Nellis Air Force Base. The brown two-story with a backyard might as well have been

P h o t o illust r ati o ns : B r e nt h o lm e s

a Summerlin mansion. But time has been less kind to the Wood’. Some homes are fraying. I visit monthly, parking across from my old house and reminiscing: the front-yard wrestling matches and backyard kissing sessions; touch football in the street and knocking on doors and running; my first fight (I won) and my second (chased by a bully I’d gotten the best of — so, a tie); afternoons secretly ogling boobs on The Benny Hill Show.

I linger longer on my Woodhaven visits, looking at families and wondering if the neighborhood still provides similarly rich life experiences. I love each place, but it took years of visits to drop the cultural-anthropologist/looky-loo shtick and see these timeworn and careworn neighborhoods for what they truly are: the foundation of my life and important parts of our communal fabric.

6. In Miss Congeniality 2 (2004), Sandra Bullock must save a pageant winner who is being held captive in … a) The ship on Treasure Island b) A boat in the Hoover Dam c) A closet in the Eiffel Tower in the Paris d) A utility area in Lake Bellagio 7. In Hey Boy, Hey Girl, this popular music duo performs a church benefit for a summer camp for underprivileged kids in Las Vegas … a) Paul and Paula b) Louis Prima and Keely Smith c) Peaches and Herb d) Etta James and Harvey Fuqua

8. The Mamie Van Doren cult classic in which she sings country music? a) Las Vegas Hillbillies b) Las Vegas Hillbillys 9. This indie flick was set in Las Vegas but shot in Reno … a) The Cooler b) Swingers c) Miss Congeniality 2

ANSWERS 1-b. 2-c. 3-a. 4-Sahara, Riviera, Desert Inn, Sands, the Flamingo. 5-c. 6-a. 7-b. 8-b. 9-a. get in here?), towel day (May 25), int'l tiara day (may 24 ... hmm, kinda rethinking this one ...)

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ALL Things

big picture

Process shot

Rocking the art world The Mountains, before the Magic

W

hat is art? Well, this, for starters. You mean this … oversize rock? Yes. Oh, perhaps not at this exact moment. Right now it’s just a boulder of local limestone, shaved flat by one of the world’s largest diamond saws and getting a little love from a workman. But scan the background. Those rock stacks?

They’re a glimpse of this boulder’s artistic future.

This is an in vitro look at Seven Magic Mountains, a project by acclaimed Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone: seven such boulder stacks, each 25-30 feet high, the rocks all fluorescing in garish colors. It will open May 11 in a patch of raw desert along the far southern reaches of Las Vegas Boulevard, out near Ivanpah Valley. (He chose the site in part for its proximity to the Jean dry lake bed, where artists Michael Heizer and Jean Tinquely created some noted work in the 1970s.) Sponsored by the Nevada Museum of Art, in Reno, and the Art Production Fund, it will be up for two years, and, it’s hoped, give Las Vegas a bit of traction in the worlds of land art and international cultural tourism.

So what’s going on here? Other than asserting that the project “elicits continuities and similarities between human and nature, artificial and natural, then and now,” Rondinone hasn’t said much. Still, you can grasp some of the resonant betweenness he means. The stacks loom monumentally, yet don’t look much steadier than a Jenga tower. They will gesture obviously to the stony, geological authenticity of the desert, but also to the transient flash of Las Vegas, and somewhat less obviously to the meditative rock totems piled by spiritual tourists at sacred sites. However resolutely they’ll seem rooted to this land, you know it required a years-long bureaucratic headache to park them here. (Surely an impressive feat of performance art itself.) If you want to tackle the question What is art?, this is a good place to begin. Now you can drive right up, snap a selfie, then get the conversation going. Scott Dickensheets

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P h oto g r ap h y G i anf r anco G o r g o n i

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ALL Things

object lesson

Wanderer

Rei Bollozos A man on the move offers travel tips — and a cautionary tale or two

By Christie Moeller

T

ravel aficionado Rei Bollozos has visited more than 40 countries on six continents — a weekend hop to Australia for a wedding isn’t out of the ordinary for this Las Vegas native. It’s safe to say he’s pretty much a #BOSS when it comes to booking trips.

So we sat down to talk abut his secrets to scoring a good deal, his favorite travel spots and his in-flight essentials.

What’s the best travel deal you ever scored?

A hotel in London was offering a promo to stay one night get the second night free. The room assigned to us was not ready so they offered to give us two rooms for the inconvenience. The hotel also comped a round of drinks, which was a nice gesture.

Name three in-flight necessities.

A good pair of earplugs or headphones to block out crying babies or a loud seatmate. A bottle of water to stay hydrated.

Enough music and movies loaded on your electronic devices to keep you occupied for the entire flight.

What’s the best time to shop for a fare?

Traveling on Tuesday or Wednesday is generally less expensive. But airlines can drop prices anytime, so try to check at least once a day to find the best fare.

Some say travel agencies are a thing of the past. Your thoughts?

I personally have never used one, but know people who have. If you book through a virtuoso travel agent, they have access to special rates for hotels that might include late checkout, upgrades to a nicer room, resort credits or even a free breakfast.

What websites do you use to book travel?

I’ve started using Fareness.com. It

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has a streamlined approach, and you can search your travel dates and it will compare prices across similar places of interest, like beaches or Europe.

Any tips on getting freebies/ upgrades/benefits?

Being nice goes a long way. Try to fly the same airline or stick with the same hotel brand to achieve elite status. Some co-branded airline and hotel credit cards offer you upgrades, including priority boarding, waived baggage fees and late checkout.

P h oto g r ap h y an t h o ny m a i r

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Tips for packing for an overseas trip?

Research the country you’re visiting ahead of time. Some cultures have different dress codes. You don’t want to show up in a foreign country and be the Ugly American.

Seven things he doesn’t l e av e h o m e without

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Is it possible to go on a trip for two weeks with just a carry-on?

Yes, checking a bag is such a waste of time, and I know my bag will be there when I arrive.

What is your top destination of places you have visited?

Going on a safari in South Africa.

There’s nothing like being 10 feet away from a pride of lions in the wild.

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4

What is your biggest travel fumble?

While in Bali, my driver recommended an overpriced restaurant that was two to three times more expensive than the neighboring ones. I later found out he was getting a cut of my bill.

6

What is the worst piece of advice you’ve been given on your travels?

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Everyone says to eat street food while in Thailand. I tried it for the first time in Bangkok and came down with some major food poisoning afterward.

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Craziest food you have eaten and where.

I sampled horse meat in Japan, but wouldn’t order it again. In South Korea, I bought a live octopus at a fish market and took it to a restaurant to prepare.

When it arrived at the table, the tentacles were still moving. It was excellent, even though it was a bit difficult to eat.

What is the next stop on your travel schedule?

Later this year, I’m going to India and plan to visit the Taj Mahal. I’ve never been and the country has so much to offer.

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A selfie stick, so you don’t have to ask people to take your picture. Kikkerland Design Folding Selfie Stick, $15, available at Nordstrom Fashion Show

2

An umbrella. Kipling Umbrella, $29, available at Kipling Fashion Show

3

I always have a dopp kit ready to go with my travel-size toiletries. Original Penguin Dopp Kit, $48, available at Original Penguin Fashion Show ADD Travel toiletries

4

A power bank for my phone. If you’re sightseeing all day, it makes it easy

to charge your phone on the go. BRAVEN BVR-Bank is the best of the best. It is water resistant, contains a battery size of 6000 mAh, and it’s the world’s first Bluetooth-enabled phone bank! It allows you to monitor and control remaining battery levels through an app.

BRAVEN BVR-Bank, $99, available at Braven.com

5

A mobile phone with an international data plan.

Sprint and T-Mobile have plans that offer it for free.

Always make sure you have this feature on your mobile phone before going out of the country! It will save you tons!

6

I walk a lot when I travel. A comfortable pair of kicks is essential. Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Andy Warhol Collection, $80-$85, available at Converse Retail locations and converse.com

7

I love the camera on my iPhone, but sometimes you need a digital camera. I’m obsessed with the new Canon EOS Rebel T6 DSLR camera.

It has built-in Wi-Fi for easy sharing to smart devices and social-media sites, so you can post your travel photos on the go. Canon EOS Rebel T6 DSLR Camera, $749, available at Best Buy

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ALL Things

open topic

discomfort zone

fear

The killer clowns of Tonopah Could I survive a night in their motel of terror? b y

I

a n d r e w k i r a ly

woke up dead in the Clown Motel. Not dead dead, or undead dead. I’m not writing this as a demonically zombified clown soldier, blood-caked mouth stretched into a poisoned wolf rictus, camera pulling back to show my filthy balloon suit, revealing another Clown Motel victim as the horror-movie credits scroll amid an ominous closing score. I’m just dead tired. You might say I spent the night at the Clown Motel. But you might more accurately say THE CLOWN MOTEL SPENT THE NIGHT IN ME. Let me back up. As part of Desert Companion’s Great Big Nevada Road Trip, I’d planned to spend my final night at Tonopah’s famous Clown Motel. For a couple reasons: One, like they do most people, clowns make my skin want to leap off my own skeleton and run away screaming. I wanted to face that skin-leaping fear and grow as a person.

But I was also on a Goonies-style vision quest to deposit at The Clown Motel a portentous item from my childhood, a wooden folk-art puzzle that depicted a clown’s cryptically smirking face. It had been in my family for years. Nobody knew where the puzzle-face came from, which obviously means it was a mystic talisman of a timeless, primal evil. My family had named the puzzle-face Clowny. When I was cleaning out my parents’ house last year, I had, omg, discovered Clowny in a closet,

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abiding in his ectoplasmic mist of ancient, unspeakable malignance. Long story short, when we were planning our Nevada trip, I realized that only by casting Clowny back into the swirling Stygian hell-portal of Tonopah’s Clown Motel could balance be restored to The Force or something.

My night at the Clown Motel would prove to be a cosmic battle between pure evil and my desire to sleep. Now, contrary to the expectation that the name Clown Motel conjures — that the rooms are shrines to clowns, or perhaps cross-dimensional pods to another phantasmic reality filled with clowns, each room stocked with clown figurines and paintings to act as triggers to open said otherworldly portal — the rooms, in fact, present themselves in the standard heartbreak of truck-stop town drear: stiff bedsheets, clompy brown ’70s carpet, the smell of sad. The front office of The Clown Motel, rather, is where you get a loading dose of coulrophobic terror, because it’s filled with clowns — figurines, portraits, puppets, statues, toys, marching straight past your most advanced psychological defense mechanisms and right through your pupils. Some of the clowns are smiling. Some are sad. Some look pensive.

Others quite unapologetically leer. But they all share that unmistakable, ineffable trait that makes clowns so creepy: The scandal, the trauma of artifice falling away to reveal, too late for you!, true intent, a carnivore springing on the naif. The paranoia of knowing it’s going to happen sooner or later. We’re all conspiracy theorists when it comes to clowns. We’ve trusted too much, and now we’re gonna get eaten by Bozo. Goddamn clowns.

With the front-office top-off of a black bilge of clown-fear sloshing

P h oto g r ap h y A nd r e w K i r aly

R S V P T O D AY !

D E S T I N AT I O N THRU

DAT E F R I D AY

JUL. 15

S AT U R D AY

THE NEIL SIMON FESTIVAL

JUL. 16

YOU WILL SEE FOUR PLAYS:

London Suite, The Lost Highway, Brighton Beach Memoirs and On Golden Pond

F R I D AY

JUL. 22

D E S T I N AT I O N THRU

D AT E S AT U R D AY

JUL. 23

UTAH SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

YOU WILL SEE FOUR PLAYS:

Cocoanuts, Three Musketeers, Henry V, Mary Poppins DAT E F R I D AY

D E S T I N AT I O N

SEP. 30

THRU

around your soul, what was formerly a sufferably despair-inducing motel room, with its peeling walls and water-stained ceiling, its stiff towels and slow-flushing toilet, its TV that I swear smells like Chinese food and its shower that runs too hot or too cold, its fussy Wi-Fi, the clompings and muted voices in the next room where they’re probably dismembering a corpse, the phlegmy cackles coming from the parking lot, the hard bed, the groan of semis passing by, dragging along this godforsaken starless, sleepless night, takes on a new shape. With those laughing clown eyes and murderous smiles rioting inside you, the fact that nothing is quite how you want it takes on a cast of sinister intent.

Everything at the Clown Motel is just slightly off. The reception is fuzzy, the water scalds or chills, the lamp flickers, there are little bits of garbage here and there from whoever stayed here the night before. And then, yes, the camera pulls back, and you’re laying in bed awake at 3 a.m., and the fruit-pattern sheets are in fact a clown suit, and your tired eyes are growing bags and dark circles, and your hands are turning into distorted repetitive motion claws from fruitlessly pushing the Wi-Fi connect button on your phone, and you realize: the clowns rushed inside you, but even worse, the real secret is that the room, the motel, the entire complex IS THE CLOWN. When I checked out Saturday morning, I explained to the office manager my Goonies vision quest, producing Clowny from my suitcase. She was delighted to accept Clowny as part of the Clown Motel family. I placed him in the arms of a life-size clown mannequin (see picture), where he seemed to nestle comfortably in his new unholy shrine to primeval malevolence. She said the owner would just love to get my address to send along little thank-you note.

The weird thing is that, as though in a trance — maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was some other force — I wrote down my real home address. And beneath the jangle of the office door, I swear I heard a murderous chuckle.

SUMMER 2016

S AT U R D AY

OCT. 01

UTAH SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

YOU WILL SEE THREE PLAYS:

Julius Caesar, Murder for Two, The Odd Couple

For more information or to reserve your seats, please visit knpr.org

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I hold water to a higher standard.

The Super-Hero Standard.

My name is Nicole, and my job at the Southern Nevada Water Authority is to make sure your water meets or surpasses all state and federal drinking-water standards.

At home, my job is to make sure my family gets plenty of clean, healthy water.

The SNWA has two advanced water treatment facilities and a cutting-edge water quality lab to ensure that your water is treated to strict safety standards. And that makes both of my jobs a lot easier.

We understand that some customers use additional water treatment systems at home and want to help you make informed decisions. If you have questions or would like objective information about supplemental water treatment systems, visit snwa.com or call 702-258-3930.

The SNWA is a not-for-profit water utility.

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on the ed ge of l a s vega s, a c i t y u nto i tsel f

The trails of The Arbors village

PLANNING MASTERY

City within the city With intimate village feel, parks and Red Rock Canyon next door, Summerlin and its environs are, for many, the ‘best place to live’ b y e l i s a b e t h d a n i e l s

C

onsidering its auspicious beginnings, it’s not surprising that Summerlin is one of the most sought-after residential communities in the Vegas Valley.

In 1952, aviation pioneer and billionaire movie mogul Howard Hughes purchased 25,000 acres on the western outskirts of Las Vegas and called it “Husite.” He had grand plans for the area, which included an aviation center. The mercurial Hughes didn’t follow through on those plans, leaving the acreage undeveloped. When he died in 1976, the vacant land was passed to his heirs. Instead of commercial enterprises, they envisioned a master-planned community on the site.

In 1988, Summa Corporation, forerunner of The Howard Hughes Corporation, announced plans for the community and it was renamed “Summerlin,” for Hughes’ paternal grandmother, Jean Amelia Summerlin.

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Before any work began, the BLM worked a deal with Summa to exchange 5,000 acres next to Red Rock Canyon for 3,000 acres to the south, thereby protecting the environmentally important wooded canyons and desert washes from development. Summerlin Parkway, a six-mile freeway, was built in 1989.

The “road to nowhere,” as the locals called it, connected the remote area with the rest of Las Vegas. In 1990, Red Rock Canyon became a National Conservation Area, and in 1991, the first family moved into Summerlin.

It’s easy to forget that Summerlin was ahead of its time, setting the standard for subsequent residential areas like Mountain’s Edge, Green Valley Ranch, Inspirada and Providence. Instead of adding parks and other amenities later, almost as an afterthought, green spaces were built into Summerlin’s design. It remains the largest of the valley’s master-planned communities, although its villages lend it a more intimate, neighborhood feel.

Today, its proximity to Red Rock draws mountain climbers, hikers and bicyclists.

Other residents find the lively, pedestrian-friendly ambiance appealing. With more than 150 parks, nine golf courses, 23 high-ranking public and private schools, the Summerlin Trail System and Downtown Summerlin, there are plenty of options for recreation, dining, shopping and employment nearby.

That’s probably why Summerlin was named one of Money magazine’s Best Places to Live in 2002 and 2014 — and why more than 100,000 Southern Nevadans call it home.

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Variety Pack

Homes for every lifestyle From upscale starter homes to luxe custom homes GREEN SPAC E The Pueblo, located west of Buffalo, south of Lake Mead and east of Rampart, is one of the original Summerlin developments.

Homes in this 68-acre village were built in the early ’90s, in a range from starter homes to larger, single-family homes. A 1,164-square-foot single-family home with three bedrooms and two baths in The Pueblo was

recently listed on Zillow for $204,999.

Pueblo Park, which takes up 62 of the village’s 68 acres, is a large part of this village’s appeal. Busy enough to feel safe, yet not too crowded, Pueblo Park offers striking views of the valley. Longer than it is wide, this linear park boasts large, grassy spaces, a well-maintained basketball court, two children’s play areas, a desert

The Pueblo

interpretive garden and an exercise station area.

Along with the 4-footwide jogging path, there’s an 8-foot-wide multiuse path, which is a favorite of walkers taking their dogs for a stroll.

With a park befitting the active lifestyle and rigorous HOA rules that keep the older homes looking remarkably good, The Pueblo remains an attractive choice for homebuyers.

hello, neighbor! Rock-climber Rob Jensen is putting his money where his hands go. Using profits from his luxury real-estate business, Rob Jensen Company, he is personally funding key rebolting efforts at climbing sites in Red Rock Canyon. Before the advent of bolt-protected climbing 20 years ago, scaling sheer rock faces was incredibly difficult. Anchoring permanent bolts into the rock at regular intervals made these surfaces scalable and led to the rise of sport climbing. Now Jensen is tackling the problem of Red Rock’s aging first-generation bolts. “The old steel bolts are getting to be 10, 15 to 20 years old and are starting to rust,” he says. “The gear that’s hanging on them is getting pretty ratty, as well.” Since rebolting is not as glamorous as putting up new climbing routes, it doesn’t get the same attention — and Jensen saw a way he could contribute. Along with providing supplies and equipment, he pays a climbing friend to replace the bolts. “He has the time and expertise,” Jensen says. For Jensen, who relocated from Southern California because of the year-round climbing here, investing in a project like this just makes sense. “It helps keep everyone protected, as well as boosting my own safety and convenience.”

jensen: Christopher smith; homes: courtesy summerlin

Making it home

The Ridges

C USTOM LU XU RY Built on 793 acres adjacent to the Spring Mountains, The Ridges is a guard-gated community of ultraluxurious custom and semicustom homes, many of which border the Jack Nicklaus-designed Bear’s Best Golf Course.

Because it’s set high up on the southwestern edge of Summerlin, the views of Las Vegas are some of the best in the valley. With resident-only amenities like Club Ridges (a fitness center with five lighted tennis courts, a tennis lounge, a resort pool and a heated lap pool), vibrant landscaping and

spectacular architecture, The Ridges is an exclusive oasis for the discerning homeowner. A 9,411-square-foot single-family home with five bedrooms and six bathrooms in The Ridges was recently listed on Zillow for $4,950,000.

RE TIREMEN T LIVING Retirees craving easy living and an endless array of things to do will find themselves at home in Sun City Summerlin.

Built in 1998, its reasonably priced homes, amenities and views of the mountains and the Strip continue to draw residents. The community offers

a variety of housing sizes. Smaller homes are less than 1,100 square feet, with two bedrooms and one bathroom.

Larger homes are more than 3,000 square feet and come with three bedrooms. Home styles include single-family, garden villas and patio homes.

With five pools (two of them indoor), a softball field, tennis courts, a racquetball court, bocce ball, shuffleboard, miniature golf and more than 80 resident-organized clubs, there is plenty to do. Meet new friends or catch up with longtime pals at one of the four social and

Sun City Summerlin

recreation facilities. Grab a bite at The Summit, Tavern at the Falls or Eagle Crest Snack Bar. Get out on the greens at one of three resident-owned golf courses, all of which were designed by PGA Hall-of-Famer Billy Casper and architect Greg Nash. Golf carts are permitted on all the roads within the community.

A 1,713-square-foot single-family home with two bedrooms and two bathrooms in Sun City Summerlin was recently listed on Zillow for $499,900.

In the Neighborhood

T

he Paseos is Summerlin’s westernmost village, and one of its most diverse. Some neighborhoods feature homes with rooftop decks. Others have covered patios, courtyards, casitas, wine cellars or home theaters. Most homes in the 768acre Paseos are Hacienda- or Mission-style.

Inspired by the architecture of the Spanish Catholic missions of the 18th century, these homes feature wood, iron, tile and pottery.

Floor plans range from 1,849 to 3,943 square feet on lots as big as 10,000 square feet. Design elements are also made to order, with options such as gourmet kitchens and multigenerational suites. A path meanders through the center of the village, linking the neighborhoods to parks and each other.

Santaluz is a gated neighborhood adjacent

to The Paseos Park. Its single-story homes come in Spanish Colonial, Mediterranean or Mission architecture styles. In the gated neighborhood of Andorra, choose from twocar garages in Castille at Andorra or three-bay tandem garages in Seville at Andorra.

The upscale Allegra is The Paseos’ newest neighborhood. Each home has 8-foot double doors, open floor plans, dry bars, miradors and loggias, walk-in pantries, and 6-foot bathtubs.

Like all the villages in Summerlin, ame-

nities in The Paseos harmonize with the active lifestyle. But The Paseos Park takes it up a notch. Along with the usual ball fields, walking paths and open grassy spaces, kids cool down at the massive splash pad or the covered playground. Meanwhile, their parents beat the heat in the shade of picnic pavilions. Neighborhoods are connected by a trail that winds through the village, and it’s only minutes to the 215 Beltway and Downtown Summerlin. Here, you can be bored only if you work at it.

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Making it home

Crown Jewels

Street smarts: West Charleston

For Summerlin and its environs, a place for offbeat popcorn, throwback food and sport When Las Vegas native Laurie Sabol couldn’t find a place in town to get gourmet popcorn, a kernel of an idea popped into her head. In 2009, she and co-owner Mark Smith opened the first Popcorn Girl in Summerlin (8550 W. Charleston Blvd., #109). Made fresh daily, there are more than 60 flavors to choose from.

Fans aren’t restricted to the usual butter- or cheese-flavored options.

Sabol’s passion for fun recipes has resulted in offbeat selections such as Banana Cream, Southwest Hot Wing and S’mores.

The adventurous customer can tailor her order by mixing and matching any of the flavors. The shop also sells homemade fudge, old-fashioned sweets and theater candy. Visit popcorngirlvegas.com.

In a town that’s constantly reinventing itself, there aren’t many restaurants that have been around for more than four

core value

decades, as has the Hush Puppy (7185 W. Charleston Blvd.). Opened by the Ghormley family in 1975, the Southern-style eatery serves a homemade seafood gumbo, frog legs, fried alligator and “some of the finest catfish west of the Mississippi.” Old-fashioned and homey, the Hush Puppy is a welcome alternative to the swanky dining Vegas is known for. Got room for dessert after a dinner of New Orleans fried oysters, collard greens and a corn cobbette? Try Sister Rosie’s homemade sweet potato pie, made with

Popcorn Girl

yams and real butter, or Georgia Pecan Pie made from scratch. thehushpuppy.com Just minutes from the peaks of Red Rock Canyon, Red Rock Climbing Center (8201 W. Charleston Blvd., #150) is a onestop shop for climbers.

Climbing gear is available to rent or buy. Add an energy snack or beverage to keep you fueled and hydrated. Indoor climbers will appreciate the 35-foot walls with 100-foot-long routes and 1,000 square feet of overhangs and roof routes, all of which adds up to more than 8,000 square feet of climbing surface. Climbing lessons and sessions with personal instructors boost your rock-craft skills. Hire a mountain guide to accompany you to Red Rock. Sign up for a bouldering competition, enroll your kids in a summer climbing camp or book a birthday party at the gym. redrockclimbingcenter.com.

Located just east of the 215 Beltway, Downtown Summerlin (1980 Festival Plaza Drive) is an open-air shopping, dining and entertainment venue. As the name indicates, it’s meant to serve as a kind of posh urban core, from Macy’s to Andiron Steak & Sea — with no urban grit to mar the fun.

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• Tivoli Village, on the corner of Rampart Boulevard and Alta Drive, is an outdoor enclave built to resemble a European hamlet. It combines urban walkability with old-world architecture and an exclusive mix of luxury retailers and one-of-a-kind boutiques. Feel free to bring your dog. Or stop into the upscale David Barton Gym for a sweat-inducing workout before grabbing a bite at one of the diverse restaurants.

• From serious cyclists to casual bikers, Summerlin has scenic bicycle routes to meet anyone’s needs. Beginners will appreciate the shaded bike lane that runs west along Alta Drive. The more hardcore can ride the popular 13-mile Red Rock Scenic Loop. The first five miles of the route climb 1,000 feet to the High Point Overlook. If you’re new to cycling, check out the group rides at McGhie’s (4035 S. Fort Apache Road, 702-2528077) and Las Vegas Cyclery (8221 W. Charleston Blvd., 702-596-2953).

• Once the blistering heat of summer gives way to the more pleasant temperatures of fall, Southern Nevadans look forward to the Summerlin Festival of Arts. The free, two-day event takes place in early October and showcases paintings, pottery, jewelry, sculptures and mixed media. With live music, cooking demonstrations, food and drink available for purchase, and activities for kids, it’s easy to spend a whole day there.

P o p co r n G i r l , R e d Ro c k C l i m b i n g c e n t e r , a n d T i vo l i V i l l ag e : B r e n t h o l m e s ; A n g e l Pa r k g o l f C lu b Co u rt e sy o f a n g e l Pa r k G o l f C lu b

Indoors and out

Red Rock Climbing Center

Making the Grade Area schools of special note The Alexander Dawson School (10845 W. Desert Inn Road, 702-949-3600) is an independent, nonprofit school, serving preschool through eighth-grade students. On the guard-gated, 35acre campus, core academics are supplemented with classes in Spanish, Mandarin and French. An emphasis on technology is supported by 350 student computers.

Student-to-teacher ratio: 6:1 Average class size: 18 students Percentage of faculty with advanced degrees: 66 Sports offered: 9

Angel Park Golf Club

Get Out (or play in)

It’s not easy to be a couch potato here

S

ummerlin caters to those seeking an active lifestyle. Besides the 150-plus parks within its borders, it’s close to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. The vibrant sandstone formations provide countless places to hike, bike and rock-climb, as well as see such wildlife as desert bighorn sheep, burros, mule deer and gray foxes.

Top-rated golf courses abound in Las Vegas. But top-rated doesn’t always equate to a top-notch experience. Some of those award-winning courses come with inflated fees, long waiting lists and attitude. Angel Park (100 S. Rampart Blvd., 702-254-4653) is not one of those. The 36-hole course was designed by pro golfer Arnold Palmer. Stunning views and an easygoing vibe have made it a popular spot to hit the greens. In the heat of summer, try Angel Park’s Cloud Nine Short Course or its putting course, both of which are lit for cooler night play.

The Summerlin Half Marathon is an annual favorite of runners and outdoor enthusiasts. The 13.1-mile jaunt winds through the community’s charming neighborhoods. With a mix of elevations, participants tackle a variety of terrain — lush parks, tunnels, and paths lined with desert landscaping. And the panoramic views of Red Rock and the Strip provide a perfect excuse to take a break and snap a photo.

Amenities & Attractions The young and the young-atheart can paint their own ceramics at Color Me Mine (Village Square, 9350 W. Sahara Ave., 702-

522-7119). Walk-ins are welcome, and there’s a studio available for workshops and parties.

Monthly events include Family Friday — for $20, a family of four shares pizza, trivia games and painting. For adults only, BYOB Fri-

days include live music, and guests can bring their own beverage.

Award-winning Centennial Hills Park (7101 N. Buffalo Drive) looks like it was created by kids for kids.

Giant yellow flowers provide shade, and red

Founded by Mayor Carolyn Goodman in 1984, the Meadows School (8601 Scholar Lane, 702254-1610) is a private, nonprofit college-preparatory school serving preschool through 12th-grade students. Advocates say its small class sizes help maintain high academic standards. Classes on the 40-acre campus include 26 advanced-placement courses.

Student-to-teacher ratio: 9:1 Average class size: 11 students Average SAT Score: 1920 Percentage of faculty with advanced degrees: 72 Sports offered: 13 Merryhill Elementary (5055 S. Durango Drive, 702-889-2803) serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade. Merryhill distinguishes itself from similar schools with project-based learning centered on environmental studies, global awareness, systems and leadership skills.

Student-to-teacher ratio: 10:1 Average class size: 15 Students After-school programs: 20 Percentage of students who have a Personal Learning Plan: 100

toadstools replace conventional picnic tables.

Let Fido romp in one of the two fenced-in dog runs. A fossil wall and giant steel sculptures of primeval animals, representing the creatures that once roamed the

area, bring prehistory to life. A 3,500-seat grass amphitheater is used for films and plays.

Operated by the Summerlin Council, the Willows Community Center and Pool (2775 Desert Marigold Lane)

offers programs and classes for the exclusive use of the residents.

Classes run the gamut from the fundamentals of knitting to the basics of tai chi. The park is known for its four whimsical sculptures based on Aesop’s Fables.

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Business

Starts and crafts From a 20-year brewer outside Elko to a fledgling brew pub in Virginia City, Nevada has its share of the micro-beer market B y H e i d i K ys e r CLOVER VALLEY, Nevada

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tanding in his backyard, Steve Safford points out a slope on the eastern face of Chimney Rock and says that in a white winter like this past one, he can catch a snow-machine ride with a family member to the top, get dropped off and ski down. The East Humboldt range of Nevada’s Ruby Mountains is that close to Angel Creek, Safford’s ranch. There will be no skiing today, though. It’s late March, and a couple dogs and grandchildren romp around the place without

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Liquid gold: Ruby Mountain Brewing their winter coats Company’s Steve on. Fat cows chew Safford, his early spring grass brewing room, in the fields off and a few of his County Road 232 popular beers. between the 93 and the ranch. It’s time to bottle some beer, before the hay is ready to be cut.

Bales, beef and beer. That’s the unofficial motto of Safford’s collective businesses: high-quality horse-hay cultivation, Black Angus cattle-raising and craft-beer brewing. Safford says he started Ruby Mountain Brewing Company to diversify his agricultural business. At a time when U.S. microbreweries are opening at the rate of two a day, it’s an anomaly; Safford has been making his own beer since the ’70s and selling it since the ’90s — way before craft beer was cool.

But Nevada is getting its share of new action from the hot micro-beer market as well, according to Bart Watson, chief economist for the Boulder, Coloradobased Brewers Association. His research shows there are 33 craft breweries operating here right now, and another 18 in the planning stages.

“In 2015, you had 1.7 breweries for every 100,000 adults age 21-plus,” Watson says.

“That ranks 30th in the country per capita.

So you’re pretty middle of the pack.”

Most of the state’s breweries are clustered around the northern and southern metropolitan areas. But rural Nevada has a few, too. Besides Ruby Mountain, there’s the 2-year-old Tonopah Brewing Company and the 1-year-old Virginia City Brewery and Taphouse. Between them, they represent the three major business models of craft brewers: distribution, taproom and gastropub. But despite their different operations, they have at least one thing in common: difficulty penetrating the lucrative Las Vegas Strip.

“Vegas is a tough market for smaller distributors, which is generally who smaller breweries are associated with,” says Richard Weathers, food and beverage director for Tonopah Brewing Company. “Finding a distributor to take beer to other areas in the state with lower populations is also a difficult task.”

In other words, depending on where you live, if you want to buy their beer, you may have to go to them. Either that, or the state laws will have to change. And some up-and-comers say that’s what they’re pulling for.

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Business Ruby Mountain Brewing Company

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afford’s beer education actually started in his youth: His father’s Air Force service took the family to Europe, where there’s no drinking age. Returning to the U.S. for college, Safford was shocked to find he couldn’t buy beer. So he started making his own. An agriculture degree in crop science from California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo led Safford to Angel Creek ranch, which he eventually bought from its retiring owner.

But he never stopped making beer, and in 1995, he and his wife, Maggie Safford, brewed their first commercial batch, Ruby Mountain’s Angel Creek Amber Ale. Nearly 20 years later, they still brew and bottle Ruby Mountain beer in their 1,800-square-foot backyard warehouse.

The small family affair succeeded almost immediately. Just one year after that first batch, the amber ale took a silver medal in the largest category of the Great American Beer Festival in Denver. The following year, it won a bronze.

“It’s still our flagship beer,” Steve Safford says.

Besides the amber ale, Ruby Mountain offers a Wild West Hefeweizen, Bristlecone Brown Porter and ViennaStyle Lager — all multiple awardwinners — as well as Buckaroo Pale Ale, brewed originally for the Vat a country: National Cowboy Poetry Tonopah BrewGathering in nearby Elko, ing Company’s and a draft-only IPA called beer sampler Elevation. Safford’s beers and brewing are all clean and smooth, a tanks.

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characteristic he attributes to their base: fresh mountain water pumped from a well on site.

Safford has no taproom or restaurant; his beers are for sale primarily in bottles, kegs and party pigs. They have a loyal following in Northern Nevada and Southern Idaho, where Safford says he distributes 700 barrels a year. He’s been in and out of Las Vegas, but eventually gave up on the southern market.

“We used to sell quite a bit of beer there,” he says. “But it was difficult to get a foothold there.”

Over 20 years, Safford has weathered a lot of changes in the beer market.

Nearing retirement age, he says he still enjoys it but doesn’t need two jobs anymore.

“It’s hard to be a local beer,” he says.

“And these days, being local is everything.”

Tonopah Brewing Company

O

n the other end of the spectrum from Ruby Mountain Brewing Company — as far as business models go — is Tonopah Brewing Company, three hours northwest of Las Vegas. Besides a 5,000-square-foot microbrewery that produces 800 barrels a year, the operation includes distribution to Reno and Las Vegas, and a gastropub that specializes in classic barbecue: original sauces, sandwiches and plates piled with brisket, smoked turkey, chicken or ribs.

That last part is Richard Weathers’ doing. In his pre-Tonopah life, Weathers and his wife ran a barbecue, steak and seafood restaurant in Panama City Beach,

Florida. Fred and Nancy Cline, owners of the Mizpah Hotel, hired Weathers as food and beverage director and executive chef for the hotel, which they’d bought and restored in 2011. Three years later, they opened the doors of Tonopah Brewing, with Weathers helming the kitchen. About a year later, he took over as brewmaster as well.

Passing through the double doors between the brew pub and microbrewery, Weathers is greeted by two huge, round copper tanks mounted on a platform above a maze of tubes and gauges. They look like steampunk sentries guarding 10 more-modern-looking 310-gallon stainless tanks arrayed around the warehouse.

“Okay, we’re looking at a Beraplan brewhouse,” Weathers says. “It was built in Bavaria in 1994.”

Though the custom craft-brewing system is a point of pride for Weathers, it has also given him some headaches.

“Next week, we’ll have a German electrician here rewiring our control panels, so we won’t have to run up and down the platform to turn off the pneumatic filters,” he says. At the opposite end of the warehouse, he points out the 20-year-old Italian system he and an assistant use to hand-bottle Tonopah Brewing Company’s beers. After multiple repairmen failed to correct its glitches, Weathers says, “We literally tore it completely down, replaced all the O-rings and valves, and put it back together.” It works now — “most of the time,” Weathers says with a laugh.

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He clearly enjoys the challenges and rewards of beermaking, which he compares to the chemistry, flavor-blending and trialand-error of cooking. Tonopah Brewing offers eight branded beers, from a citrusy pilsner to a stout aged in bourbon barrels, along with three seasonal flavors. The most popular, according to Weathers, is the Mucker Irish Red Ale. “All our beers are balanced,” he says, “even the double IPA, which is a traditional English IPA, not Western American.”

Running a bar-restaurant wouldn’t be much different than running a restaurant, Weathers adds, if it weren’t for the beer distribution.

“The only thing that is hard for me to accept is the three-tier system,” he says. He’s referring to a state law that mandates the beer go from brewers to distributors to retailers. “This means I cannot distribute the beer myself in Nevada and can’t ship beer to anyone, even if they purchase it and want it mailed to their house.” He’s not the only craft brewer who thinks this setup hampers their growth. And some say it’s time to get it changed.

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evada is growing as a beer scene,” says Adam Lundy, brewmaster and part owner of Virginia City Brewery and Taphouse. “Both Northern and Southern Nevada have great craft beer. The Nevada Craft Brewers Association gets us together once a year, and there’s a lot of

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The advocacy page of the association’s website decries the state’s laws as outdated: “Nevada has some of the most restrictive rules for manufacturers of alcoholic beverages that put Nevada alcoholic beverage manufacturers at a disadvantage to those in surrounding states.”

Lundy has no complaints about Virginia City Brewery’s distributor, which he says has gotten his beers on 46 tap handles around the state, mainly in Reno. But when he was recently approached by someone who’d tried his beer and expressed interest in getting it in Las Vegas, he balked. Experiences like those of Steve Safford and Richard

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Business Weathers — who say the Strip, where the real money can be made, is inaccessible to all but a few large, high-priced distributors — are well-known in the brewing community.

At the same time, Lundy says, his product’s potential in larger markets is tantalizing. The Virginia City taproom has only been open a year, and he’s currently making 15 barrels a week, the equivalent of 780 a year. That all goes into taps, including Virginia City’s own. No bottles.

The company represents the traditional taphouse model, with a functioning brewing system on site.

Unlike some microbreweries, Virginia City doesn’t keep its tanks and hoses behind glass; they occupy their own corner of the bar. Although the arrangement imbues the joint with an air of authenticity, Lundy says the cramped quarters in the middle of the city’s historic C Street make his job hectic.

Code requires him to be done brewing by noon, when the bar opens, so that customers can get to the bathrooms.

“We’ve talked about, and I’m pushing for, a production brewery,” he says.

“When you have finite space, you can only make so much beer. … You have a hard time keeping up with demand.”

Lundy believes his beer is popular because he tries to offer something for everyone­ — IPA, honey pale ale, wheat, red, porter, stout. All are given names with flashes of local color, such as the C Street Wheat and Marlette Red, named after the Northern Nevada lake whose water goes into the beer.

Lundy started dabbling in beer at UNR, when his then girlfriend (now wife) gave him his first set of home-brewing ingredients. Since adolescence, Lundy has collected six packs, carefully cutting out the main panels to mount on his walls.

Variety being part of the goal, he figures

he’s tasted hundreds, if not thousands, of beers. Recognizing his passion, and with his girlfriend’s support, he decided to forgo the unpleasant prospect of an office job after college and started making beer in his backyard. Persistence eventually paid off, and he landed jobs at Reno’s Buckbean Brewing Co. and then Great Basin Brewing Co., where he says three years of brewing taught him how to make great-tasting beer in the traditional American style. Typical of his generation, his own style is more West Coast-influenced: hoppy, malt-forward flavors, “but not overpowering,” he says.

“I’m really happy with how it’s going,” Lundy says. “Everyone seems to reorder, and I get very little negative feedback. I’m happy we’re running out of beer, but I’m also fretting that I’ll let someone down.”

Plenty of beer for everyone who wants it? It’s hard to imagine anyone objecting to that.

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Social Studies Thunder Mountain Monument outside Imlay, Nevada, is more than the maudlin work of an obsessed man.

Reminders of the price paid A visit to three Native American sites brings the injustices of the past alive in the present B y H e i d i K ys e r Imlay, Nevada

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red Lewis cradles his Yorkie, Oscar, and rocks reflexively in an upholstered recliner near the front window of the mobile home from which he oversees Thunder Mountain Monument. A hearing aid is visible under the stem of thick glasses burrowing into his wiry gray hair, and he speaks deliberately, like someone repeating a story told many times.

“When I moved out here, and I actually saw everything that Thunder did, and I went around doing light maintenance on it, I was very impressed,” he says. “I was impressed with his beliefs, what he thought and believed. … Thunder was very eccentric. He was a little bit on the crazy side, I would say. Very different. His philosophy was very different from a lot of people’s.”

Lewis is putting it mildly. Take the name, Thunder. The World War II veteran born Frank Van Zant dubbed himself Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder in 1968, not long after his truck broke down, stranding him, his wife and their children

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at this spot just off the shoulder of Interstate 80 in Northern Nevada. As Lewis tells it, the family squatted on the property, whose owner had a cabin in nearby Sacred Canyon, while Van Zant tried to fix the truck. Every time he’d hitch up the trailer, the truck would crap out again. But if he just needed to go to Reno for parts, it started up fine. Van Zant believed this was a message from the spirits to stay put and build a monument to North American Indians, a project he’d been dreaming of and trying unsuccessfully to launch in his home state, California, for years. Coincidentally, the property owner was amenable to a land-lease deal. Van Zant became Thunder and got to work.

Further evidence of his eccentricity is the monument itself, a collection of structures improvised from discarded objects — bottles, cookware, children’s toys, typewriters, wagon wheels, all from within 50 miles of the place — embedded in walls of cement and stone. These are covered in more than 200 sculptures, statues and murals, mainly of Native American figures, and makeshift plaques engraved with cryptic aphorisms and epitaphs (“Warrior Pat Kirby 25 Years Now Into The Thunder So That Others May Know The Idea of

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Social Studies

Chief Thunder built walls out of white man’s refuse to make a statement about native, as opposed to colonial, ethics when it comes to issues such as conservation and waste.

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crumbling detritus of Thunder’s vision on artistic expeditions are embracing their own kind of condescension.

And yet, Thunder had a point: In the faded, rain-spotted literature tacked to the walls of the visitors center, Dan Van Zant wrote that his father “built Thunder Mountain Monument as a testimony to the suffering and the plight of the American Indian ... both endured at the hands of the white invaders. (Note my emphasis on invader and not settler.) It is a reminder to all who visit of the price paid by a race of people who were marked for genocide in the name of ‘Manifest Destiny.’”

Seen through the lens of this bitter truth, the monument looks different.

The scale of the outward-facing exhibit, with its spire of bones reaching skyward, is meant to stop traffic and draw people in to read its message up-close.

Thunder fashioned walls of white men’s refuse to make a statement about native, as opposed to colonial, ethics concerning resources, conservation and waste.

The statues, such as the pair depicting a white soldier shooting an unarmed Indian woman, convey real loss and suffering.

And no matter how much the modern traveler may ignore them, historical sites of this loss and suffering are all around him, particularly in the American West.

One need only drive a couple hours in either direction from Thunder Mountain to visit places where the spirits that haunted Thunder still linger, and where the natives still see their land and resources as threatened by outsiders today.

The Shoshone Cedars

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s Highway 50 descends from the Schell Creek mountain range into Spring Valley, less than an hour southeast of Ely, it passes a white wind

farm on the left. Just beyond that, at the foot of the Snake Range, is a stand of trees. Someone who’s not looking for it, specifically, might not notice that these trees are taller and more jade-colored than their surroundings. Once pointed out, though, the grove of 20- and 30-foot evergreens seems obvious.

It’s known to scientists as “the swamp cedars,” a globally unique occurrence of what are actually Rocky Mountain junipers at such low altitude, according to CSN biology Professor David Charlet.

In his 2006 report, “Effects of Interbasin Water Transport on Ecosystems of Spring Valley,” Charlet writes, “The swamp cedar stands are fascinating for several reasons. First, they are the only native arboreal feature in the valley, providing valuable structural complexity for native wildlife otherwise unknown in the valley.” He goes on to explain how they got there: pushed down from the mountains by glaciers during the Pleistocene Epoch. A high water table and natural springs allowed them to survive the area’s hot summers.

For generations, Western Shoshone and Goshute Indians gathered at this desert oasis several times a year to har-

s h o s h o n e c e d a r s : h e i d i k y s e r ; d o r ot h y s ta r k : c o u r t e s y r i c k s p i l s b u r y

Freedom Gave His Life 1975”). A 1983 fire destroyed six of the buildings, including a hostel and Indian school, leaving only the main house, where Thunder and his family lived, a round house and chicken house. Although Thunder had help building the monument from his family and visitors who wandered through over the years, he was the driving artistic force. It so obsessed him, Lewis says, that he’d get up and work on it in the twilight, while his family slept.

Then, there’s the legend: Thunder clashing with hippies, who were drawn to the place in the ’70s, for breaking his “no drugs” and “no sex in the open” rules; Thunder sending his oldest daughter, Obsidian, into the hills for a year with only a gun and the clothes on her back as a rite of passage into adulthood; and a destitute Thunder killing himself in 1986, after writing a suicide note bequeathing the monument to his son (and childhood friend of Lewis), Dan Van Zant.

Yes, Thunder Mountain would be easy to dismiss as the maudlin frenzy of a charlatan. Many of the locals did, questioning whether its maker was actually part Creek Indian, as he claimed. Even the thousands of folk art gawkers and photographers who have conquered the

Dorothy Stark (below) was the mother of Ely Shoshone elder Delaine Spilsbury (left) and daughter of Mamie Swallow Joseph, who escaped a massacre at Shoshone Cedars near Ely.

vest medicinal plants, hunt game, socialize and participate in ceremonies. Recognizing the grove as a precious source of Earth’s bounty, they had a deep sacred attachment to it — and then, that meaning was tainted by violent contact with white men.

Delaine Spilsbury, an elder of the Ely Shoshone tribe, is descended from a survivor of this contact, her grandmother Mamie Swallow Joseph. Standing in the grove on a windy March afternoon, Spilsbury, who owns a jewelry and crafts wholesale company in McGill, remembers the story of one massacre: “There was a unit of the cavalry that was sent from Fort Ruby, and they came down the mountains on the other side of Schell Creek. They came across where the gap is by Cleve Creek and up the valley. And at the mouth of the valley, there were some Shoshone people who were camped there. The military waited until after night, and when (the Shoshones) went to sleep, they came in and just killed the entire camp.”

Spilsbury says that, other times, white soldiers mistook peaceful gatherings at what her people call the Shoshone Cedars for war parties and attacked. At least two such incidents are documented. Mamie Swallow Joseph’s daughter, Lillian Stark, recounted the 1897 massacre she escaped from for Russell Robison’s 2006 book, Our Swallow Heritage Volume III: The History of George Swallow’s Daughters. And the Gosh-Ute war of 1863, as told in the History of Nevada, published by Thompson & West in 1881, includes this episode: Here (Company K) surprised another Indian camp in a cedar swamp, south of the present Cleveland ranch. The cavalry charged down upon the hostile band, but were brought to a halt by the swampy character of the ground. Many horses were mired, but some floundered through, and the consequent confusion, with temporary delay, enabled most of the Indians to escape. Twenty-three were found dead after the short, sharp conflict which ensued. The casualty to the whites was a soldier wounded and one horse disabled.

From the scene of the last encounter the command returned to Fort Ruby, where it arrived May 10th, with the report that

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51

Social Studies

The Great Basin Shoshone and Goshute people believe that the spirits of their ancestors live in the juniper trees under which they died. Occasionally, they’ll still come out to gather herbs or perform ceremonies here. Delaine Spilsbury’s son Rick Spilsbury says he likes to bring visitors to the site to show them how special it is.

And they worry that the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s drought-backup plan to pump groundwater from Spring Valley (along with several other valleys in Eastern Nevada) and pipe it south to Las Vegas would kill the swamp cedars.

It’s one reason the tribes oppose the project and have joined various legal actions to block it, so far prevailing in court. SNWA’s enthusiasm for the project has waned, and the agency has said all along that danger signs turned up in regular environmental reviews would halt any detrimental activity. But opponents believe it’s far from dead.

“If you include the financing costs, this pipeline and the system of collector pipes and wells would cost something on the order of $15 billion,” says Dan Mc-

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Cool, a University of Utah political science professor whose specialty is water law. “How will they make the payments on that? They have to do it on continuous new hookups. In other words, Las Vegas has to continue growing. … The idea that they’re going to invest $15 billion, create an enormous economic liability, and then abandon the entire thing because of environmental or cultural or historical issues, is out of the question.”

Delaine Spilsbury shares this view.

Looking down at the ground beneath her feet, she imagines the water flowing just below the surface, feeding the Shoshone Cedars. “If they take the water, the trees will die,” she says, her voice cracking with emotion. “The spirits will have nowhere to go.”

Pyramid Lake

F

ive hours west of Ely, the Pyramid Lake Paiutes are worried about water, too ­— less so now than 16 years ago, when the Truckee–Carson-Pyramid Lake Water Settlement Act became law, settling an age-old conflict over the Truckee River, which feeds the lake, and giving them an economic development fund of $40 million. But they’re still worried.

“The level of the water in the lake is very concerning, because, basically, Pyr-

amid Lake is our identity, being the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe,” says Billie Jean Guerrero, sitting in a back room of the Pyramid Lake Museum and Cultural Center, which she directs, surrounded by archival documents and maps. “So, if we no longer have a lake, it also influences our cultural identity and who we are as a people.”

That identity is not reflected in the pyramid-shaped rock rising from the lake, which inspired explorer John C. Fremont to give it its English name in 1844. Rather, it’s best understood from a nearby rock formation that resembles a woman sitting in the water. Known to Pyramid Lake Paiutes as the “stone mother,” this formation represents a mythological progenitor who is said to have sat looking in the direction of her two banished children, weeping so much that a body of water formed around her, and pining so long that she turned to stone. The children who were sent away, the myth goes, became the Pitt-River Tribe. Those who remained became the Paiutes.

The contrast between what white men and Native Americans see in the lake defines its, and the tribe’s, last 170 years of history. In his writings, Fremont described the Paiutes as peaceful people, and yet 16 years after his arrival, they were engaged in war with the white

pyramid lake courtesy unr special collections

through its efforts fifty-two Gosh-Utes had been permanently converted to a peace policy.

The Pyramid Lake Paiutes have a sacred relationship with the water and its bounty.

Getting one of its fish species protected has helped the tribe in its conservation efforts.

miners and pioneers who were squatting on land designated as theirs by the federal government’s establishment of a reservation in 1859. The Paiutes eventually lost the war, but not before killing more white men than had died in a Native American-White confrontation for nearly seven decades. The U.S. was put on notice: These people are fighters.

They’re also patient. For nearly a century after the war, the tribe watched their 112,000-acre lake suffer a series of abuses at the hands of usurpers.

“The contention for water began as soon as people came in and wanted to use it,” says Bernard Mergen, an American Studies professor emeritus at George Washington University who wrote the 2014 book, At Pyramid Lake.

“In order to build the mines for Virginia City, they cut down a lot of the timber around Carson City, and that sawdust and erosion made its way downstream.”

But the greatest harm to the lake, Mergen says, came from government reclamation projects, notably the 1905 construction of Derby Dam and diversion of Truckee River water to farmland in Fallon.

The Paiutes’ strongest connection to Pyramid Lake also turned out to be their best weapon for protecting it. The abundant fish, specifically Lahontan cutthroat trout (Nevada’s state fish) and cui-ui, on which the Paiutes depended for subsistence, have also attracted droves of outside anglers. The stanched flow of the Truckee and the lake’s subsequent drop in level interfered with the fish’s ability to spawn, drastically decreasing populations. The Paiutes took advantage of rising environmental awareness in the 1960s to get the cui-ui listed as one of the country’s first endangered species.

It was the beginning of a fight to get water put back into Pyramid Lake, a long

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“The incredible thing about the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe is that they’ve never had a large number of members,” Mergen says (the tribe’s website currently says it has 2,275). “They’ve had to deal with all these opponents, and they’ve come out on top.”

But drought and climate change continue to threaten the lake, and, Guerrero says the tribe is ever-wary of commercial incursion into its natural resource.

“Our tribal elders fought very much so that our lake water could be maintained,” she says. “To us, water represents life. Water is sacred.”

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Environment

A new solar plant outside Tonopah is sparking a debate about the relationship of big renewable energy projects to the environment B y A n d r e w K i r a ly Tonopah, Nevada

I

t’s so bright it’s hard to look at. But it’s also very hard not to look at. On a sunny, breezy Friday afternoon, the Crescent Dunes solar thermal plant is at full thrum, the receiver on its signature tower glowing a surreal, angelic, otherworldly white.

“It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it?” says plant manager Brian Painter, peering up at the 640-foot tower. “In a lot of ways, 80 percent of this is a conventional energy plant. But it’s the 20 percent that makes all the difference.”

The 20 percent he’s referring to is that unearthly glowing tower. But it’s actu-

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ally quite earthly, in a very literal sense.

Heated by sunlight reflected by more than 10,000 mirrors, the receiver contains molten salt, which flows down the concrete tower and through a process that creates steam that drives a turbine that generates energy. About 10 miles outside sleepy Tonopah, SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes power plant represents the latest and greatest in renewable energy technology. The 110-megawatt plant swung into full operation in November 2015; it powers 75,000 homes without any carbon emissions, preventing 279,000 metric tons of CO2 annually from polluting the atmosphere. The mol-

ten salt is nontoxic and is expected to last for the plant’s anticipated life span of 30 years.

Its exotic footprint on the landscape — the gleaming mirrors amassed like a saluting robot army, the top of the tower glowing like a miniature sun on a stick — suggests this is a dramatic departure from a classic photovoltaic solar plant.

It is. The Crescent Dunes plant has a few tricks up its sleeve that conventional photovoltaic (PV) solar doesn’t. For instance, it has the ability to store the energy it produces, keeping the 1,050-degree Fahrenheit molten salt in a storage tank, allowing the plant to produce power at night and in bad weather. No wonder that future solar projects in this “power tower” style are, for many, a beacon of hope for the next wave of renewable energy.

As cutting-edge as it may seem, the idea of concentrating, capturing and transferring sunlight like this to generate power has been around for a while.

“It’s literally rocket science,” Painter

P h ot o c o u r t e s y o f S o l a r R e s e r v e

Sun on a stick

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Environment

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them is they’re intermittent. When the wind blows, when the sun shines, you get power. When the wind stops, when the sun goes down, you don’t. Our big benefit to the customers and the power markets is that our energy source is reliable.

We’ve got a whole day’s worth of energy.

If we get cloud cover for 45 minutes at two o’clock in the afternoon, with molten salt storage, it’s not an issue.”

But not everyone is so quick to sing the praises of solar thermal. Another key word in “utility-scale solar power” is “utility.” Skeptics say it’s important to keep in mind that the industrial footprint created by these sites isn’t completely without consequence, and the technology that’s so promising for humans and the planet may have some downsides. One Nevada environmental watchdog group, Basin and Range Watch, has raised the same concerns about Crescent Dunes that have beset other solar thermal plants: their possible effect on birds.

“They put these very large-scale solar plants in the middle of remote areas that may be in bird migratory flyways, so there are going to be bird deaths,” says Laura Cunningham, co-founder of Basin and Range Watch, based in Beatty. “What we’re seeking is a lot more information, study and research on how

many birds are dying, and what kind, and an open dialogue so we can figure out a way to avoid or at least mitigate those deaths.” Basin and Range Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the BLM to see uncensored monitoring reports and emails about those reports between SolarReserve, its contracted environmental monitoring company, Stantec, and the BLM. The flux of the matter

C

ollisions with the mirrors, which birds may mistake for water, and “solar flux,” the plant’s pool of concentrated sunlight that converts to heat when there’s an object present (such as a bird) to absorb it, are thought to be the two main killers of birds.

But how many birds? What kinds of birds? Those are the big questions. The answers you get depend on whom you ask. According to a document provided

by SolarReserve, Stantec reported that a total of 54 birds died at the Crescent Dunes solar project between January 15 and October 27, 2015, including those found dead in a two-mile buffer zone outside the plant’s boundary. (The document doesn’t list what types of birds.) SolarReserve’s methodology for monitoring and preventing bird deaths includes a systematic search for bird carcasses. This search has several components, including environmental con-

p h ot o g r a p h y b y C h r i s t o p h e r S m i t h

says as we walk amid the alien forest of mirrors (also called heliostats) during an April 1 tour of the plant. “They came up with this idea in the ’80s, but it took some time to get it to work at an efficiency that could exist on a commercial scale.”

The actual molten salt storage technology was developed by scientists at Aerojet Rocketdyne over two decades.

With seed capital from investment firm U.S. Renewables Group, SolarReserve formed in 2008 to commercialize solar thermal power with storage and, ultimately, bought Rocketdyne’s technology.

With the help of a $737 million federal loan guarantee, it built Crescent Dunes on 1,600 acres leased from the Bureau of Land Management. To be sure, there are other power tower projects in the world — just over the border in California is BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, whose receivers are filled with water. But as of now, Crescent Dunes is the world’s largest solar thermal plant of the molten-salt storage type.

Kevin Smith, CEO of SolarReserve — a mechanical engineer before he became an energy executive — has watched as renewable energy sources from wind to photovoltaic solar have become more efficient and affordable, but his money is on concentrated solar power.

“Wind projects have advanced considerably, with bigger turbines making the price come down substantially. Photovoltaic really picked up in 2006-2008, with the pricing coming down dramatically to be comparable with conventional energy,” he says. “The problem with both of

Reflective moments: Left, plant manager Brian Painter; above, Crescent Dunes’ heliostats reflect sunlight; below, steam is created by the plant’s molten salt.

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This is by far the longest fatality search interval I have ever seen at any site. ...

No wonder the fatality list is small.” His conclusion: “There’s no way to tell how many birds are being killed by this project. The monitoring will be unable to inform of project impacts because the design appears to be hopelessly ill-suited for deriving estimates of fatalities.”

SolarReserve’s Smith stands by the numbers, and is eager to put them in perspective. “The amount of fatalities represented by third-party biologists are very low,” says Smith. “But even if they were triple what they are, from a biological standpoint, it’s still an incredibly small amount compared to (birds killed by) fossil fuels.”

But no one knows how many for sure.

Part of the problem is that there has been only one peer-reviewed research project that attempted to establish a clear picture of how many bird deaths are caused by solar power-tower plants — and that’s practically ancient history: It was published in 1986 in the Journal of Field Ornithology, about the small, 10-megawatt Solar One project near Daggett, Calif.

And yet, that study has been used as the

Moral calculus in flight

H

ow do you reconcile such wildly different figures about bird deaths?

You really don’t, except to acknowledge that surprise and uncertainty reign in our early understanding of this new technology’s possible side effects on wildlife and the environment.

Case in point: Well after the BLM and other federal agencies approved SolarReserve’s Avian and Bat Protection Plan for Crescent Dunes in 2011, there were unforeseen events. For instance, according to an email from a Stantec worker to a BLM official, on

Even asking questions about bird deaths caused by a solar plant is to enter into a debate that requires some dizzying moral calculus. How many bird deaths are justified by how many megawatts of clean energy?

p h ot o g r a p h y b y C h r i s t o p h e r S m i t h

sultants watching the tower each day with binoculars, and another group performing a monthly site search for dead birds; the monthly search takes seven days and covers one-eighth of the site. In other words, in increments of one week a month, the entire 1,600-acre Crescent Dunes plant site is completely surveyed for dead birds every eight months. The Great Basin Bird Observatory also helps oversee the surveys and performs its own surveys, too.

It sounds like a good plan. But some scientists say getting a more accurate picture of bird deaths at renewable energy plants requires you to account for a big X factor: what those surveyors aren’t finding and aren’t seeing. Ornithologist Shawn Smallwood, a veteran at conducting bird death surveys for wind power projects in California, says large time gaps between surveys and old-fashioned human error means searchers will never see the dead birds that blend in with the landscape, never see the bird carcasses carried off by predators, never see the birds that are fatally injured but die later, far away from the plant. Smallwood doesn’t necessarily doubt SolarReserve’s good intentions, but he questions the thoroughness of their search methods, particularly the fact that only a fraction of the site is searched at a time, with several weeks between searches.

His take on their methods: “Incredibly, the fatality search interval is eight months, meaning that any given site is visited by the searchers every 8 months.

basis for estimating bird death figures at much larger projects.

For instance, extrapolating from that, ornithologist Smallwood testified in 2014 to the California Energy Commission that the 377-megawatt BrightSource solar thermal project in Ivanpah could be killing up to 28,000 birds a year, though he cautioned that this was based on “quick calculations and my unverified assumptions.” (To the contrary, on its website, BrightSource reports 321 bird deaths at Ivanpah between January and June 2014). Smallwood was testifying about plans for the Palen Solar Electric Generating System, a 500-megawatt solar project proposed for 2,800 acres in Riverside County, near Joshua Tree National Park. The commission essentially killed Palen by denying a permit extension for the project, which had become mired in bankruptcies, ownership changes, and design modifications (indeed, what began as a solar trough design morphed into an ambitious power-tower plan, which is part of what moved Smallwood to get involved). While Palen’s troubled finances dealt a major blow to the project, the concerns of Smallwood and others about solar thermal’s possible effect on birds grabbed headlines.

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Environment January 14, 2015, 130 birds died at Crescent Dunes over a four-hour period.

The worker wrote: “During Tonopah Solar’s testing today there were about 1/3 of the heliostats pointed above the power tower, which formed a halo that is about 1,200 feet off the ground. Our CIC (compliance inspection contractor) and mortality biologists observed approximately 130 birds fly into the flux halo above the power tower and become white flashes with a small smoke cloud immediately following. ... There were no carcasses that they could find on the ground below the tower, but it is clear that these are bird mortalities.”

SolarReserve says it’s since altered the “standby” position of the heliostats to avoid creating this lethal halo of solar flux, and that bird deaths have dropped dramatically since, according to Stantec’s numbers.

Even asking questions about bird deaths caused by a solar plant is to enter into a heated discussion that requires some dizzying moral calculus. How many bird deaths are justified by how many megawatts of emissions-free energy produced? And does it matter what kinds of birds die? What if a solar plant kills a relatively small number of sensitive regional birds, but ostensibly replaces a fossil fuel plant that, both directly and indirectly, kills a vastly larger number of birds? Is it morally meaningful to compare the impacts of these two types of energy production, or is it intellectually dishonest?

“It’s exasperating to me that our critics look at conventional energy and say, ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it.’ That’s where the focus should be. Look at the tremendous impact conventional energy has on birds — not just the structures and the wastewater ponds on coal sites, but the emissions,” says SolarReserve CEO Smith. “(Solar thermal) is having more than zero effect on birds, I’ll agree, but on a scale of one to 100, if coal is 100 and we’re a two, three, four or 10, we’re still 10 times better, a dramatic improvement from fossil fuel’s effect.”

But, says Cunningham of Basin and Range Watch, a bird is not a bird is not a bird.

“We get it a lot: ‘Well, cats kill mil-

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Environment lions of birds a year compared to solar plants,’” she says. “But when you have a giant solar plant in the middle of the Great Basin desert, we’re talking about Swainson’s hawks, a sensitive species in Nevada, or desert birds like horned larks being impacted. We’re not talking doves and rock sparrows, we’re talking about a sensitive desert ecosystem that has a giant bird-catcher plopped in the middle of it.” She adds: “And none of this is to say we’re against renewable energy.

Instead, we’re in favor of the nuances of making renewable energy safer for the environment.” Cunningham also rejects the frequent charge that Basin and Range Watch is opposed to any kind of industrial solar development.

What if, with better monitoring methods, it’s discovered that more birds than previously thought are dying at the plant? It would be untenable to shut the plant down; more realistic, says Cunningham, would be to ask for SolarReserve to compensate by paying to preserve bird habitat somewhere else, or consider modifying plant operations during bird migrations.

The questions aren’t going away.

With the U.S. government having extended federal tax credits for solar projects through 2022, the industry is hitting its stride. SolarReserve has several more projects planned using its signature molten salt tech. One, Redstone, is a 100-megawatt CSP plant in South Africa that will start construction in the next few months. Another, Copiapo, is a planned hybrid PV/CSP plant in Chile that has received all its environmental permits. SolarReserve also made bids to build three other CSPs in South Africa and submitted environmental permits for a second one in Chile. Crescent Dunes looks like it’s here for the long haul, too: It has a 25-year contract to sell the energy it produces to NV Energy.

“Crescent Dunes has a worldwide reputation already,” says CEO Smith.

“When I’m traveling to Santiago, or Johannesburg, or Hong Kong, I must say ‘Tonopah’ 500 times. If you’ve never heard of Tonopah, you’d never know it existed. But it’s the center of the universe for concentrated solar power with storage.”

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Society

Here, kitty: C5 volunteer Dana Lionel prepares a trap at the Carefree Mobile Home Park.

cat catch fever On the prowl with the dedicated animal rescue volunteers trying to curb the valley’s feral-cat problem through traps, surgery — and loving care B y D a n H e r na n d e z

T

wo large, white vans prowl the streets of the Carefree Mobile Home Park in North Las Vegas.

They’re stocked with dozens of small cages, newspapers, blankets and big bags of cat food. The community’s manager says, “I figure there are probably more than 300 stray cats in here.” If she’s right, that means Carefree has more feral cats than it does mobile homes. There are 230 trailers, each fitted with skirting to cover the area below its chassis, but the cats break through those and take shelter underneath. The colonies make dirt yards into massive litter boxes. The cats run around in alleys between homes and

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sleep on rooftops. It’s a problem not only for the community’s appearance, but for the health of the cats.

“A lot of these kittens,” the manager says, “their eyes are just solid pus. I mean sick. A couple of the adults are so thin they can barely walk.”

A self-described animal lover, it was her idea to call C5, the Community Cat Coalition of Clark County, to get the population under control. C5 is the largest trap-neuter-return (TNR) group in Southern Nevada. Since 2010, the volunteer organization has visited hundreds of neighborhoods throughout the valley in a labor-intensive, often thankless effort

to stop the breeding cycle of thousands of feral cats. By arranging for strays to be vaccinated and sterilized, C5 improves their lives while also reducing the number of cats euthanized in Clark County’s biggest shelter, the Animal Foundation.

One of the vans stops outside a home marked as a colony hotspot. The driver, a computer engineer named Joe Hamrock, steps out to prepare a few traps.

Each cage is set with a bed of newspaper and a small bowl of food inside. When a cat crawls into the side of the cage where the meal awaits, a door closes behind it.

A fat orange tabby, a small black kitten and a springy wirehair with black, orange

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and white patches are among the first ones caught. On top of each cage, Hamrock writes the nearest address so that after visiting a vet, C5 can release each cat exactly where it was trapped. Sometimes, though, a volunteer will foster and eventually find a home for a kitten if it’s young enough to adapt to domestic life.

I expect them to meow in complaint in the back of the van. But ferals learn as kittens to not make unnecessary noise, lest they alert the predatory ear of a coyote, dog, hawk or, God forbid, human.

The only sound you’ll hear them make is a threatening hiss.

As we drive to the next site, Hamrock shares observations gleaned from 16 years volunteering in the TNR community. “The problem is getting a little better,” he says, “but it will never go away completely. There will never be a day where everybody can just wake up and not have anything to do. There are always going to be strays around and kittens homeless.”

Hamrock spends about 15 hours a week trapping cats. Like the mobile home park manager, he identifies as an animal lover.

Yet trapping doesn’t offer many opportunities to bond with the ferals. (On the contrary, they are more likely to scratch than purr.) So what is the appeal?

“I just figured there’s a problem out there and I want to help fix it,” Hamrock says. “If you see a stray dog, somebody will pick it up. If you see an injured rabbit running across the street, somebody will get it. But if you see stray cats, people mostly just ignore them, or some people will try to hurt them. And if you leave them alone, two cats turns into, like, 40 next year, and it’s a population explosion.”

HAPPY HOUR JUST GOT

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fter four days trapping at the mobile home park and three other sites, C5 has 199 cats in its care. The organization’s founders, Keith and Debbie Williams, play host at their North Las Vegas home. The cages are “staged” on foldout tables in the garage. During this phase, volunteers who specialize in cleaning replace each animal’s newspaper bedding and refill its food and water bowls twice a day.

Occasionally, a feral will nervously pace back and forth in its cage. It will shred newspaper bedding, hiss and lunge at the cage walls.

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Society

Meow house: The cats’ cages are cleaned before they’re loaded into a van for a trip to the vet for spaying and neutering.

Enter Lucky.

One of 20 or so strays living on the Williams’ block, Lucky is a sociable gray cat who likes to laze around during C5’s staging phase. Often when a trapped feral is angry or scared, Lucky sits on its cage or paws at its walls, which somehow calms the animal down.

Cody, Bella, Buttons, Taylor, Rambo, Chester and Tigger — to name just a few of the other cats in the local colony — tend to be absent during this phase. Lucky is therefore the group’s unofficial mascot.

His presence in the Williams’ garage also hearkens back to C5’s origin story.

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Not long after Keith and Debbie moved to the rural estate property in North Las Vegas, a family of black cats appeared on their land. “Charismatic megafauna,” Keith says. “Those are the animals that people will see and immediately want to feed.” He and his wife became caretakers for the colony, a role that exposed them to the population’s unsustainable growth. They started finding dead kittens on their land, so they looked into TNR. Ferals have a 90 percent mortality rate as kittens. If unvaccinated, they are prone to respiratory infection, especially in dusty Southern Nevada. Cars, humans, and the competition for food are obvious threats as well.

Debbie and Keith began doing trap-neuter-return projects in their colony and in those of other caretakers in 2007. The practice was developed in Great Britain in the 1950s and has since been replicated throughout Europe and North America. Two of the largest organizations, Alley Cat Allies in Washington, D.C., and Neighborhood Cats in New York, had all the information on their robust websites that Debbie and Keith needed.

They joined an underground TNR movement and successfully lobbied the county to revise its pet ordinance to

legitimize their work. Then, in 2009, Keith and Debbie hosted a meeting with seven other colony caretakers to launch the Community Cat Coalition of Clark County. Now C5 has 60 members and averages 30 projects a month. It functions on $100,000 a year, all of which goes toward operational costs since no one in the organization is paid.

C5 has brought more than 24,000 feral cats to see veterinarians since 2010. “Our vision from the beginning was to be a well-organized, industrial-scale trap-neuter-return organization,” says Keith.

Having spent his career as a data analyst for the Defense Department, he brings a passion for stats and spreadsheets to the work, and according to his numbers, Clark County is home to about 200,000 feral cats with a 20 percent yearly turnover.

Las Vegas euthanized about 18,500 healthy feral cats in 2009. Since then, the number has declined to an average of fewer than 7,000 per year — a 60 percent drop in the time since C5 launched.

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hey transport the 199 strays to Heaven Can Wait Animal Society in just two trips with the large white vans. It’s Saturday night, on the eve of a regularly scheduled spay-and-neutering marathon, in which a dozen or more veterinarians and vet techs will convene with about 50 animal lovers to sterilize a small village’s

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n March 31st, over 120 individuals gathered at Christopher Guy at The Las Vegas Design Center to celebrate the publication of Architecture Las Vegas, the official publication of the Las Vegas chapter of the American Institute of Architects, in partnership with Desert Companion.

ISSUE PARTY

Guests were met with a beautiful, welcoming showroom, wine, champagne and delicious bites.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the first copy of the April issue of “Architecture Las Vegas” to Mayor Carolyn Goodman. Mayor Goodman in turn recognized the importance of architects and design professionals by proclaiming April to be “Art, Architecture and Design Month” in Las Vegas. The Mayor spoke at length about the importance of organizations such as AIA Las Vegas, to the culture of our community.

Society

worth of cats. The event takes place once a month, and the participants all donate their time, even the vets. In addition to C5, the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society, Heaven Can Wait and several independent trappers bring in strays. By surgery time, 283 cats line the walls in cages on steel racks.

“Controlled chaos” is how Keith describes what happens next. Through the side of its cage, each cat receives an anesthetic shot. Once out cold, the animal is given a tag corresponding to its cage and scanned for a microchip to confirm that it is indeed a stray. (Occasionally, a housecat will end up in a trap, which makes for an angry owner when the pet is returned.) Males and females go to separate areas where they’re prepped for surgery.

All the veterinarians operate at once on a half-dozen tables. Males are neutered in less than one minute, while females can require up to 15 minutes to be spayed.

Vaccine shots are given. Then, to be sure trappers know not to bring the cat back in, the tip of its ear is nipped.

This will likely be the only time human hands touch these animals, so they are also groomed; volunteers brush their coats, clean the crust out of their eyes and wash their ears. If necessary, the cats are treated for fleas.

Monitoring the animals post-surgery is one of the most important jobs. After the cats are returned to their cages, volunteers keep an eye on sutures to make sure any bleeding stops. A massage might be necessary, too, in order to wake some of them up.

People often label it a “chop shop” when they hear the project described in

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Paws for the cause: Volunteers from multiple animal welfare groups team up to vaccinate, spay and neuter the feral cats.

these clinical terms. A gritty backstreet garage where stolen vehicles are stripped for parts in the middle of the night is hardly an apt metaphor, though. While it operates with industrial efficiency, there is no lapse in sensitivity for the cats.

Each participant is volunteering because they love animals, after all. Even on Super Bowl Sunday, these people show up to help feral cats live healthy, natural lives.

“Everyone treats those cats like they’re handling precious glass,” says Harold Vosko, founder of the Heaven Can Wait Animal Society. “So many people think, ‘Oh my god, they do so many.

It’s a butcher shop.’ And actually it’s the exact opposite.”

“The vets have high-quality standards,” Debbie Williams says, “and even the volunteers treat each cat with respect and dignity when they take it through the process. Nobody is coming in just to fool around. They’re coming in to be serious and take care of these cats.”

In the end, there is only one goal, Vosko says: “All the animals live.”

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he cats require a couple days’ recovery time back at the Williams house before they can return to the urban wild. So for two more days, twice a day,

volunteers go through 199 cages, one by one, replacing the newspaper bedding, refilling water and food bowls, and sweet-talking antsy ferals that can’t wait to warn their friends about these traps.

I mean that literally: Debbie has seen recently spayed or neutered cats block trap entrances by swatting away ferals that try to crawl inside. For that reason, C5 tries to bring in full colonies in one effort. Of the 199 in their care now, 104 are from Carefree Mobile Home Park.

And while it’s impossible to know what percentage that is of the overall population, since free-roaming cats only live an average of three to five years, it’s safe to assume the population will decline significantly in half a decade or less.

Many of Carefree’s residents want the cat population to drop now. Some — including the manager — wish C5 didn’t intend to bring the cats back. But when faced with the reality that the only other option would be to euthanize the animals, they appreciate the “release” part of TNR.

The project ends with the cats scampering out of cages. They take shelter in alleys and under homes while large white vans crawl away from the scene.

TNR is not without its critics, including people who complain that feral cats should be exterminated because they might scratch children or pass on rabies — even though the treatment includes a rabies vaccine and, by nature, ferals avoid human beings. Bird watchers dislike TNR because cats hunt their favored animal. They, too, prefer euthanasia, despite the fact that TNR also contains the feral population size.

Heaven Can Wait’s founder, Vosko, credits C5 with achieving what he sees as the practice’s great impact: dramatically lowering the cat euthanasia rate in Clark County. “They’re the ones who bring in the most cats,” he says. In 2015, while it was seeking a new contract, the Animal Foundation largely took credit for decreasing the number of cats euthanized in its shelter. Yet, according to Vosko and others in the TNR community, more than 95 percent of cat sterilizations are done by volunteer groups.

The Animal Foundation does minimal TNR work. It boasts instead of a shelter, neuter and return practice (releasing feral cats that are brought to the shelter back where they came from after sterilization), which indeed reduces kill numbers but has little impact on reproductive dynamics in the community, since it does not involve actively trapping cats. The shelter hopes to ramp up a pilot TNR program in the coming months (currently only one part-time employee does the work). A representative also acknowledged that “saving cats in Southern Nevada is a community effort.”

Vosko agrees. “People like Keith and the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society and all these great people who volunteer their time are the ones that have made the biggest difference,” says Vosko. “In order to solve the pet overpopulation problem, you’ve got to spay and neuter animals that otherwise would never get treated. These people do that all year.

They’re up all night fostering kittens. It’s just amazing. That is really the best thing I’ve gotten out of Heaven Can Wait after doing this for 16 years.”

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Sustainable in mind, delicious on the palate.

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The MARTIN 72

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road food! 73 slanted porch 76 lattin farms 77

rur al nevada's be st sp ots to eat & drink

Garlic bomb: The Martin's solomo, a Basque American dish of grilled pork, peppers and lots of garlic.

P hoto g raph y By c h r i s to p h e r s m i t h

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Dining out

A litte lamb: Clockwise from left, The Martin's lamb shank, chicken basqué, and solomo (pork and peppers).

BasQue in tradition In northern Nevada, The Martin restaurant is a culinary and social hub for regulars and weary travelers alike B y A n d r e w K i r a ly WINNEMUCCA, Nevada

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he black-and-white photos on the walls of The Martin are real. Of course, they’re real real. But they’re also real real. That is, they aren’t pieces of store-bought history – you know, the kind of tchotchke you see in, say, Italian restaurants or modern American chain eateries trying to conjure up some classic cred or interesting backstory or, of course, the candied history on offer here in theme-crazed Las Vegas, where the past is just another interior design motif. Rather, these photos reflect the many ages and eras of the Basque restaurant since it began operating as such in 1898. Winnemucca is almost 500 miles away from Las Vegas, but the metaphorical distance feels even greater as owner John Arant muses on what’s kept The Martin alive for nearly 120 years. To someone used to Vegas’ constant chameleon shifts, it sounds alien.

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“Respect for history sells,” he says.

“Whether it’s the building, or the meals, the way they’re prepared or that they’re served on long tables — the whole feel of the place — what I’ve found is that as long as we respect what’s kept us here for 100 years, we’ll last another 100.”

To talk about The Martin is to talk about Basque culture in Nevada. The Basques are an indigenous people based in northern Spain and southwestern France, thought to be descendants of the first modern

P h oto g ra p h y C h r i sto p h e r S m i t h

HOT PLATE

Road food!

What’s a road trip without road food? Probably a road trip with fewer bathroom stops. But less fun! Here’s a sampler plate of what we ate on #DCRoadTrip2016

Bobcat Burger at Hotel Nevada in Ely

humans in Europe. While their roots as native Europeans run deep, they’ve also traditionally been a migratory people, and the West’s gold rush was the spark that brought them to America. While many Basques worked in the mines, many others soon found work as shepherds in the vast, rugged expanses of the Great Basin area. The Basques soon distinguished themselves as experts at herding sheep, and many went into business for themselves. But whether they were working for ranchers or striking out on their own, what didn’t change were the long, lonely seasons spent in the hills and valleys of the Nevada outback.

A network of rural Nevada Basque restaurants and hotels developed to serve them. They were places not only where a tired shepherd could eat and sleep, but also vital social hubs where they could talk with fellow Basques over a bottle of wine, write home, and maybe even meet a future spouse.

“The shepherds would stay here for a few months until the money ran out,” Arant says. “Then the innkeeper would find another flock and send them out.”

Because seafood, a staple for European Basques, wasn’t exactly abundant in the desert, local menus evolved to become “Basque American,” favoring meats such as lamb, beef and chicken.

Trader Joe’s Palak Paneer entrée So

Beef jerky, various stops The perfect road

This grease-ilicious gut-nuke with egg, bacon and fried onions was our reward for not letting the gale-force winds dash us against the U.S. 93 shoulder like a toddler smashing a milk carton. Not shown: side dish of tasty and nutritious fried everything, from pickles to cod chunklets.

it was snowing and we were stuck in the RV, denied access to civilization’s life-sustaining hamburgers and pizzas. This prison-worthy microwave sludge speckled with humid cheesoid cubes wasn’t exactly gourmet fare — but it did stop us from descending into cannibalism.

trip song? Not “Born to Be Wild.” Not “Shut Up and Drive.” The perfect road trip song is the sound of slobberingly masticating jerky, food made for the road. We sampled many, but the standout was Black Rock Jerky Co.’s Sea Salt + Pepper Jerky, which, like true love and effective corporal punishment, struck the perfect balance between tender and tough.

Various, Dos Amigos Mexican Restaurant, Elko Like a lighthouse

Various, Socorro’s Burger Hut On the

Various, Gema’s Wagon Wheel Café, Beatty Southeast is

in a squall, Dos Amigos answered our call on a rainy Easter Sunday: “Yes, we’re open.” Within seconds of sitting down, there were chips with smoky chipotle salsa and Negra Modelo to drink while perusing the vegetarian menu.

Vegetarian. In a Mexican restaurant! And then, spinach quesadilla, shrimp fajitas.

last leg of the trip, our intestines heaving under the glycemic press of a six-day diet of lipids and sugar, we were ambivalent about Socorro’s for, oh, about 1.7 seconds before saying hellwithit and ordering an Ortega burger, a jalapeño burger, a grilled cheese, a chili dog. And fries. And three milkshakes. It was as sloppy and nasty and tasty and guilty and glorious as you’d expect.

home; southwest is our last stop for the trip; at the corner, a café. Should we break for lunch? In the limbo between impatient and nostalgic, Gema’s club and egg-salad sandwiches got our attention — toasted, cut into neat wedges, and served with fresh fruit.

The perfect last meal together, homemade by locals.

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Dining out

The Martin

‘Lots and lots of garlic’

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oday, with sheep-herding on the decline and Basques replaced by Peruvians, Arant estimates his clientele is less than five percent Basque. (“They criticize the cooking all the time,” he jokes. “There’s nothing as tough, no person as difficult to please as a true Basquo woman!”) But the other regulars who eat and drink at The Martin come for the same reason: good food and good company.

“Fifty percent of our business is local, and the other fifty percent comes once a year,” he says. Those annual visitors are drawn by the same sense of solid tradition that brings the Winnemucca regulars. Arant says the menu hasn’t changed for about 70 years, still serving simple, hearty but carefully cooked lamb, beef and chicken dishes, of all which go heavy on the signature ingredient of Basque

94 W. Railroad Road, Winnemucca, NV 775-623-3197 themartinhotel.com

cuisine. “Garlic,” Arant says. of the lettuce call to mind “Lots and lots of garlic.” something like a taco salad.

In dishes such as solomo, It’s all washed down with HOURS grilled pork with pimiencopious carafes of unapolDinner nightly 4-9p tos in a white wine sauce ogetically inexpensive red Lunch Mon-Fri is spiked with whole cloves wine – or, better yet, a glass 11:30a-2p of it. Piles of minced garlic of Picon punch, known as also season The Martin’s “the Basque cocktail.” It’s marquee dish, a tender lamb made with Amer Picon (a shank, roasted for two days. (You slide hard-to-find French aperitif made with the meat off the bone with a fork, dab herbs and orange peel), soda water, grenadine, a float of brandy, a twist of lemon a little mint jelly, and then enough minced garlic to make your eyes water.) on, then stirred 13 times. (“Because it’s Even the vegetables are adapted to beBasque,” Arant says.) It can pack a whiscome rib-sticking fare. For instance, an key cocktail-like punch. iceberg lettuce salad is drizzled in cotComfort food tonseed oil and sprinkled with “prairie dust” (salt, pepper and, of course, garnd when you put it all together — lic powder), and then generously ladled the free-flowing wine, the generwith baked beans and chorizo. It seems ous portions for sharing, the large strange at first, but the richness of the tables that mash up families, friends beans and chorizo and the cold crunch and strangers (“This isn’t a date-night

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kind of place,” Arant says), all fueling a rousing, even raucous, atmosphere — sure, you have the recipe for a traditional Basque restaurant. But it achieves something even more fundamental than that. It gets back to the original idea of comfort food: not standardized dishes intended to guess at the average American’s memories of mom’s cooking, but unique dishes that play a part in creating an improvised home.

“Winnemucca is a crossroads place, and this is a crossroads restaurant – a place where strangers meet and become friends,” Arant says. “A lot of what happens here at The Martin would succeed in any place that’s a crossroads. If you’re coming out of the Bay Area, or even coming out of Vegas, this is kind of a halfway point. This is where you stay the night and, basically, the people who come here, they kind of run into people who are doing the same thing. The conversations that go on at the tables are just amazing.” He rattles off anecdotes about chance meetings, a-ha encounters, serendipities that seem like more than coincidence.

Arant himself was heeding the call of that crossroads when he bought the restaurant in 2004. Arant grew up in Las Vegas and Reno, but was working as a banker in Maine when he learned The Martin was for sale. “It was an excuse to get back to Nevada. It’s home,” he says.

“I would have never bought a restaurant anywhere else.”

Since he bought it, the only changes he’s made are small tweaks here and there; most significantly, he’s expanded the beef menu to bolster The Martin’s parallel reputation as an excellent steakhouse. But other than that, he doesn’t plan any major changes. Just as the The Martin offers diners many satisfactions other than food, Arant is in the business for reasons other than money.

“Owning a restaurant in this community is very interesting. There are only about 7,000 people in Winnemucca. More people stay at the Mirage on a weekend than live here,” he says. “But you get to know people here, you become part of their lives, and that kind of connection is very satisfying.”

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Dining out

Fallon flavors: Left, Slanted Porch's lamb burger; above, open-face Monet sandwich with tomato and avocado.

Local connection Fallon’s farm-to-table pioneer Steve Hernandez grows what he can, and makes a short drive for the rest B y H e i d i K ys e r Fallon, Nevada

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ear the bay window on the right side of the Slanted Porch restaurant’s main dining room in Fallon, Nevada, hangs a black-and-white family portrait, sepia-tinted by time. One daughter sits at a piano, another by her father’s side.

Stern-looking parents occupy stiff chairs, and the only boy, kneeling, smiles at the family baby, who’s front and center holding a doll nearly her size.

“That’s Norma Frazzini,” Steve Hernandez, chef and owner of the Slanted Porch, says pointing to the infant. “She was the youngest of the Frazzini children, and the one who sold me this house in 2003.”

Hernandez recounts some of the stories Frazzini would come by and tell him while

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he was refurbishing the place — how she and her sister would sit on the porch (which was closed in back then) and race to spot the rare car whizzing by; how her brother would mount fireworks to the tree on the side of the house, drawing a small crowd on July 4; and how she herself was married in the bay window that looks out at that tree.

“It meant so much,” Hernandez says, “just putting that history in the property.”

Opening his first restaurant in a place with deep roots resonated with Hernandez because Fallon was his hometown. After high school, he moved to San Francisco, where he spent 10 years earning his chops at the California Culinary Academy and Bay Area restaurants. During another near-decade in Reno, he began dating a Fallon girl. When he’d drive the hour east of the city to spend time with her, they’d lament the dearth of good restaurants at which to eat in the small town.

“So I got the bright idea to open one,” Hernandez says.

It was 2004 when the Slanted Porch served its first meal. Back then, Hernandez says, eating local wasn’t as common as it is now, which also meant it was more difficult. But he started with an advantage: His father’s nearby cattle ranch supplied him with beef, and the area around Fallon

P h oto g ra p h y C h r i sto p h e r S m i t h

is crawling with produce farms, such as Lattin Farms (see sidebar). Today, in addition to sourcing as many of his ingredients as possible from Pioneer Farms, Workman Farms and other nearby operations, Hernandez also maintains his own hoop-house, where he grows greens and root vegetables used in the kitchen.

This caring connection to food is why six-year Slanted Porch sous-chef Kelli Kelly and her husband opted to stay in Fallon even after he retired from the Navy and they considered moving to Las Vegas.

“I’ve found my calling, as far as the culinary industry goes,” Kelly says. “When I envisioned where I wanted to be, it was in a small, community-based, farm-to-table restaurant, and I was already there.”

She lights up describing how she and Hernandez touch almost every ingredient — and every plate — put before their customers.

“Being with your food from seed to plate completely changes the experience,” she says. “You really learn to respect the ingredients a lot more.”

This translates into letting a beet be a beet, instead of coating it in sugar and trying to turn it into a sweet potato, for instance. Hernandez and Kelly favor ingredient combinations over additives as a means of creating interesting flavors.

The approach is apparent in the menu’s most popular dishes, such as the Monet sandwich, an open-face stack of toast, avocado, pesto, tomatoes and onions, simple elements combined in an unexpectedly savory whole. Likewise, the garnish and dressing on the Cottonwood hot turkey sandwich — roasted garlic salsa, melted Havarti cheese, tomato and mayo — merge into a surprising, sloppy Joe-like sauce.

These are both on the menu for lunch, which is easier to catch than dinner, since the Slanted Porch is only open on Friday and Saturday nights. Those evenings, seasonal dishes complement a standard menu.

“In order to keep the quality up, we have to minimize the hours that we’re open,” Hernandez explains. “I mean most of our stuff is homemade, so it’s very labor-intensive.”

Feeding minds young and old Fallon, Nevada

Rick Lattin, owner of Lattin Farms, is fond of telling the story about a 12-year-old girl who visited. Marveling at the pumpkin patch, she asked how long it took to haul the pumpkins to the farm.

“The farm model has been so revolutionized over the past 50 to 60 years, that kids have no idea where their food comes from,” he says. “That’s why part of our focus is teaching kids the importance of agriculture.”

And not just kids. Fifth-generation farmer Lattin’s particular operating model is simultaneously old-school and modern. Lattin Farms sells its produce on site and at farmers markets, but has also adopted the community-supported agriculture model, selling farm basket subscriptions. They have 250 clients and are growing. It suggests to Lattin that city-dwellers are starting to wake up to an awareness of what’s on their plate. “In the last 10 to 15 years, there’s been a kind of back-to-the-future of farming, a movement to connect people in the cities with the people who grow their food.”

To that end, much of the 400-acre, drip-irrigated farm resembles a sort of back-country Chuck E. Cheese, with corn mazes, hay bale go-kart tracks and other attractions. Lattin also participates in Harvest Hosts, a program that lets traveling RVers stay on local farms. Such practices are about more than rural hospitality; they encourage urbanites to learn about what’s growing in the smaller farms that dot America’s backyard. Andrew Kiraly

Side of Ranch: Rick Lattin, upper left, and farm manager Don Keele of Lattin Farms

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d e s e r t c o m pa n i o n ’ s

great big road trip In Search of the

Soul of Nevada ( and clean bathrooms )

By Andrew Kiraly

Photography by Christopher Smith

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We confess. We used to think like a lot of locals do, imagining the rest of the Silver State beyond our city as little more than Las Vegas’ ramshackle and somewhat embarrassing backyard. But, seriously: What’s out there in the rest of the state? Where is the soul of Nevada?

We rented a big-ass RV to find out, and sent Editor Andrew Kiraly, Staff Writer Heidi Kyser and Art Director Christopher Smith on a tour of the state March 26-April 2, to explore the places and meet the people who live well beyond the amber halo of Las Vegas. Eight days and more than 1,700 miles later, here’s what we found.

March 26 » Las Vegas » Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge » Ely

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here’s something invigorating about driving an RV on the open road. Maybe it’s the inspiring Southwest mountain vistas. Maybe it’s the sense of leaving your cares behind.

Maybe it’s because you have to grip the steering wheel in an arthritic viselike rictus thanks to shearing 40 mph crosswinds threatenThe Alien ing to smash your shudderResearch Center, ing rig onto the dirt shoulder Pahranagat visitors like a carton of eggs. This was center and probablyour first time driving an RV haunted ghost cafe (two-thirds of us, anyway), so the whole steampunk hellhorse rattle-thrumming effect of the RV (flashes of Walter White in his methed-out Winnebago, Clark Griswold in his slapstick errant station wagon) that makes it feel like the doors, windows and various infrastructural access panels are about to flap and frisbee right off is, shall we say, something it took a little bit of getting used to.

(Slow-motion interlude moment on our initial launch up US 93: Watching Coyote Springs, that piece of golf-course suburban taxidermy sutured onto the desert off the highway, crawl by.)

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But the anxious, jumbling ride was worth it, if only because of the comparatively unreal serenity of our first stop: Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, 90 miles up the Great Basin Highway. With its springwater lakes, scrub meadows and cottonwood groves, the quiet is astounding, even in the wind — perhaps even because of the wind, which turns the valley’s cottonwoods into whispering instruments. They sway over a series of bulrush creeks where spring attracts birds such as the tiny willow flycatcher and the startling black-and-white bufflehead duck.

This small national wildlife refuge, one of four in Southern Nevada, is a vital rest stop for a veritable bird-o-pedia of migrating fowl, from Canada geese to Tundra swans. On this blustery day, we don’t get any bird-watching in, but the mysterious bush-rustlings and peeps and chirps reassure us that we’re not alone — and of course, there are Christine Belew and Sheila Mason, too, refuge volunteers and residents of nearby Alamo. They oversee a visitor’s center that’s a marvel in itself. Opened in January 2015, it’s a striking but respectfully scaled piece of site-conscious architecture that houses a remarkably intelligent and sensitive exhibit that has all the latest tactile gadgets (bird calls on telephones, buttons to bring up constellations) and also spotlights the previous presence of native peoples on the land.

After the thrattle and zurm of the blustered highway, it’s a stop that stimulates the deeper self.

A half-hour later, at the junction of US 93 and State Route 375 — aka the Extraterrestrial Highway — we stop in Crystal Springs, where, alas, the Alien Research Center, a warehouse fronted by a colossal silver alien statue, is closed. (Ears to door: tantalizing sounds of intergalactic homunculoids shuffling within, but they don’t answer our knock. #notscaredatall) However, nearby E.T. Fresh Jerky is open. The building is muraled in images of insou-

Town in country: A sleepy Saturday morning on the main drag in Ely.

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ElY Population: 4,262 Elevation: 6,437 County: White Pine (seat) Don’t miss: Northern Nevada Railway Museum Historical factoid: The six-story Nevada Hotel was the state’s tallest building until the mid-1940s!

Ward charcoal ovens

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ciant cowboy pimp aliens celebrating, presumably, the taste of alien jerky. Because there are some freakishly avid jerky-consumers among us, we buy a crinkly gold bag of Teriyaki Time Travel jerky only to discover it tastes like furry chemical meat. The roasted and salted pumpkin seeds we also bought, however, were delicious (until a bump in the RV sent them spraying all over the cab in our first Griswold-worthy mishap).

Further northwest, at the junction of the Extraterrestrial Highway and US 6, an unlikely ghost-town tableau: a herd of mountain goat/sheep-type creatures in a stone corral. We Instagram the hell out of some old dead buildings surrounded by looming dead trees and gnarled fencing and other moody accoutrements.

Farther up US 6, we nix plans to stop at Lunar Crater once we get a look at the “road” leading to it, which is more like a suggestive ripple of dirt, as though it’s some primitive Sarlacc-pit lure for RVs filled with soft, foolhardy humans. #nothanks #arrivealive Early dusk, we reach Ely, our stop for the night. The mining-and-prison town, maybe oddly, or maybe not, immediately

asserts its posture: clean and modest, but dignified, even, in its streets and businesses. Lots of shuttered storefronts, but everywhere else, they keep the lightbulbs changed, the historic murals free of graffiti; even the junker cars on the main drag are knolled at pleasing right angles. Dinner at the historic Hotel Nevada includes a deeply fulfilling Bobcat Burger (with fried egg and bacon), a plate of fried appetizers (including pickles and “cod bites” loopily rechristened “codpieces” by us), and beers that induce swift slumber at the RV park.

March 27 » Ely » Elko

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e spend a good portion of Easter morning on Ely’s main drag, Aultman Street, snapping pics of the murals. Some depict the town’s embrace of diversity, an oft-forgotten American value. Others evoke the town’s small but significant role in the history of telecom-

The many murals of Ely celebrate the region’s history, industry and ethnic diversity.

munication (Ely’s White Pine County hosted an important segment of the Pony Express). Other murals honor the area’s ranching heritage. They’re all striking and, in some cases, beautiful. “The murals are about civic pride, so there’s not a big issue with graffiti,” Don Allison, an Ely resident and counselor at the state prison, explains to us. (Fun fact: Karl Schulz, the consultant who led the Ely mural program, also worked on Henderson’s mural project.) Some of the best among them aren’t just visually compelling, but they make a commentary, too. One mural of a group of children — white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American — is done in a realistic mode, but the American flag behind it, with its avid, off-kilter stars and stripes, looks as though the kids themselves painted it. Another is a stylized portrait of a shepherd who seems to have posed for the painting, gazing pointedly at the portraitist.

(Also noted while we’re wandering around Ely, for those keeping count, the number of dogs in the backs of trucks seen so far this trip: 1,402.)

Of course, long before this town sprung up, the Shoshone lived and thrived in the region. We venture up Highway 50 outside town to a grove of 20- and 30-foot evergreens, the Shoshone Cedars, an area sacred to Ely Shoshone and their fellow Great Basin Shoshone. Tribal elder Delaine Spilsbury gives us a private, and very poignant, tour of the site. Before Europeans settled the area, Shoshone from the region would congregate here a few times

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Mountain Brewing Company (see p. a year to socialize, pick pinion nuts, 40), has that job. Farther up US 93 just hunt and fish. White people, however, south of Wells, we roll up to his ranch misinterpreted the gatherings as war home, in the middle of his Easter famparties and attacked them, turning the ily festivities, no less. But — testament bountiful grove into a cemetery of sorts. to a true beer aficionado with his priToday, the area faces a different threat: orities straight — he totally drops the disappearance due to drought and profamily and gives us a tour and tasting posed and existing water-pumping projin his brewery/warehouse. While two ects. “If the water went down, the trees of his punishingly energetic grandkids would die, and with them, the spirits leap from increasing heights onto bags of our people who are there,” Spilsbury of malt, we sample his crisp tells us. “All the people who were Hefeweizen, rich ambers, killed here, they’re in the trees. ... and thick, malty porters.

It’s not something I like to think Above, about. That’s the reason it’s so Winnemucca’s important to us.”

Martin restaurant; South of Ely are the Ward below, the Ruby charcoal ovens. Yes, like you, Mountains as seen when we heard “Ward charcoal from a ranch ovens,” the prospect of a historic tourist stop gave us instant narcolepsy, but Chris was obsessed. The ovens, which burned wood to make charcoal, which in turn were used to smelt ore at the nearby mines in the late 1800s, are these beautifully otherworldly beehive pods, dotted with orange lichen.

The fact that they were made by Italian craftsmen explains their pleasing shape, lasting construction and pizza-like flavor. #gladwewent Is your dream job running a backyard microbrewery on your ranch at the foot of a gorgeous mountain where you often take your heart-crushingly photogenic family on skiing excursions? Us too. Steve Safford, president of Ruby

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(Who’s driving? Not it not it not it!)

You were probably cruising around Las Vegas in flip-flops and cargo shorts the last week of March. Fine. Outside Elko on I-80, we hit snow. More accurately, we’re suddenly enwrapped in a whirling funnel of terrible freezing confetti. Andrew alternately cowers and stares in boyish wonder; Heidi is amused, philosophical; Chris valiantly pilots us through the storm. In the snowy dark, Elko seems like a collection of America’s favorite chains and big-box stores stitched together with offramps.

We pop an antidepressant in the form of fajitas and beer at Dos Amigos restaurant, crawl to the RV park and sleep.

March 28 » Elko » Winnemucca

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nglamorous behind-the-scenes moment: In the morning, we go to the Elko Walmart for supplies, dipping briefly into that placeless American slipstream of fluorescent lights, glaring linoleum, the blood-

less clamor of retail. Stopping afterward for gas, we overhear a trucker in the jerky aisle, talking to his wife.

“I’m just not driving anymore. I can’t see 10 damn feet in front of me!” #challengeaccepted On the drive to Winnemucca, the RV is battered by what we can only conclude is either sleet or uniformly exploded wet newspaper.

If, like most people, you imagine Nevada as a big upside-down triangle head, Winnemucca and Elko are its two eyes set in the bristly unibrow of I-80. But they’re hardly identical. Elko has an “ISIS hunting license” sticker on its bumper.

Winnemucca’s bumper is just kind of serene and vaguely wistful.

Starving, we pull up to The Martin, a historic Basque restaurant whose roots go back to 1878. We interview John Arant, who owns this longtime Winnemucca institution that serves as both a town social hub and a tribute to Basque culture and cuisine. (See p. 72.) But “interview” doesn’t capture the cynicism-melting warmth and good cheer that Arant exudes — all while plates are

flying from the kitchen, loaded with American Basque classics, such as solomo (grilled pork and peppers), and lamb shank, both piled with that secret Basque ingredient: garlic. The iceberg salad is dressed in cottonseed oil and “prairie dust” (salt, pepper and garlic powder); then (bam!) you ladle baked beans and chorizo over it. It’s all washed down with seemingly self-refilling carafes of Carlo Rossi — or, better yet, a glass of Picon punch, known as “the Basque cocktail.” It’s made with Amer Picon (a French aperitif made with herbs and orange peel), grenadine and brandy. Two of these and you’re cross-eyed, but happy. At the bar, regulars Hoby Studebaker and Vic Christison grouse about national politics, the federal government, the BLM. We give them the mic and ask Vic: If you could tell Southern Nevadans one thing, what would it be? “They should secede,” he says, laughing heartily. “They should go to California, where they want to be.” After a long day in Nevada’s notso-twin rural cities, we fall into a deep, wine-drugged sleep.

March 29 » Winnemucca » Imlay » Gerlach

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eather: Chilly Winnemucca but delightfulPopulation: 8,002 ly snow-free. On a gas Elevation: 4,295 stop on the I-80, we ask County: Humboldt the storeowner about (county seat) the legendary Thunder Don’t miss: Buckaroo Mountain Monument.

Hall of Fame He says, You mean that monstrosity by the freeHistorical factoid: way? I’ve never heard it Butch Cassidy’s gang called a monument. But robbed First National Bank of Winnemucca you can’t miss it. That in 1900! guy’s weird!

From the freeway, Pop culture tidbit: In Thunder Mountain the poem “Winnemucca, Nevada,” Rod Monument looks like McKuen wrote about some knuckly, bonehis first school desk. spiked Gormenghast, but up close, it’s even more strange — and the story much more sad. Created over many years by Frank Van Zant aka Chief Rolling Mountain Thunder, it’s a twisted, tormented monument decrying white crimes against native Americans.

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Van Zant started the project after his car broke down here in 1967, and he continued on Thunder Mountain until his death in 1986. We talk to and tour the site with caretaker and curator Fred Lewis, a friend of the Van Zant family who, despite his affability and warmth, seems himself touched by the sadness of the place. The principal, handmade building is composed mainly of mortar and glass bottles, but objects as diverse as wagon wheels and typewriters, children’s tricycles and glass Jell-O molds are also worked into the walls. It’s the centerpiece of an acre that includes a few other structures — barns, lean-tos, an outhouse — all as ornate as the main attraction. Everywhere you look, there’s a sculpture protruding from a surface, an oddity embedded in a wall. Sculpted figures loom and leer, accusing with their very gazes. And yet, as we shuffle through the three-story sand-mortar building — now closed to the public due to safety concerns — here and there, the struggling sun illuminating a bottle wall, the pleasing placement of a doll or a saw blade, suggests there was, beneath Van Zant’s anger and bitterness, some whimsy at work.

From there, we carve a big V, southwest on the I-80 and then north up State Route 447 to Gerlach. It’s one of the most scenic drives of the trip, with the pretty desolation of the severe, snow-dusted Sahwave Mountains to the west. Gerlach — perhaps these days, best known as the doormat for Burning Man — is desolate, too, but not dead. After docking at Bruno’s RV Park, we sidle up to the bar at Bruno’s Country Club,

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Planet X, where caretaker Tatsy Guild shows us around the grounds, comprising several crusty-quaint, dust-kissed, off-the-grid cottages where Planet X owners John and Rachel Bogard sell their gorgeous plates, cups, teapots and pitchers. Back down the 447, we hook a right to visit Pyramid Lake, located on the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation.

Our own Lake Mead in Southern Nevada has something in common with theirs: a bathtub ring. Indeed, the Northern Nevadans of Pyramid Lake feel our pain, from as far back as 1905, when the construction of Derby Dam diverted the Truckee River away from Pyramid and its sister lake, Winnemucca. Winnemucca — and all but one of the other smaller water bodies that once composed the prehistoric Great Lahontan Lake system northeast of Reno — has since disappeared. Although Pyramid survived, its surface level dropped 80 feet immediately after the dam was built. And, at around 3,760 feet above sea level today, it continues to decline, for the same reasons Lake Mead does: climate change, drought, evaporation and a faster rate of depletion than replenishment. This has its March 30 owners, the nearly 2,700 members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, con» Gerlach cerned. Descendants of the Northern » Pyramid Lake Paiute people who have occupied large » Virginia City swaths of the Great Basin for millennia, the Pyramid Paiutes earn revenue from fter a big rib-cementing breakfast recreational permits for boating, fishing at Bruno’s Cafe — omelet, a breakand swimming on the lake. These activfast sandwich crammed with ham and ities — particularly fishing — have been egg, chicken-fried steak, good essential parts of their own culture, strong black coffee — we too, for many generations. But venture outside of town This page, there’s another reason they’re to ceramic gallery scenery in Gerlach and disconcerted by their lake’s Planet X pottery; opposite, slow-motion disappearance, a Thunder Mountain less practical, tangible one. It Monument and Golconda defines them, literally. Billie Jean Guerrero, director of the summit Pyramid Lake Museum and Visitors Center, explains it.

“The level of the water in the lake is very concerning, because, basically, Pyramid Lake is our identity, being the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. So, if we no longer have a lake, it also influences out cultural identity and who we are as which is right next door to Bruno’s Cafe. Bruno, Bruno, Bruno. Who is this guy? Bartender Lacey Halle and others explain that he’s sort of the benevolent godfather of Gerlach, a postwar Italian immigrant who parlayed a penchant for making killer ravioli into a small-town boardwalk empire. (There he is, now 93, dozing magisterially in the corner.) We drink a few rounds with the locals, who share crazy hunting stories (“I thought, ‘Who just threw a boulder in the stream in the dark? I realized it wasn’t a boulder — it was a bear fishing for salmon three feet in front of me!”) and thoughts about Burning Man (decidedly ambivalent: the increasingly self-contained commercial juggernaut seems to pass Gerlach by now, according to Lacey, but she still attends every year. “It’s inspiring.”) After a few rounds of drinks and lots of laughs and stories, we walk back through empty streets to the RV park.

In the quiet and the dark, the expanse of the land containing Gerlach is such that you can feel yourself walking on the curvature of the earth. Or maybe that was the whiskey.

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Water works: The “bathtub ring” isn’t just a Lake Mead thing; drought and overuse is affecting northern Nevada’s Pyramid Lake as well.

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More money than God: The ornate, richly furnished St. Mary’s in the Mountains church is a reminder of Virginia City’s boom times.

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perous days. Priest Anton Sommer a people. It has an effect on our ways of practically grabs us off the street and life and our practices from a long time gives us a tour. “Virginia City is the ago, because, as I was explaining to a heart of Nevada history,” he says, “and group earlier this morning, our tribal St. Mary’s is the heart of Virginia City.” elders fought very much so that our Sommer says it’s the most-photolake water could be maintained, and to graphed church in Nevada and that, in us, water represents life.”

2014, U.S. Catholic magazine named it Back down State Route 447, avoiding one of the 20 most beautiful churches the gravitational pull of Reno, we catch in the country. It’s definitely worth US 50 east to Virginia City. At the outseeing. Originally built in 1868, the skirts, we wend our way into a grid of church was rebuilt in 1875 following suburban trailer estates in search of the great fire that destroyed much of the legendary Republic of Molossia, a the town. Determined to show their self-proclaimed “micronation” inside appreciation for America’s freedom of Nevada, complete with its own history, religion, the majority Irish congregacustoms and calendar. Expecting a tion spared no expense in converting walled embassy lined with uniformed the Romanesque structure to the Gothguards, we instead get a modest trailer ic style, Sommer tells us. Paintings dehome with some “Republic of Molospicting the stations of the cross were sia” signs. Its official “tourist season” commissioned by artists in Florence, isn’t until April 15, but we knock anyItaly; a chandelier was imported from way, hopefully anticipating rebuff by a Prague, Czech Republic; stained-glass stiff-lipped corporal in green cover. Inwindows came from Belgium; redstead, a slightly embarrassed twentywood for columns, beams and pews, something answers the door. Hey, uh, from California. These were made by any chance we can check out Molossia? the finest local craftsmen. St. Mary’s “Oh, that. My dad won’t be home until could afford such luxuries in those five, so maybe you can call back then.” days. As the Comstock Lode lined min#underwhelmed ers’ pockets, donation baskets overThe drive into Virginia City proper flowed. is a lovely backcountry roll“Six to 10 billion dollars’ er coaster of gentle hills. worth of silver was mined This is pretty much where here, in today’s dollars,” SomNevada began, propelled to mer tells us. “This was a importance and ultimately wealthy community.” statehood after the riches After we do some laundry, discovered in the 1859 Comwe head to C Street, Virginia stock Lode helped the City’s main drag. We gorge on Union win the Civil War. meat-piled pizza and salad at Today, Virginia City is a the Red Dog Saloon, a blues tourist town with a disV irg in ia band caterwauling mightily on tressed granola finish, the C ity stage while we talk to Joe Mctelltale hipster lubricants of Population: 855 Carthy, a community activist coffee and microbrew in Elevation: 6,148 from nearby Silver City. While plentiful supply on the old County: Storey a lot of Nevada towns still rely main boardwalk street. (county seat) on gold, copper, gypsum or Towering over much of it magnesium mining, there are is this cool old Catholic Don’t miss: The Silver just as many that consider church. The grandeur of it Terrace and Gold Hill cemeteries themselves “post-mining era feels misplaced, even faintly communities,” which are reincomic in the downsized VirHistorical factoid: venting themselves as off-theginia City of today, like a Great Fire of 1875 left map leisure destinations and flower in a prospector’s hair. thousands homeless big-sky retirement communiIn that sense, it’s a flashback and melted wheels on railroad cars! ties. But, many find, mining to Virginia City’s more pros-

isn’t through with them. Case in point: McCarthy and his fellow residents are fighting the prospect of pit mining in their town by Comstock Mining Inc., which he says got the Lyon County master plan changed to get their foot in the door.

“It’ll destroy our town, no doubt about it,” McCarthy says. He says other examples of modern pit mining in the area suggest a grim future for Silver City if CMI gets it way. “This is some of the most beautiful land in Nevada. It’s got that Nevada vibe — rough and tumble. (Pit mining has) turned it into a moonscape. It’s hideous.”

The battle between the Comstock Residents Association and CMI shows that, even in these small towns with their boomtown history well behind them, mining is very much part of the present. Like the landscape of Virginia City, the day, filled with its stories of struggle and triumph, has been an upand-down affair.

March 31 » Virginia City » Fallon » Gabbs

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fter a morning souvenir jaunt on C Street — in other words, buying a bunch of gourmet taffy at one of the old-timey candy stores — we pack into the RV and head northeast up US 50 to Fallon, the town with the best food of the trip.

Which is perfect, because, after the previous few days’ RV fare of nuts, fruit, jerky and microwave meals that resemble Nickelodeon slime (Trader Joe’s frozen palak paneer entrée, we’re looking at you!), our inner light is about to die. We don’t just need food. We need sustenance.

The Slanted Porch (see p. 76) comes to the rescue. It’s the kind of hip, low-key, locavore restaurant you might expect in a sleepy college town, the entire staff giving off pheromonic clouds of sparkle-eyed, thoughtful enthusiasm for their culinary craft. They believe in this food, and we believe in

Pop culture tidbit: First place Samuel Clemens used the pen name Mark Twain!

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Gabbs Population: 522 Elevation: 4,700 County: Nye Historical factoid: One of the few towns named after a paleontologist!

Pop culture tidbit: Gabbs abides in a realm beyond such trifling concerns!

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it too when we taste it, whether it’s the tender lamb burger with Havarti dill cheese and spicy mayo, or the Monet, a winningly simple open-face tomato-and-avocado sandwich drizzled in oil. “I love working in a place where we source most of our ingredients from local farmers and ranchers,” sous chef Kelli Kelly tells us. “We have high-grade ingredients, and I’ve learned how to treat them with respect. We honor them with a simple, straightforward, honest approach to food.” (Yes, her eyes sparkle when she says this.) Even our waitress, a being of cinematic, rippling hair and elegant bustle, is straight out of Mystic Pizza.

Not far away is Lattin Farms (see p. 77), a 400-acre spread that looks less like a farm than the set of a farm on Sesame Street, what with the haybale go-kart tracks, the boards where you put your head in the hole to take a photo as a sheep or a cow, and a platform contraption for enticing goats to climb around so you can, I dunno, laugh at them. There’s a reason for the kiddie angle. We wander around the grounds, scratching the goats, musing

over the chickens, marveling at the grounds (the impossibly stately and wise-looking walnut tree is straight off a Hallmark card!) as owner Rick Lattin waxes explanatory.

“One thing that people haven’t stopped doing over the centuries is eating food,” he says. “But the farm model has been so revolutionized over the past 50 to 60 years, that kids have no idea where their food comes from.” In addition to educating children about food and agriculture, Lattin Farms also sells its goods on site — including its renowned Hearts of Gold cantaloupe — and at local farmers markets, but they’ve also adopted the community-supported agriculture model, selling subscriptions to weekly baskets from the farm.

Then it’s east on the 50 to Gabbs.

The landscape begins to hint at home on the eventual horizon: The slurry of Elko, the brisk air of Winnemucca, the almost beachy breeze of Fallon is behind us now, the land drying out as we start our pachinko drop south. Off the 50 is momentous evidence of this in the form of Sand Mountain Recreation Area.

Them bones: Park ranger Jeff Morris points out fossil features at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.

down here for the night in order to visit the nearby Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in the morning. We inquire with resident Hazel about staying in her very basic motel. She’s delighted to inform us all the rooms are available, except one. “There’s a man who lives there, long-term.”

“He’s not a murderer, is he?” we ask. Everybody laughs, some nervously, some … knowingly? #dontwannathinkaboutit In Heidi’s room, we discover a locked ominous black door that seemingly leads nowhere. Being the intrepid journalists we are, we decide the best course of action is to drink ourselves to sleep.

There’s a buzz and roar in the air as we approach and discover a veritable village of RVs arrayed like dropships, their sand-spuming quads and jeeps crawling over the body of the massive, snaking dune in the distance. The gritty wind, the buzz of engines, the sense of rogue energies being unleashed give it all a Mad Max vibe. The thing is, though, the dune doesn’t care. It just abides there in its majestic improbability, aloof to time, insistent in its mass, being beautiful and pure. In other words: selfies!

Hints of a postlapsarian theme going on now, in the dryness, the restless air. The theme comes to full, dark bloom when we reach Gabbs — sad, gray, dying Gabbs, with its smoking, headless mountains being mined in the distance, its junk-strewn scrub acres, its sagging houses and milky, tenuous light. The one consolation, R&D’s Bar, is snatched from us when the bartender zooms off like a getaway driver into the gathering dusk, like she knows something we don’t.

Basically, the Amityville Horror voice is barking “Get out” directly in our faces. But, see, we need to bed

April 1 » Gabbs » Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park » Mina » Tonopah

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efreshingly, we don’t wake up in the motel in Gabbs with our throats cut. (Thanks, man who lives there longterm!) Our faith in humanity restored, we walk around the unutterably depressing town to discover some signs of life: Most promising amid the sun-bleached hulls of cars and shuttered businesses is the, hello, cheerful senior center where Gabbs residents Ken and Kathleen House volunteer serving biscuits and gravy to the town’s seniors every other Friday. Their genuine warmth dispels our previous horror-movie impressions of Gabbs and makes us feel, well, a little like easily frightened, judgmental jerks.

“I like (that) it’s peaceful,” Ken says of Gabbs, where he moved to from the Bay Area. “There’s no traffic. I like the close community.” The last of our morning Gabbs activities involves watching a pile of junk on fire in the desert. Apparently it’s a thing.

Then, we travel 20 miles east, up 7,000 feet into the Shoshone Mountain Range, to visit Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, where the fossils of at least nine ichthyosaurs — monstrous fish-

like reptiles with sawlike mouths that swam the oceanlike oceans here more than 200 million years ago — remain where they were discovered in a naturally eroded area in 1928, and then later excavated. If the word “fossils” makes you want to pre-emptively scream out of boredom, rest assured that the ones at Berlin-Ichthyosaur won’t have that effect: The darkly outlined fossils describe actual ichthyosaur-like shapes that inspire a bit of transportive, mind-bending, imaginative awe. #gofossils A stop on the way to Tonopah: Mina, a sort of lewd hint of a town known best for Socorro’s Burger Hut, which is a hut that serves burgers — hefty, juicy, messy meat-doorstops that don’t apologize. In what is perhaps an unconscious desire to test the limits of the RV’s septic system, we order: a grilled cheese with tater tots, an Ortega burger with grilled onions and roasted green peppers, a jalapeño burger, two orders of fries, three milkshakes and — the up-down-downright-punch Mortal Kombat secret fatality move to our collective GI tract — a chili dog. The chili dog is more liquid than solid.

In Tonopah, we split up: Some of us sample a dizzying, 11-mug flight of beers at Tonopah Brewing Company, some of us take a tour of the Crescent Dunes solar thermal plant just outside Tonopah, comprising a blindingly white Eye of Sauron-like power tower filled with molten salt, heated by 10,000 mirrors in order to generate emissions-free energy. Both beer and solar tower make our heads spin.

If nothing else, Tonopah is a town of purported scares, with two main areas of terror activity: the reputedly haunted Mizpah Hotel, and, at the other end of the highway, the Clown Motel, which has the whole gibbering bulb-nosed/ evil smile frightmare thing going, in addition to being situated next to a historic, corpse-rich miner’s cemetery. Heidi takes the Mizpah and discovers, much to her crushing disappointment, that the Mizpah has no ghosts, only a comfortable room, good service and nice furnishings. (This will be reflected in

Hear more Hear our dispatches from the road on “KNPR’s State of Nevada” at desertcompanion. vegas/hearmore

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To no pah Population: 2,478 Elevation: 6,047 County: Nye (county seat) Don’t miss: Tonopah Historic Mining Park Historical factoid: 1913 was the area’s biggest mining year; $10 million in gold and other metals extracted near Tonopah!

Pop cultural tidbit: Ghost Adventures films there a lot!

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Desert ghosts: Sculptures at the Goldwell Open Air Museum

Golden past: Tonopah Historic Mining Park

our Yelp review!) Meanwhile, at the Clown Motel (see p. 32), Andrew finds coulrophobic terror in the form of a dreary, Steinbeckian flop with peeling walls, ’70s carpet and a TV that smells like Chinese food (???), an experience leavened only by the friendly, cheerful clerks in the office (or is it actually secretly murderous fake-friendly cheerfulness?). They enthusiastically accept Andrew’s donation to the Clown Motel’s ad hoc clown museum: Clowny, the wooden clown-face puzzle that gave Andrew bed-sopping nightmares all through his childhood. Sure, Heidi gets a restful sleep in a cool historic hotel, but Andrew is finally able to dislodge from his soul a deep traumatic psychic splinter and become whole again. And it happened in Tonopah. In the morning, refreshingly unmolested by evil spirits, we pack up and depart for our last few stops.

April 2 » Tonopah » Beatty » Las Vegas

G

oldfield was one of those boomtowns that boomed so hard you get the impression they thought it might last forever — amid tourist-curio photo ops and convenience stores, old stately brick and stone buildings remain, ghosts of their glory days when plutocrat players like George

Wingfield parlayed mining rushes into full-on gold, banking and real estate empires. #baller In Beatty, we take a detour to its satellite ghost town Rhyolite to get an up-close-and-personal look at the Goldwell Open Air Museum, a set of outdoor sculptures that are variously whimsical, eerie and bizarre, from the giant cinder block nude Lady Desert: The Venus of Nevada to The Last Supper, a series of shrouded figures recalling the famous biblical scene.

It’s when Chris is trying to line up a cool photo of The Last Supper that we finally realize we are due to go home.

It’s nothing major or momentous.

What happens is that while Chris is obviously in his serious-photographer posture, crouching down to get the perfect angle of the mysterious sculpture set against the mountains, a totally clueless Ameridork family opens up their van and disgorges their keening broodlets to climb all over the scene, wrecking the shot and probably not doing any favors to the sculpture.

It’s a symbolic nudge, an inner prompt delivered by that wise voice inside: It is indeed time for you to go home, to Las Vegas, where every day it is your duty to suffer with patience and grace the great Ameridork tourist hordes disgorging themselves on your shiny city.

Thank you, ancient spirit or whatever. With that, we pile into the RV and set a course for home.

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B E YO N D

DESTINATION: SOUTHERN UTAH Whether your desire is to escape the increasing temperatures of Las Vegas or just immerse yourself in a beautiful, serene environment featuring a variety of relaxing, fun and inspirational springtime events to keep you entertained and create memorable experiences, nearby Southern Utah is a great escape. Âś From the breathtaking backdrop of the Tuacahn Amphitheatre that presents musical production favorites under the stars and the award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival with its world-class theater productions, to two plein air art festivals held in stunning settings, numerous close-by national parks and monuments, some great recreation areas, and both new and historic spots to explore along the way, Southern Utah is definitely worth the short two-hour drive.

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Carol Bold, Color of the Wild, acrylic, 2015

Celebrating Thirteen Years of Art Inspired by Place

zion national park

September 16–25, 2016 • Plein Air Competition • Speaker Series • Arts & Craft Fair • Plein Air Sale & Auction

Escalante, Utah Escalante is located in the heart of Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef National Parks. www.escalantecanyonsartfestival.org

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Celebrating Art at Zion— Centennial Style during the peak colors of fall in

southwestern Utah, and in the midst of the centennial year of the National Park Service, the Zion National Park Foundation hosts the eighth annual Zion National Park Plein Air Art Invitational, Nov. 7-13.

This year’s “Centennial Edition” celebrates the role art has played in the creation and history of the National Park Service by hosting 24 of the nation’s finest landscape artists for a week of painting and teaching in the park. In commemoration of the NPS’ 100-year milestone, invited artists not only will paint the amazing scenes of Zion onsite, but will bring studio paintings of work they have done in other national parks.

Visitors can watch the artists paint at various locations in the park; attend

one-hour painting demonstrations given by each of the artists during the week; hear evening lectures at the Zion Lodge; and attend a paint-out, auction and art sale held at the end of the week.

More than 150 paintings will go on sale at the Zion Human History Museum on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 12 and 13. Event proceeds benefit Zion National Park. If you can visit the park only once this year, this is the ideal time to come. Visit zionpark.org

s p e c i a l a dv e r t i s i n g s e c t i o n

ivins, ut

Experience the Unforgettable This Summer at Tuacahn Amphitheatre beginning this month

through mid-October, Tuacahn presents Peter Pan, Disney’s Tarzan—The Stage Musical and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Come watch the excitement when the Tuacahn Amphitheatre magically transforms into a fantasy-filled Neverland, the jungles of Africa and the streets of 15th-century Paris.

With Peter flying all around, Tarzan swinging down from 60 feet and Quasimodo bounding from the tops of Notre Dame, these fantastic, colorful, live productions coupled with a stunning panoramic backdrop of the beautiful red rock cliffs of the Padre Canyon in Ivins, Utah, will be some-

thing you will never forget.

Audiences can enjoy all three shows with season packages starting at $59. Call to get your tickets at 800.746.9882 or visit tuacahn.org.

And, FYI, The Hunchback of Notre Dame portrays mature themes, so parental discretion is advised.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW! 2016 BROADWAY SEASON Back by popular demand

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(800) 746-9882 | TUACAHN.ORG

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cedar city, ut

Experience ‘The Greater Escape’ at the Utah Shakespeare Festival

november 7–13, 2016 John Cogan, Waters of Evening (detail), acrylic, 2016

• 24 Invited Landscape Artists • Free Daily Demonstrations • Free Evening Lectures • Public Wet Paint Exhibit & Sale • Proceeds Benefit Zion National Park

zion national park foundation www.zionpark.org 1-800-635-3959 435-772-3264

field institute

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Doug Braithwaite Arlene Braithwaite Royden Card John Cogan Michelle Condrat Bill Cramer Linda Dellandre Cody DeLong Bruce Gómez George Handrahan Mary Jabens Roland Lee Richard Lindenberg Patricia McGreeney James McGrew Rachel Pettit Hadley Rampton Mike Simpson Steve Stauffer Gregory Stocks R. Gregory Summers Michele Usibelli Jim Wodark Suze Woolf

the tony award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival is not just a theatrical presentation—any more than the Taj Mahal is just a house. It’s eight of the liveliest, most professionally produced plays this side of Broadway featuring drama, comedy, Shakespeare, contemporary theater and a few genres in between.

The 2016 season of the Utah Shakespeare Festival runs from June 27 through Oct. 22. This year’s play performances include Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, The Three Musketeers, The Cocoanuts, The Odd Couple, Mary Poppins, Julius Caesar and Murder for Two. Conveniently set in the midst of Cedar City, Utah’s stunning new Beverley Center for the Arts, the festival also offers the interactive Greenshow—a free 30-minute frolic of song, dance and laughter; backstage tours; play seminars; panel discussions with worldclass cast members and artists; plus enlightening play orientations. Not to mention, there’s a nearby renowned national park or two, or three.

No wonder it’s called a festival. It’s also quite accurately referred to as “The Greater Escape.” Plan yours today. Visit bard.org or call 800.PLAYTIX for tickets.

s p e c i a l a dv e r t i s i n g s e c t i o n

st. george, ut

St. George Restaurateurs Serve Up Fine Cuisine ... and Wonderful Memories the painted pony owners,

Randall Richards and Nicki Pace-Richards, strive to deliver a combination of high-quality classic dining favorites and culinary innovation. The husband-and-wife team purchased the St. George, Utah, restaurant in 2004, with the goal of creating a fine dining establishment that reflected their love and appreciation for the natural environment and organic foods.

Now a popular, multiple award-winning restaurant, The Painted Pony serves up delicious, contemporary American cuisine made with organic meats and fresh, locally grown ingredients. Some of those ingredients even come from the owners’ 1-acre garden that’s cultivated for the restaurant.

With its seasonally changing menu created by Richards—the executive chef—The Painted Pony offers a variety of great-tasting selections that are made using originality and an ingredients-first philosophy.

In addition to running The Painted Pony, the couple took on another venture with their business partner, John Delaney, a few years back when an opportunity came up to pay tribute to a once iconic St. George landmark, the Big Hand Café. The legendary café opened in the 1930s and was one of the first restaurants in town.

Situated in the center of town on Main Street—and at the only stoplight—the renowned Big Hand Café was a regular gathering spot for locals, as well as a popular stop for tourists traveling through Southern Utah along old Highway 91.

Today, George’s Corner restaurant sits at the very site where Big Hand Café stood for some 30 years before being torn down. Richards and his wife— who is the great-niece of George Pace, the café’s founder and operator—named their new restaurant in honor of him.

After taking over and renovating the building that now occupies the lot, the couple have created a very special tribute to a St. George icon and the site’s first restaurateur.

Its wall filled with photos of Big Hand Café and the fledgling downtown of St. George, George’s Corner not only offers the taste of great food seven days a week between 7 a.m. and midnight, it provides a pretty good taste of history, too.

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GET VIP ACCESS

Subscribe today to Desert Companion.

Not only will you get a year’s worth of our award-winning city magazine delivered to your door. But you’ll also be supporting quality journalism, fine writing and great design.

Get a 1-year (12 issues) subscription for just $24

SUBSCRIBE TODAY! www.desertcompanion.vegas

st.george, ut

George Streetfest Offers First Friday Nightlife in Southern Utah worth planning a weekend

Double up to $10 in SNAP dollars!

Get $20 worth of fresh produce for just 10 SNAP dollars! Learn more at the Saturday Downtown Farmers Market info table. www.uah.org/projects-initiatives/fms

support local growers & artisans!

2 wEST St. George Blvd.

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around, the new and popular nightlife event George Streetfest, which is held on the first Friday of every month at Historic Downtown St. George, Utah, offers something for everyone.

Launching in June 2015, George rises up from 6 p.m. to midnight to fill three city blocks in the center of town. Adults and children alike enjoy an evening filled with live music, buskers performing for tips, the popular Food Truck Village, a youth DJ dance party, street market and The Desert Pulse Jazz Garden located at Historic Ancestor Square.

An adult-only venue, the Jazz Garden offers tapas from favorite downtown restaurants and adult beverages served to live jazz and blues music. Each month, the Jazz Garden

and Main Street Free Concert event showcase a rich and fresh mix of local and guest artists who have proven to be nightlife you can get excited about.

For more information, visit georgestreet fest.com or email george@emceesquare.com.

s p e c i a l a dv e r t i s i n g s e c t i o n

st.george, ut

For RightOff-the-Vine Freshness, Check Out Downtown St. George’s Farmers Market you can find foods with

flavor, nutrition and freshness on Saturday mornings, from May to October, in Ancestor Square at the Downtown Farmers Market. Organic growers and artisans make the trek each week from Southern Utah’s cities, such as Enterprise, Cedar City, Kanab and more, to

bring the absolute freshest collection of produce, herbs, seedlings and other locally produced and crafted items, including cheeses and grass-fed, organically grown beef, lamb and pork.

Nicki Pace-Richards, founder of the Downtown Farmers Market and co-owner of The Painted Pony and George’s Corner restaurants with husband-executive chef Randall Richards, explains that timing is everything when it comes to produce.

“Every day it’s off the vine, it loses nutrients,” she says. “Our market farmers pick their produce right before the market itself, even the morning of. The produce you buy here is literally right off the vine.” Visit farmersmarketdown town.com

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escalante, utah

Escalante Canyons Art Festival Offers Something for All do something out of the

ordinary this fall and escape to the Escalante Canyons Art Festival, Sept.

16-25, for a gathering of people who celebrate stunning landscapes through art. Now in its 13th year, the festival is off the beaten path in Escalante, Utah, along Scenic Byway 12 between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks.

With something for everyone, festival highlights include the plein air painting competition, an arts and crafts fair, a speaker series that features writers, scientists and artists, and exhibits of plein air works, workshops and demonstrations, as well as live music and tasty food, of course.

Find out all about the events of the Escalante Canyons Art Festival by visiting escalantecanyonsartfestival.org and make your plan to join in this year’s fun and celebration. Visit escalantecanyonsartfestival.org

2016 Plays

June 27 – October 22

Much Ado about Nothing Henry V The Three Musketeers The Cocoanuts

Mary Poppins Julius Caesar Murder for Two The Odd Couple

The Greater Escape.

800-PLAYTIX • bard.org • #utahshakes

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BMW Motorrad USA

Motorcycles since 1923

A divine dining experience quick and delicious signature dishes and gourmet specials

IT’S CALLING.

Nestled in the beautiful Springs Preserve, Divine Cafe offers a gorgeous view of the Strip skyline with great outdoor dining options.

Open Monday-Friday Lunch 11a.m. -3p.m. | Thursday Happy Hour & Live Music 4p.m.-8p.m.

Sunday Brunch, Bottomless Mimosas & Bloody Marys 10a.m.- 4p.m.

JOIN CHEF STEVE FOR OUR MONTHLY COOKING CLASSES

Follow us for upcoming events & specials 333 S. Valley View Blvd., Las Vegas, NV 89107 | 702.822.8713 Call 702.454.6269 to schedule your reservation. See store for details.

6675 South Tenaya Way • www.bmwoflasvegas.com

www.divinecafelv.com

5

e k ta YOUR ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT CALENDAR FOR MAY

22

5

6 RACHEL STIFF WINCHESTER GALLERY

Opening reception for Framing the West, Stiff’s exhibit of paintings abstracted from landscape forms. Good buzz on this one.

Through June 24. 5:30p, free, 702-455-7340

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CABRERA TITUS CONDUCTS ANDRONICUS TCHAIKOVSKY JR.

ECHOES OF HOMER UNLV STUDENT UNION BALLROOM

To wrestle with the question of how literature reckons with war — especially now, in a new century of asymmetrical warfare and nonstate combatants — the Black Mountain Institute has … well, LOOK at this lineup: George Packer (The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq), Brian Turner (My Life as a Foreign Country), Siobhan Fallon (You Know When the Men Are Gone) and Phil Klay (Redeployment).

7p, free, blackmountaininstitute.org

12-28

11 MOB GEOGRAPHY OF NEW YORK THE MOB MUSEUM

If Las Vegas was the mob’s playground, New York City was its incubator. Many of the most famous figures in organized crime, from Luciano to Gotti, walked its streets and alleys.

Author Anthony DeStefano helps you tie people to place. 7p, $13.95, themobmuseum.org

THE SMITH CENTER

ONYX THEATRE

Who doesn’t love them some Vitamin T? After all, he’s perhaps the most beloved of Russian composers, conducted on this afternoon by the LV Phil’s Donato Cabrera. 2p, $26-$96, thesmithcenter.com

Keywords: despairing teacher, children, “Shakespeare’s goriest play,” ’90s power ballads, turning the tables … sounds like another delightfully loopy pastiche from the Onyx laboratory. 8p, $20, onyxtheatre.com

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Channel 10

ART

ART.WRITE.NOW.TOUR

THROUGH MAY 3, 10A–6P Curated, produced and presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, the tour showcases a selection of works from the 2015 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.

The inspiring and innovative work by teens from all across the country is celebrated for being the most fresh and relevant look at creative work by young artists today. If you want to know what issues are on the minds of teenagers, the Art.Write.Now. Tour is sure to provide valuable insights through the lens of sophisticated and captivating artworks. Free with paid general admission. Big Springs Gallery at Springs Preserve, springspreserve.org

ART FESTIVAL OF HENDERSON 2016 MAY 7–9, 9A–4P

Celebrate Mother’s Day with numerous juried artists from across the country.

This all-encompassing show features painters, potters, glass blowers, jewelers, sculptors and several other crafters.

Free. Downtown Henderson, 200 S. Water St., cityofhenderson.com

Janis Joplin

American Masters Tuesday, May 3 at 8 p.m.

ARTLIVE!

MAY 12, 5:30P artLIVE! is a creative collaboration of fashion and artistic presentations to raise awareness and funds for local organizations and highlight emerging and established artists and designers. The event will include a dazzling display of artistic presentations including fashion shows, music and dance performances. The affair culminates with a silent auction featuring ten distinctive and unique painted Madison sculptures that reflect the artistic vision of the featured artists. $150; $35, students. The Smith Center, artlivelv.com

Wallander: Season 4 on Masterpiece

Genealogy Roadshow: Season 3 Premiere

Sundays starting May 8 at 9 p.m.

Tuesday, May 17 at 8 p.m.

Genius by Stephen Hawking

National Memorial Day Concert 2016

LAS VEGAS ARTISTS GUILD SPRING EXHIBIT THROUGH MAY 21

Artwork in this exhibit highlights members of the Las Vegas Artists Guild and their exploration of the topic of Las Vegas. Historic Fifth Street School’s Mayor Gallery, 702-229-1012

A MOTHER AND DAUGHTER REMEMBER THROUGH JULY 7

Miriam Shavit and Vered Galor, mother and daughter, both Holocaust survivors, remember the past. The mother remembers what she went through in her paintings. The daughter, too young

Wednesdays starting May 18 at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.

Sunday, May 29 at 8 p.m.

VegasPBS.org | 3050 E. Flamingo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89121 • 702.799.1010 M AY 2 0 1 6

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THE GUIDE to remember, recalls the history with her photographic collages. The third, Cole Thompson, a photographer and friend, visited the death camps in 2006. His black-and-white images add reality and spirituality to the exhibit. Las Vegas City Hall Chamber Gallery, 495 S. Main Street, second floor, 702-229-6011

FORCE OF NATURE THROUGH JUNE 18

Artists Elizabeth Blau, Rossitza Todorova and Orlando Montenegro Cruz explore similar topics having to do with nature, movement relating to travel through space, and human effect on the environment.s. Charleston Heights Arts Center, 800 Brush St. 702-229-6383

La Périchole his mistress. $15. Winchester Theater, 3130 McLeod Drive, 702-990-2787

MAKANA & PAULA FUGA: THE SOUL SLACK TOUR MAY 6–7, 7P

Guitarist, singer, and composer Makana’s Hawaiian slack-key guitar and his song “We Are the Many” is considered an anthem of the Occupy movement.

He has opened for Sting and Santana and has performed at The White House.

He is joined by acclaimed vocalist Paula Fuga. $35-55. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

MARIACHI SOL DE MEXICO MAY 6, 7:30P

AESTHETICS PRIMARY MAY 26-SEPT. 29

Aesthetics Primary is an exhibit where the focus is on artists whose work could be defined as possessing aesthetic beauty or visual pleasure and each artist is asked to comment on how they are influenced by aesthetics in a brief written statement.

Historic Fifth Street School Mayor’s Gallery, 702-229-1012

MUSIC

A SOUND BOUQUET MAY 1, 2P

The Musicmakers Spring concert features Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” songs of the Beach Boys, The Supremes and much more. Under the direction of Dennis Gaszo, with Eddie Fluellen tickling the ivories, hear the soothing sounds of music old and new. $10. Starbright Theatre at Sun City Summerlin, scscai.com

SPOTLIGHT CONCERT: BAROQUE SPLENDOUR MAY 3, 7:30P

Members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic perform favorites composed for small ensembles. This month’s program features Baroque works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Vivaldi and others. $65.

Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

LA PÉRICHOLE

MAY 5–15, FRI-SAT 7P; SUN 2P Sin City Opera presents Jacques Offenbach’s hilarious comedic opéra bouffe, which concerns two impoverished Peruvian street-singers, La Périchole and Piquillo, who are too poor to afford a marriage license, and the laughable, lecherous Viceroy, who wishes to make

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Mariachi Master Jóse Hernàndez leads Sol de Mexico through mariachi renditions of classical, pop, jazz, swing and Broadway tunes. Sol de Mexico is one of few mariachi bands that play the classical circuit. $26-$65. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center,

thesmithcenter.com

MONTY ALEXANDER: A NIGHT AT JILLY’S, SINATRA AT 100 WITH SPECIAL GUEST CLINT HOLMES MAY 13–14, 7P

While performing in Miami in 1962 at the age of 18, Alexander caught the attention of Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo, who invited him to be the house pianist at Jilly’s nightclub in New York City.

Jilly’s was a frequent hangout for many legendary figures. Celebrate Sinatra in style with this star-studded concert. $39-$59. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

HENDERSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SEASON CLOSING CONCERT MAY 13, 8P

The concert will feature crowd favorites and world-famous arias, duets and ensembles from operas that include Verdi’s La Traviata and Aida, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Puccini’s La Bohème and many more. Free. Henderson Pavilion, 200 S. Green Valley Parkway, cityof-

EVERYTHING’S COMING UP BROADWAY

henderson.com

This Silvertones concert is filled with those great songs from those wonderful musicals of the ’30s–’60s. All songs have been carefully arranged and scored by Musical Director George Pucine with Martha Olsen’s skilled craftsmanship on the piano. $10. Starbright Theatre at Sun City Summerlin,

MAY 13–14, 8:30P

MAY 7, 7P; MAY 8, 2P

scscai.com

SOUL MEN STARRING SPECTRUM MAY 8, 3P AND 7P

This award-winning Las Vegas soul and R&B quartet performs the classic hits of The Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Stylistics, and many more, complete with high-energy choreography and costuming. $37$40. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center,

thesmithcenter.com

CAPATHIA JENKINS IS …

MORE WOMAN THAN YOU KNOW MAY 9–10, 7P

Broadway star and renowned concert performer Jenkins presents an evening of music and life experience as she shares her stories of stage, screen and music. $39-$50. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

STEVE GRAND IN CONCERT SHARE Cabaret Series and The Center present nationally known YouTube sensation and singer Grand in concert. With more than 10 million views on YouTube, a #3 album on the Billboard Independent Album Artists Charts, and one of the most successful music Kickstarter campaigns ever under his belt, Steve Grand has not just broken the rules but has changed the game when it comes to being a successful singer-songwriter.

Share Nightclub, 4636 Wynn Road, bit.

ly/stevegrand2016

THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC — A MODERN TRIBUTE TO ABBA MAY 14, 7P

Powerful harmonies, high-energy dance and the unforgettable hits of ABBA make this contemporary musical tribute one not to be missed. The four members of the cast use their electric voices and larger-than-life personalities to take audiences on a sonic adventure, guiding them with music and history through the life and times of the pop phenomenon that was ABBA. $20.

Starbright Theatre at Sun City Summerlin, scscai.com

Bizet's

presented by

Starring Maya Lahyani (pictured), Viktor Antipenko, Suzanne Vinnik and Trevor Scheunemann.

Opera conducted by Music Director, Gregory Buchalter of the METROPOLITAN OPERA.

Friday, June 10, 2016 7:30 PM Sunday, June 12, 2016 2:00 PM Judy Bayley Theatre University of Nevada, Las Vegas

BOX OFFICE: 702.895.2787 www.unlv.edu/pac/tickets Photo courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera,Teddy Wolff.

THE GUIDE #THROWBACK IN CONCERT MAY 14, 7:30P

The Desert Winds concert will feature works that represent the musical memories of the musicians in their group. UNLV Saxophone Professor Mark McArthur joins them for a special performance of the Mackey Soprano Saxophone Concerto. $20. Nicholas J. Horn Theatre, 3200 E. Cheyenne Ave.,

thedesertwinds.org

Nevada taiko troupe is composed of uchite (taiko drummers) who have a deep respect for taiko, and dedicate many hours learning and sharing this ancient art form on traditional wooden drums that they repair and maintain themselves. Clark County Library, 702507-3549

MAY 21, 6P

Enjoy an all-star jazz showcase featuring three outstanding artists – vocalist Allison Adams-Tucker, saxophonist Darren Motamedy and guitarist Dirk K. They will set the mood for a soulful, passionate and sensational evening of smooth jazz.

Police Memorial Park, 3250 Metro Academy Way, 702-229-3514

THE DOO-WOP HALL OF FAME OF AMERICA GALA CONCERT WITH CELEBRITY GUEST HOST TEMPEST STORM MAY 21–22, 7P

The fabulous Las Vegas Showgirls and their beautiful spectacle come to life in this tribute to the iconic entertainment found only here. Hosted by headliner comedian Kathleen Dunbar, there will be a large cast of performers, singers, dancers and showgirls who have all worked in these amazing shows. Keep an eye out for surprise celebrity guests. $20. Starbright Theatre at Sun City Summerlin, scscai.com

A MOONAGE DAYDREAM WITH THE LON BRONSON BAND

THE DANCING MANTIS FESTIVAL

MAY 27, 7P

LAS VEGAS KAMINARI TAIKO MAY 22, 2P

Tthe Las Vegas Kaminari Taiko drummers perform in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Formed in 1993, this Southern

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MAY 27, 8P

center.com

Conductor Donato Cabrera leads The Las Vegas Philharmonic as it concludes its 17th season with performances of D.J Sparr’s “Dreams of the Old Believers,” and Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme” and “Symphony No. 6-Pathetique.” Featuring Oliver Herbert on cello. $26-$96. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

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Nevada Ballet Theatre’s 2015-16 season concludes with the return of Artistic Director James Canfield’s production of Shakespeare’s classic tale of star-crossed lovers. $29-$139. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

Since 2001, the band’s members have had to overcome substance abuse, poverty and homelessness. Today, their six studio albums have sold more than three million copies worldwide and have achieved gold and platinum status in many countries. The band’s music has been associated with several rock genres, including post-hardcore, screamo and heavy metal. $28. Brooklyn Bowl, brooklynbowl.com

These local favorites will present a tribute to the music and artistry of David Bowie. Special guest stars will be joining the band as they perform an entire concert of Bowie’s most famous compositions from throughout his amazing career. $15-$35. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

MAY 21, 7:30P; MAY 22, 2P (PRE-CONCERT LECTURE BEGINS ONE HOUR BEFORE EACH PERFORMANCE)

MAY 14, 7:30P; MAY 15, 2P

SHOWGIRL FOLLIES’ “MERCI”

Classic doo-wop is the focus of this show, featuring Rock ’n Roll and Doo-Wop Hall Of Fame Of America inductee Billy Davis, joined on stage

by Bobby Brooks Wilson (the son of Jackie Wilson). This show also features Tony Funches (formerly of Herb Reed’s Platters) and Buddy Holly tribute artist Johnny Rogers. $39-$49. Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmith-

CABRERA CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY

ROMEO & JULIET

THE USED 15TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR MAY 24–25, 8P

SMOOTH JAZZFEST 2016

DANCE

THE LUCA CIARLA QUARTET The Luca Ciarla Quartet has performed everywhere at an international level, from the Montreal Jazz Festival to the Melbourne Jazz Festival. With Carmine Ioanna on accordion, Maurizio Perrone on double bass and Francesco Savoretti on drums, jazz violinist Luca Ciarla has developed a unique sound, giving birth to irresistible and charming compositions and arrangements. West Charleston Library, 702-507-3964

MAY 21, 7P

MAY 29, 5P

Dancers of all ages will perform in various styles and compete for prizes.

A panel of celebrity judges from the dance world makes this a star-studded extravaganza that you will not want to miss! Free. Downtown Container Park,

thepinktutuballet.com LECTURES, SPEAKERS AND PANELS

THE RANCHO HIGH SCHOOL RIOTS MAY 5, 7P

This documentary focuses on the turbulent years 1967 to 1974 when racial tension and violence spread throughout the Clark County School District. The film highlights the Rancho High School Class of 1971 which seemed to be the apex of the disturbance. Stan Armstrong, the film’s director, will answer questions after the screening. Free. Clark County Library, 702-507-3459

LI LIN HONG CHINESE MUSIC ENSEMBLE

THE MOB GEOGRAPHY OF NYC

In celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Li Lin Hong Chinese Music Ensemble will perform traditional Chinese folk music and contemporary pop songs. The music will be played on traditional Chinese instruments including the pipa, ruan and erhu. Free Clark County Library, 702507-3459

Author Anthony Destefano will discuss each of the city’s five boroughs, tracing the criminal activities and area exploits from the 19th century through today. From the Bronx to Brighton Beach, from New Springville to Ozone Park, here is a guide to mob life in the Rotten Apple. Free for members or with paid admission. The Mob Museum, themobmuseum.org

MAY 29, 2P

MAY 11, 7P

VIRGINIA CITY: TO DANCE WITH THE DEVIL MAY 28, 2P

Where else but in Virginia City could a penniless Irish miner in a few short years amass a fortune greater than any of America’s robber barons simply by dint of hard work and intuition, yet remain a humble, caring human being? Hear these and other stories when author and filmmaker Nicholas Clapp discusses his latest book on Virginia City’s twenty turbulent bonanza years. Free with regular admission. Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas,

museums.nevadaculture.org

fun includes new music, created on the spot, per your request. $10, kids free.

Fern Adair Conservatory of the Arts, 3265 E. Patrick Lane, lvimprov.com

BROADWAY IN THE HOOD PRESENTS DREAMGIRLS MAY 27, 1P

The multi-award-winning musical tells the story of girl group “The Dreams,” inspired by the real-life career of The Supremes. This show features such modern Broadway classics as “I Am Changing” and “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.” $34-$64. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

THEATER

TUNA DOES VEGAS

MAY 6–22, THU–SAT 8P; SUN 2P The new installment from the legendary Greater Tuna creative team reunites the lovable and eccentric characters from the “third smallest town in Texas” as they take a rambling romp in Sin City.

The hilarity begins when oddball-conservative radio host Arles Struvie announces on air that he and his wife, Bertha Bumiller, are heading to Vegas to renew their wedding vows ... but everyone from Tuna, Texas goes along for the ride! Adults, $24; seniors and students, $21. Las Vegas Little Theatre, lvlt.org

DIXIE’S TUPPERWARE PARTY MAY 17–21, 7P; MAY 21–22, 3P

FAMILY & FESTIVALS

’OHANA FESTIVAL MAY 7, 10A–4P

Enjoy a family-friendly celebration of Hawaiian and Pacific Islander culture commemorating Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month and highlighting the importance of ’ohana (family) in Pacific Island cultures. The festival will feature great food, live music, performances by local hula schools, an outdoor luau with kids’ games and more! $5, free for children 2 and younger. Springs Preserve,

springspreserve.org

MAY 7, 11A

Enjoy a variety of teas and scones, assorted homemade jams and pastries, fruit and dainty sandwiches. Discover the latest in hats and fashion trends. Models walk the catwalk dressed in fashions designed by Crystal Ball. $11.50–$12.50.

Henderson Downtown Senior Center, 27 E. Texas Ave., cityofhenderson.com

BRIGHT SIDE, A NEW MUSICAL

MAY 7, 7–10P

A father finds hidden strength as he fights to keep his family together through illness and his wife’s deployment. $16-$20. Cockroach Theatre, 1025 S. First St. #110, cockroachtheatre.com

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE: A SPACE AND ZODIAC THEMED PROM This annual event hosted by the QVolution youth program is for LGBTQ youth and allies. Prizes will be given for the best space/zodiac themed costume and titles for Emperor, Empress and Emprix will be awarded. Ages 12–24. Free.

The Center, 401 S. Maryland Parkway,

thecenterlv.org

LVIP MAY SHOW

TEEN ANIMEFEST

Quick-witted, spur-of-the-moment comedy that is clean burning — so bring your kids and your grandma! Laugh-a-minute

The second annual Teen Animefest, a celebration of anime culture, will feature workshops, cosplay contests, a Super

MAY 21, 7P

ASIAN FLOWERS FESTIVAL MARKETPLACE MAY 21-22, 10A

The second annual festival marketplace will highlight the beauty and culture of the flowers of Asia and the Pacific Islands. The event will feature craftspeople selling custom creations, cultural performances and booths, an adult painting class, children’s activities and other attracitons. Free. Sahara West Library, 702-507-3644

ICE CREAM FESTIVAL MAY 21, 10A–4P

All-you-can-eat sweet treats and yummy eats will be on the menu at this family-friendly event. Featuring stations serving ice cream sundaes, novelties and root beer floats, this event includes live entertainment by Chimps on a Blimp, face painting, storytelling, a pirate magic show, carnival games, a bubble play station and more. $10 adults; $8 ages 3–12, 2 and younger free. Springs Preserve,

springspreserve.org

BREWS & BLUES FESTIVAL MAY 28, 4–8P

MOTHER’S DAY FASHION SHOW & TEA

Join Dixie Longate as she travels the country throwing good ol’-fashioned Tupperware Parties filled with outrageously funny tales, heartfelt accounts, free giveaways, audience participation, and the most fabulous assortment of Tupperware ever sold on a theater stage. This show may not be suitable for children younger than 16. $33-$40.

Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

MAY 20–JUNE 5, THU-SAT 8P; SUN 2P

Smash Bros. tournament, live bands, food trucks and more. Free. Sahara West Library, 702-507-3644

MAY 14, 10A

Red-hot blues and ice-cold brews are on tap for the seventh annual Brews & Blues Festival. The festival offers beers from regional, national and international brewers.

Each ticket includes a sampling mug and unlimited beer samples. Ages 21+ only. $35 in advance; $75 VIP. Springs Preserve members receive $5 off. Springs Preserve, springspreserve.org

FUNDRAISERS

ROCKIN’ PAWS BENEFIT BRUNCH MAY 15, 10A

This community-wide red carpet fundraiser benefitting the L Group lesbian programing at The Center and local animal non-profit Street Dogz will be emceed by the outrageous Kitty Litter and The Center’s own smooth n’ sexy AJ “Elvis” Huth. The pet-friendly brunch features four different brunch choices plus beverages, special entertainment by both of the event’s emcees, contests, a raffle, pet watering stations and a special monitored potty area. $25 in advance; $35 at the door; bottomless Mimosas and Bloody Marys, $20. Hard Rock Café, thecenterlv.org

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END NOTE

now that we’re home ...

Road wisdom

What we learned from our ambitious, panoramic, statewide ramble B y A n d r e w K i r a ly a n d H e i d i K ys e r

S

o, eight days, 10 towns, six RV parks, 1,700 miles, and (*counting on fingers, giving up*) innumerable bathroom stops later, we’re back, safe and sound in our cubicles after Desert Companion’s Great Big Road Trip. And, now that we’re back and we’ve had time to pause, reflect and sleep 19 hours straight, here are some of the lessons we’ve learned from the road — about Nevada, about travel ... (trenchant pause) about ourselves.

Never pass up a bathroom stop on the road, no matter how basic. The person who does the RV’s sanitary dump that night will thank you.

Carve out at least an hour to spend by yourself each day. This is non-negotiable.

Otherwise, you won’t notice that you’re carsick or homesick until a remedy is out of reach and — too late! — you’ve already murdered your travelmates.

Have a schedule; break it. Pre-planning frees you to be on your way to things, instead of wasting time tracking them down. But being open on the way frees you to enjoy the surprises.

There are some less-obvious advantages to living in a big city besides mixology bars and a rich Tinder pool. Like health care. In rural Nevada, we met people who have to drive an hour and half to see their doctor, or be airlifted here or to Reno for emergencies because their local medical clinics have closed.

On this trip, we had some of our first indepth interactions with our state’s natives, and we feel fortunate for the experience.

From the Ely Shoshone, to Thunder Mountain Indian Monument, to the Pyramid Lake Paiutes, all had compelling stories to tell, urgent issues that they want the rest of the state to pay attention to, and strong feelings about white settlers’ invasion in their land and lives.

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Underlined for us at every turn was a collective concern for conservation — not just in the Shoshones’ and Paiutes’ plea to have left intact the water flows that feed their sacred ecosystems, but also in the desire of hunters and fishermen to see wildlife preserved; state employees’ commitment to educating residents on cultural Signs of the times artifacts and natuin Goldfield ral landscapes; and activists’ risk in confronting huge corporate interests that they see as spoiling their communities. It’s not an “environmentalist” thing; it’s a Nevada thing.

There are plenty of stereotypes about rural residents, but here’s one generalization we can make with confidence: They were unanimously kind, open and patient when faced with our intrusion. We might never go hunting or talk politics or go to church with them, but we didn’t meet anybody we wouldn’t have a drink with.

Quiet is a natural resource that influences the pace of life. It was a fond refrain of rural residents: quiet, quiet, quiet. One of the things they love most about living in rural Nevada is the quiet. Quiet has packed into it other values: yes, a little bit of leave-me-be, but it also seems to us that the absence of the urban psychic noise that manifests itself in our everyday functional paranoia and protective jadedness gives rural residents an edge in openness, perhaps even hospitality.

Roots mean something in a restless, transient world. Social media has turned us all into brand ambassadors for our own romantic consumerist escapades — Look at me, I went here, ate this, did that. “Experiences” become a commodity; likes and follows, the currency. In tension with this, many of the people we met found themselves drawn back to their hometowns, their home state — a decided journeying back and inward rather than a fidgety broadcasting outward. Steve Hernandez trained as a chef in San Francisco but returned to Fallon, where he grew up, to open up The Slanted Porch restaurant.

John Arant, owner of The Martin Basque Restaurant in Winnemucca, told us he actually bought the historic place to have a reason to return from Maine to his home state of Nevada. “It’s a different country out here,” he said. And after seeing just a sliver of our great state over eight days, we have to say: He’s absolutely right.

P h oto g r a p h y C h r i sto p h e r S m i t h

TAKE A BITE OUT OF TOWN SQUARE Join 23 of the best restaurants in Las Vegas for a two-day event sure to get your mouth watering.

Taste of Town Square is a celebration with live music and demonstrations accompanying the main course – the delicious food and drink available at Las Vegas’ premier outdoor shopping center.

After mingling with friends during the cocktail hour, sit down to a four-course, communal-style meal prepared by Town Square’s finest restaurants.

MAY 13 7-10PM Kick back with classic rock, country and bluegrass music at the best block party of the year, featuring downhome dishes and a full beer garden.

MAY 14 NOON- 4PM

MAY 14 4-9PM

Enjoy a tasting festival and beer garden featuring a variety of cuisines as well as craft brews, with cocktail samples and mixing demonstrations from 7-9PM.

Sponsored by:

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT

#mytownsquare

Giving dignified hospice care in your home.

Southwest Medical Associates Hospice Care provides in-home care for those who require end-of-life support.

Our emphasis is on the comfort and the dignity of your loved one. Southwest Medical Hospice Care is open to everyone.

For more information, call 702.671.1111 or visit smalv.com

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