 “All
he wanted to do was drag me to Harrah’s to see the goddamn queez.
Queez, queez, queez. That’s all he could talk about.”
The group of southerners with heavy accents were seated at the next
table. I tried to listen to see what the woman was saying.
“Queez, queez, damn queez.” She repeated.
Was she talking about queers? Sister Betty entertained thoughts
of dropping a little queer activism at their apparently small-minded southern
table. Then her husband said: “I just love those trivia queezes.”
 I
conned MUNI
Guy to take Monday off work and travel with me to Ely, Nevada.
We drove east across the Sierra, stopping for lunch in Truckee, and then
across the border through Reno. Once you leave Reno, there is a whole
lotta nothin’ – not even a radio station.
Turning off Interstate 80, we sped eastward along Highway 50.
Labeled by travelers as the Loneliest Highway, we zipped across the state
at 80 miles an hour. It is clear why UFOs choose Nevada as a prime
landing spot. There is plenty of space to land and a plethora of
cows. There are also lots and lots of historic markers and
countless piles of dirt. The  markers
I suspect help orient the intergalactic travelers to the history of this
empty space. The piles of dirt are baffling – they are everywhere,
clearly placed by human hands, and yet seem to be untouched and unused.
As queer as the piles of sand are the words
written in rock along the side of Highway
50. For miles outside of Fallon, the Highway is lined with names
of states, people, lovers and other odd sayings. (I even saw “Monkey”
written in stone but sped by before I could snap a photograph.)
 Equally
baffling is the Shoe
Tree 50 miles west of Fallon. Scott told me about the Shoe Tree
before we left San Francisco and I would have missed it had MUNI guy not
spotted it. Growing up from a ravine, a giant tree covered entirely
by shoes: big shoes, little shoes, boots, high heels, rubber galoshes.
We arrived in Ely around 7:30. The front desk clerk of the Ramada
Copper Queen Casino stopped calling Bingo numbers long enough for us to
get our room keys. Then she grabbed the microphone and yelled “B-10”.
I replied “Ouch!” None of the elderly players seated at the slot
machines seemed to understand…
Today, we go in search of the Nevada
Northern Railway…
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