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| The Shady Lady Bed & Breakfast 2022 |
The last light of day hung over the jagged western horizon as we climbed up the steep rock-rubble incline north of Beatty Junction on the hottest day I've ever experienced in April. Topping out at 108 degrees in one place near Badwater Basin, it was the hottest I've ever felt even though I have been in 117-degree heat before. There is just something uniquely dense about Death Valley heat. It felt good to have the sun go down, but I kept the air conditioner going even while going up the great incline.
Alluvial fans in Death Valley are truly profound--steep, wide and strewn with chunks of rock from the size of cows down to pebbles, but nothing too rounded. No, not here. This is a brutally beautiful landscape, and everything is hard-edged, even the pebbles. This is the land of drums and cymbals and clanky bells that also can be oddly soft and pastel, the way Ravel's "Balero" begins soft and pastel from the beat of drums.
Our headlights ate up the rocks and very occasional weed or brush in the eerie lightless silence as the last green edge of day on the horizon was swallowed by night. By the time we entered Daylight Pass, daylight was but a myth slinking off into the depths of subconsciousness before being snuffed out by the ever-present blackness of now.
And the wind picked up. Oh, how it whipped up--as hard-edged as the landscape itself. The road, before strait as an arrow up the incline, now bent one way, then the other, as our headlights scooped in the edges of mountains on one side and the edge of a wash-ravine on the other.
It was amazing, but we were tired. Oh, so tired.
Eventually, we topped Daylight Pass and the small town of Beatty appeared suddenly below us. I don't remember the drive down really, but from subsequent trips, I know it's not far.
I do remember standing outside at a small gas station in a fierce wind, getting cold. Oh, how quickly the weather changed.
Down the street, lit up by Casino lights, palm trees whipped wildly in the voodoo night.
* * * * *
The thirty-minute drive up U.S. 95 to the Shady Lady Bed and Breakfast seemed an eternity. I wasn't sure how well-marked the former brothel was, and I was afraid I was going to miss it or had. Because of a weak signal, GPS wasn't updating our location. We floated around in the deep Nevada darkness, the wind whipping dust and debris across the path of our headlights, searching for our bed for the night.
At last, Marci saw it up ahead to the right. I put on my blinker and worried about the car that was fast approaching behind us because our turn was not much more than a spill of gravel that led us on the rutted path to our destination.
The place had great reviews, but I was beginning to question my research.
At last, we pulled up, headlights shining on a picket fence. The wind was cold and fierce. The branches of the trees whipped around as big swooshes of wind swept in from the desert audibly significant. I unpacked the backseat of our car, hoping the wind would not remove the doors. We each had a suitcase. I would have to come back for the cooler.
The wind swooped in again as I tried to open the gate, the trees swinging their leafy loads in big, black shadowy swooshes shattering the calm light cast on the stone pathway leading to a well-lit porch partially enclosed in exotic wrought iron. I was afraid no one would be awake. We were much later than we had anticipated.
I can't remember if I rang, nocked, or if the door behind the screen door was already open. Once in, a light was on over the front desk that subtly lit a Victorian sitting room off to the left. Here I was, standing in a house of prostitution on a wickedly wild night with my wife. Nevada.
Sort of. Gone were the prostitutes. Gone were the lonely men trying fill giant holes in their souls or escape the unescapable bland pressure of ordinary life. In short, gone were the men trying to escape themselves.
Instead, a pleasant lady in her early sixties wearing Bermuda shorts checked us in. I apologized for us being so late. She said it was no bother and that people often came in late after long, adventurous days in the park. She apologized that the themed rooms where the ladies had once done their work were all taken. All that were left were the private residential rooms. I said we didn't care, and we didn't.
There was a time when I was mesmerized by Nevada's neon wild west outlaw culture. I spent my summers as a youth in Reno. I loved the lights igniting Virginia Street. I loved the billboards of the showgirls at Harrah's all lined up in leotards kicking out powerful legs in unison, feathers high, sparky outfits hugging the edges of voluptuous thighs. I liked the mystique of Mustang Ranch--the hushed tones my fellow Mormon friends whispered about the evil that went on there and the money the owner made by selling out his soul to the devil. I loved the bells and whistles of the casinos--the sound of coins tumbling into metal trays. I loved the smoky air and sound piano music coming out of the small lounges off to the side of the great expanses of slot machines on acres of gaudy red and black carpet. I was a kid, so all of this I viewed from a distance, walking to the bowling alley at the MGM Grand, which only made it more intriguing, more intoxicating.
But somewhere along the line, I changed. Marci and I stay in Vegas frequently, but it is not a destination of choice. Usually, it is the halfway point to the coast. Sometimes, in the dead of winter, we go there simply because it's warm. I still love an evening of listening to free music in one of those little lounges off to the side of the casino, and I love the fountain of the Bellagio, especially when "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andre Bocelli and Sarah Brightman accompanies the thundering waters, but overall Vegas bores me. And though I once was very drawn to the outlier culture of strip clubs and whorehouses, and in my mind, said things like, "A society that allows for that is actually far healthier than one where it occurs in secrecy, unregulated," I am now too aware of the misery sex industry causes to be drawn to the wild west nostalgia that in no way has ever matched reality. I have deeply felt the void that draws people to the night, so there's no judgement there. And in my college years, I spent enough time in topless bars to know the women who work there are real--just regular people trying to make a living. But the thick, sticky dread that hangs in the air is just as real. The dark side isn't exotic--just dank and miserable. Dens of addiction destroy people's lives.
So, unlike in the past, I hadn't been seeking out a place like The Shady Lady as a cool, unique Nevada experience--to get a taste of the underbelly without really entering it. That would have been me twenty years ago. What I had been searching for was somewhere affordable to stay. The campgrounds in Death Valley were booked up and a Motel 6 in Las Vegas was $160 per night. I could not wrap my head around paying that much money for lodging that reminded me of my life when I was poor and lived in apartments that weren't much different than budget motels. So, I thought I might find a bed and breakfast. And I did. Great reviews. Out in the desert. Not too far from Death Valley. Perfect. The Shady Lady.
We were guided through the main kitchen by our host, and then down a long hallway that bent somewhere in the middle. Eventually, it opened into another living room and kitchen. We were told we could use the fridge and stove if we needed to and that there were grills out back. This was the former dormitories for the girls. We were taken to a small, clean room with a double bed, a couple of nightstands, a bathroom, and not much else. We were tired and it was perfect.
I would make a couple more trips to the car, unload the coolers, and put the blue buddies in the freezer. As I unpacked the cooler, I talked to a man who had a thick Australian accent. He was the brother of the woman who owned the place. He was pleasant and very interesting, but I was far too tired to collect, let alone, remember his name.
* * * * *
I woke to the sound of peacocks. Soft morning light poured through the curtains. I remember seeing a white peacock sitting on a sunlit high, wooden fence. I can't remember if that was from our room or some other window I looked out after I got out of the shower and began to wander about.
I do remember how the sunlight bathed the back of the pure white bird in yellow light. I remember how much I wanted to get outside to see the grounds and desert beyond. I pulled on my hoodie as I knew it would be cold.
A warm yellow light poured through the glass on the kitchen door and onto the cupboards. I decided that was the easiest way out without disturbing other guests. Outside the sun rose over some very ordinary dry Nevada mountains--low, and even in the blue morning shadows, yellow with the hair of cheat grass, they slowly marched southward to Mexico, or northward to Canada, depending how you looked at it. I decided it was all the same--those low mountains frozen mid-step in time.
Timeless. Once you get out Vegas and Reno, that's what Nevada is. And that's what I love about it. It never changes. Just over the border from the county I live in Utah sits a small casino. I grew up passing it on the way back and forth to Reno. Later, in college, I stopped there many times for dinner while out exploring that great emptiness called Nevada. And I still stop there once or twice a year, and in all that time, from the mid 70's until now, that little casino and cafe have changed very little. Although they did add on a bigger dining hall, the only real changes to the place are the silencing of the dropping coins with the newer slot machines and the replacement of long sedans and muscle cars with the various auto styles throughout the years. Other than that, walking in there hasn't changed since I was ten.
That is not unique in Nevada. Austin, Eureka, Tonopah, Ely. They pretty much stand still in time--just like the mountains.
Although the nights at The Shady Lady are now very different, outback, in the morning light, the view across the desert I'm sure hasn't changed.
That is why I seek Nevada. That immortal time that stands tall with forever long mountain chains that seem to be marching to Canada or Mexico, but in fact, at least on the human scale of time, are marching nowhere at all.
I think most people want to get somewhere. Perhaps that has been my biggest problem in life. I just want to stand on a dry lakebed in Nevada and witness time not moving at all. Maybe that isn't even a problem. Are we here to do? Or are we here to be? Probably a little of both, but I stand with the trees that are simply satisfied standing in place absorbing the sunlight and growing inside.
I do want adventure. But all the adventures I seek take me to a place where I can simply stand and absorb the sun. The Shady Lady is now such a place.
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