Silver State Musings: Why Home Means Nevada to me

Impressions. They are what we remember about people, places or things that come into and out of our lives.

There are first impressions, and there are lasting impressions. Either one can be good, bad or ugly — sometimes all at once.

My first impression of Nevada was jaded. I was almost 13 years old, for crying out loud.

Taking a weeklong family road trip in the Ford Econoline Trail Wagon was not high on my list of priorities.

But, being a trooper, I settled into the back of the van and got down to the business of playing endless card games with my siblings.

It sure beat looking out the window at miles of boring sage and rabbit brush as far as the eyes could see.

I was an Oregonian, born and raised in the Willamette Valley of the Pacific Northwest. I was used to seeing trees — towering evergreens that seemed to kiss the grey skies above — and green undergrowth thicker than the rain clouds present more than 300 days a year.

My father was a tree man, a former logger and mill worker who considered uninhabitable any topography devoid of them. I guess I was a chip off the old block after all, because I felt the same way in my youth.

Dad’s dislike for the desert meant few unnecessary stops on the road trip that took us through Nevada, between Reno and Las Vegas. As such, my first impression of the Silver State came mostly from looking out the window of our van at miles of high desert.

Of the few stops we did make, I recall drinking my first sarsaparilla at the Bucket of Blood Saloon in Virginia City; eating a juicy cheeseburger at the Nugget on an overnight stop in Carson City; and checking out Hoover Dam, the 700-foot tall modern marvel of hydroelectric engineering.

We did pass under the cacophony of lights along Virginia Street in downtown Reno and again, 430 miles later, on Las Vegas Boulevard in Glitter Gulch. The colorfully-dressed streetwalkers waving to a veritable traffic-jam of automobiles in downtown Las Vegas were a particular curiosity for this pre-teen boy.

Other than that, Nevada was a wasteland to me — straight out of a Mad Max movie.

Sixteen years later, though, I moved to Northwestern Nevada to escape a 30 percent income tax bracket. Paying Uncle Sam one-fifth of my meager newspaper salary was hard enough. But then the state of Oregon claimed more than nine percent on top of that.

Besides, my life needed change. What could have possibly been better than something ruggedly drastic, like a move to Nevada?

I took an editor’s job at a rural weekly newspaper in Lyon County and settled into Fernley, which at the time, was in its infancy as an incorporated community.

Fortunately, I was already a small-town country boy at heart, so rural Nevada felt more like home in spite of there being nearly as many trees as a coat of fur on a hairless cat.

Still, seeing slot machines at the front of grocery and drug stores took some getting used to. So did the hard liquor sold cheap and liberally in those same retail establishments.

Where I came from, gaming meant playing the state lottery or visiting a casino on tribal land.

Liquor sales were restricted to Oregon Liquor Control Commission retailers only. A bottle of bourbon was no cheap date in the Beaver State.

Then there were Nevada’s brothels. The first one I passed, off the Patrick exit along Interstate 80, was lit up like some sort of carnival. Well, in a manner of speaking, I suppose it was.

Despite feeling at times like a fish out of water (no pun intended) I settled pretty quickly into this strange libertarian state and adapted well to its culture, doing little more than getting my feet wet and tickling my toes.

When I moved to Reno a year later, I had much more trouble adjusting to the urban environment than I did getting used to its own distinctive Nevada culture.

Fortunately, that didn’t last but a few short years and I eventually moved to Carson City, where I’ve resided ever since.

More than sixteen years have passed since I left Oregon for Nevada, and I don’t imagine wanting to live anywhere else.

This desert I once dissed as a wasteland is home.

I love Nevada’s rural communities, the backbone of our state’s character. Away from the bright lights of the big cities, these sparsely populated areas are full of personality, hospitality and unique flavors that define Nevada.

The Silver State is much more than a gaming destination and endless 24-hour buffets. It’s far more than legalized prostitution, easy liquor and human vices, in general.

Nevada is mining, which provides a very livable wage to many rural Nevadans and contributes significantly to the state’s economy.

Nevada is agriculture, grown in fertile valleys fed by mountain rivers and high desert lakes or reservoirs. From beef cattle to cantaloupes, sheep to onions, and grains used to produce hand-crafted brews and distilled spirits, Nevada farmers and ranchers grow things in abundance here.

Visiting areas rich in agriculture take me back to the ranch life of my childhood. I have a deep love and appreciation for the land and those who work it to make a living, all the while providing sustenance for others.

Nevada is art, embracing an assortment of mediums and festivals that celebrate expression.

From Burning Man to the International Car Forest of the Last Church; from the Seven Magic Mountains to the Goldwell Outdoor Museum; from Cowboy Poetry to Basque Dancing as well as a renaissance of mural art in places like Reno, Ely and Elko, art is as much a statewide industry as it is a mark of Nevada culture and heritage.

Nevada is weird. Yes, I know, but stay with me here and embrace it!

From the glass bottle house of Rhyolite to the Republic of Molossia micronation in Dayton; from the Middlegate Shoe Tree to the Alien Research Center in Hiko; from Coffinwood in Pahrump to the mighty Monster Burger of Middlegate Station, Nevada is a little more than just unique.

Legends and lore have left their marks on the Silver State, too, whether we are talking the red-haired giants of Lovelock Cave or mysterious serpent sightings at Walker Lake and Lake Tahoe.

And ghosts? Haunted dwellings are as common here as ghost towns — of which there are literally hundreds in Nevada.

From Rhyolite to Belmont; from Berlin to Unionville; from the ruins of old Fort Churchill to the beehive-shaped Ward Charcoal Ovens, these relics of a time long past remind us of Nevada’s early days as both a territory and a state.

Nevada is history, both human and pre-human.

From ancient petroglyphs carved on rocks found throughout the state to the fossilized remains of a marine reptile, the Ichthyosaur; from Lovelock Cave to the Comstock mines, there is enough history in Nevada to fill up the Smithsonian Institution. A few times even.

From Genoa to Elko, Dayton to Panaca, Carson City to Austin, Virginia City to Eureka, and Goldfield to Pioche, there are living Old West towns throughout the Silver State rich in history — some pre-dating statehood.

These old Nevada settlements saw everything from wagon trains of California Trail emigrants to the Pony Express mail service; from lines of the transcontinental telegraph to tracks of the Central Pacific Transcontinental Railroad.

There were prospectors and miners, speculators and investors, journalists and politicians, lawmen and outlaws, frontier women, society ladies as well as shady ladies.

Nevada also is the land of the Western Shoshone and tribes of the Northern and Southern Paiutes.

Nevada is the outdoors—from hiking to rockhounding, mountain biking to wind sailing, rock climbing to ghost town searching, off-roading to on-roading, fishing to hunting, and just about anything and everything in between.

Nevada is a getaway within a getaway.

Whenever I have a hankering, I enjoy drives along the Carson River to Fort Churchill State Park; to Wilson Canyon and the Walker River that cuts through it; to Lake Tahoe and Pyramid Lake; up to the Comstock; and through the Carson, Smith, Mason and Lahontan valleys of Northwestern Nevada.

Nevada’s lasting impression on me has been a completely different experience from the first impression I had more than three decades ago.

Home Means Nevada isn’t just a state motto wrapped up in the lyrics of a song. It’s a value that Nevadans share, and it means that home is where your heart is.

Well, for many Nevadans, their hearts are here in the Silver State. That’s why Home Means Nevada to them, and it’s why Home Means Nevada to me.

Happy 155th birthday, Nevada!

Brett Fisher is a writer and former journalist residing in Carson City.