Sometimes I wonder why I don’t want to party like I use to. Age I suppose has a lot to do with it. The attraction of just hanging out in my comfortable RV space is another. At the risk of boring my readers, I have sort of become a homebody, preferring to enjoy the quiet company of friends, my cat, and RV park neighbors to the boorish types in bars.
With all that said, I had noticed an old bar on main street several times that from the signage appeared to be an interesting train themed bar. But it was only open 3 nights a week starting at 6 pm. Which is dinner hour for me so I’d considered going several times as I passed the place on my bike but kept forgetting as I prepared for dinner. That link shows the building before it was converted to a bar. The bar owner just opened last year and the google map is older than that. Anyway, one night, I remembered that bar and headed on down there. Just a short bike ride. Got to talking to the people there and turned out one of the guys actually is a train engineer for the special train rides I posted about before. The bar owner is an EMT and does the bar on the side. There was another older guy in there who of course is a character so enjoyed talking to him too. Nice evening. After the other guys left, the owner and I were talking and he asks me if I’d like to taste a very special beer. Sure! So he pulls out this special looking bottle that looks like a cognac bottle and pours me 2 fingers. Dark, rich, with a complex nose. Tasted it and WOW, what a beer. It’s something special by the Sam Adams brewery owner made by him and a crew over in Germany. About 40 proof I understand. Anyway, it’s spectacular so I bought a bottle. Guess how much…$180. Whoa. But, I wanted it, it’s that good. Tried to talk the price down but didn’t succeed.
And here’s a google street view of downtown Ely with the historic Nevada Hotel centered. This is the general area where I’d ride my bike 3-4 times a day for exercise. Beyond this a short distance is the city park which with all the trees is comfortably cool on most sunny days. Behind the park is the county courthouse where I visited and took several pictures of that old building…
When I went in the building there was a nicely dressed ‘lawyer’ type standing there so using my Irish charm, got him to show me around the building as yes, he was a court official and apparently it was a pretty quiet day around there. 
The court house was built in the early 1900’s and the wood work is still looking very nice. That old clock was pretty interesting. They still use this safe. Not for a lot of money, but some.
Check out the antlers on the wall. Don’t see that in every courthouse.
And here’s a holding cell in the courthouse for rowdy prisoners. The judges can poke them with sticks if they want. Maybe not.
So that was fun. That statue near the road was interesting. Has a story to tell, you’ll have to stop in Ely and find out what it is.
Next day storm clouds rolled in. Check it…
Got a bit of rain, but not much.
Day after that, I rode my bike up to the Renaissance Village. An old cluster of tiny homes built for some of the odd balls that were here in the area for mining…I’ll cover that next time. I expect it’ll just be a few days from now. Right now I’m just tired of writing.