Very nice around this area this time of year. I talked the grouchy owner into letting me work on the Wifi. And soon we had a nice working Wifi that didn’t have to be reset several times per day.
I did go into the VA clinic and found that my PA was no longer there. I was informed that from now on, they will only do video consultation with a doctor in Boise with a NA (Nurses Assistant) attending me in Burns. The NA will do to me what the doctor tells him/her like focus their micro camera on moles and what not. Not too bad of a system, but the doctor took what I said about my prostate symptoms and concluded that I needed a stronger drug. A couple weeks later when I received the new drug and before I started taking them I was on my way to Pahrump. Started taking them in a small town with poor Wifi so I didn’t do my due diligence on the drug. Didn’t research the side effects. And it turned out that I started having trouble within hours of taking it. On that first day, noticed my urine burned a little and my flow was reduced from normal. Didn’t think much of that. Over the next 5 days it got worse and worse. But by then I was in Pahrump and did a consult at the VA clinic there. Thought that it was something else, like a UTI (urinary tract infection). But it was clean. No infection. I had stopped taking the drug the day before I got the results back but it still took 2 weeks for the pain to subside and for my prostate to shrink back to normal. Holy crap! What a nasty drug. And that doctor! She didn’t read the side effects either, or did and just didn’t care, or was/is incompetent. Or all three. What the document I found said in the first paragraph is that the drug was NOT recommended for an older male with a swollen prostate, which is what I’ve dealt with for several years now. In fact the drug PROMOTES prostate cancer. WTF!! I will be requesting a different doctor when I return to Burns.
Anyway, there’s a golf course right across the street from the RV park so I went over for a game or two while in town.
Got pretty close to having a par on this shot.
After 4 weeks in Hines, as I said, I headed towards Pahrump. My first destination was Goldfield, Nevada. I’d been through Goldfield a couple times before but never stopped. It did look interesting though. Lots of ol’ timey stuff on the main street. Well, this trip, I got to Tonopah and was just too tired to go on. Plus it was dusk and I don’t like going to a new RV park in the dark. So after 8 hours of driving, I spent the night in Tonopah. Goldfield is only another 30 miles further on, but I didn’t feel up to going even that short of a drive. My plan didn’t work out that particular day so I adapted. It was a nice day and the road was lightly traveled.
I decided I wanted to stop at Goldfield anyway even with that short of a trip but it was so early when I got there, just 11:30 am, that I drove right past the RV park, through town, and then another 8 miles beyond before I said, ta’ hell with it, and came back. You can see from the highway that there is a newer park with new buildings and amenities and it is the only RV park visible as you traverse the town. I did stop at the museum right on the main street just before the RV park with the plan to kill some time. Nice big parking lot for my RV pulling a car. Small museum, but interesting. They had a huge candy dispenser collection. The type of small dispenser that you find in bars on the bar. And they were all filled, and all worked. Huh. Then I walked the 100 feet or so from the museum into downtown Goldfield. Stopped in at an old building that has both a curio shop on one side of the ground floor and on the other a miniature train setup. That was pretty cool because I got there before the conductor arrived so I got to snoop around the train setup and then when he arrived, he ran all the trains for me.
After that short adventure, I pulled in the Clark’s RV Park around 1 pm and less than 5 minutes later the owner showed up. She owns a house up on the hill and can see the RV park from her dining room. So when someone pulls in, she’s there in a jiffy.
After signing up for 3 nights and paying $90 after their veteran’s discount, got hooked up and settled in. Had a few brochures about the town she gave me and it looked like an interesting town worth exploring. But as it turned out, I think I was a couple years early for the best of it. It’s still being recreated as a tourist trap and there are several features that just aren’t open yet. Like an old hotel is fairly good condition that’s been closed up for decades with all the old furniture. It’s being refurbished but tourists aren’t allowed in for a couple more years. Looks interesting though.
Since it was still early in the day, I decided to go a couple miles outside of town the direction I’d come (from the north) to the towns graveyard. Graveyards are kind of interesting in these older towns. What was a surprise here was how big it was. Wow. Looked to be a couple hundred graves. Usually when you stop in one of these older towns the graveyard is small in a way that reflects the size of the town. Here, it looked like there was once tens of thousands in the area.
And it turned out my estimation was correct. At one time, there were 10,000 people in the town, and then between the graveyard and the city limits there was a tent city of 20,000 (estimates). These were all people in town to try their hand at finding gold or silver, and most brought their families. When the mines petered out, they all drifted away taking their mobile homes with them.
And I happened on the bars & stars surrender flag on one of the graves just slightly visible in the above picture. It was on the grave of a confederate soldier who had died here in Goldfield back at the beginning of the 20th century. I rather doubt that he has any relations left in the area, so I’m guessing a racist was afoot. There was also an attached sign praising him for fighting for the south. Recent sign. It just seemed like more than was necessary for a guy who had died more than a century before. I had a close up picture but can’t find it now.
That middle picture above is looking off towards Goldfield and between this graveyard and Goldfield is where that tent city stood. Had all the services as you’d expect of a place with 20,000 people in it, but no permanent buildings. You can visit that area but mostly it’s all just broken bottles everywhere. I started to take the road into that area but didn’t because of all the glass.
And as it got late in the day, since Goldfield is high desert, it started to get kind of cool, and the wind was unrelenting. Kind of annoying. So retreated to my RV and enjoyed satellite TV.
Next time, we’ll explore more of Goldfield. As I said, stayed here 3 nights and it is a historical place. Lots to see yet. Thanks for visiting!