Central Nevada, beyond redneck without a clue.

[puerco-bellies]

Don't get me wrong, there are good people there in the rural west. Our hosts (we camped but they had invited us to check out and surface collect at one of their mines) are salt of the earth people. While up at the mine they were very concerned that we don't have firearms with us camping and prospecting in the area. They had moved to the area 15 years ago because the husband got a good position with a mining company, and have learned not to expect anything friendly from most of their neighbors.

She said that the locals are out there because they want to be left alone. They want the freedom to live in a shack if they wish, and often they do. Most people there are very hostile to merely standoff-ish. She said that many pilfer from the local mines, and do so armed, and meth labs are common.

Our experience is that many of the people we came in proximity to were quietly hostile and sullen. These people did not like outsiders and definitely did not like seeing California plates. The only political signs we saw out side of towns were for Ron Paul. Many signs in towns like Battle Mountain were surprisingly for Obama. This first image is a compound like structures built around a RV trailer, with seemingly disabled motorhomes, and lastly camper-shells as the preferred kernels to build around.



The next picture is of a tower theme that is surprisingly common. Several homes in the valley were in are lookout tower like structures, usually built on to a camper shell base. They are all in flat open areas. At first we wondered if there were reasons for building off ground. I initially guessed that it might be warmer off the ground, but these structures seem to be observation platforms. WTF?!?



This is W's base. This is the kool aid lapping 28%'ers. Here is the core of Brownshirt America. I do not fear them, and neither should you.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear puerco-bellies...

Well, I'm glad you weren't scared...

I'm not sure why you weren't...

Cool pics!

Really brings home the reality these people live in...

Thanks for posting them...

:hi:

[Aristus]

2. The town of Battle Mountain holds a place of (dis)honor in the book

"The Worst Towns In The U.S.A."

I'll take your word, and that of the book, for it. I'm staying far away from the gun-crazies out in the provinces.

[LeftyMom]

3. Yep, that's it.

I had family up in Crescent Valley until they passed on of old age. A lot of their neighbors were great people, people I'd love to have as neighbors, Some of them were just kinda, how to put this gently, religiously nuts. Some of them were paranoid survivalist types. But there are a lot of people who just live out there because of the low cost of living.

[quadriga]

4. Nevada, the lower 48's Alaska

[hvn_nbr_2]

5. Speculations about the tower theme

Snakes
Scorpions
Flash floods
Cools off faster in summer evenings
"Carport" for the one car that runs
Better view to see if the bullets hit anything

[XemaSab]

6. Additional speculation

is that you're high enough off the ground that you're still getting some reradiated heat, but not a lot. Also, there's air flow under the house. :shrug:

[CreekDog]

7. what town is that near? nt

[puerco-bellies]

11. It is near the tiny town of Crescent Valley Nevada

30 miles east of Battle Mountain Nevada.

[CreekDog]

13. that part of Nevada does have a certain beauty though

(I took this east of Eureka, NV off Hwy 50)

[redqueen]

8. I dunno about that...

I know someone who votes dem... but would still like to live on a compound with a lookout tower. To him, the lookout tower is for if/when stuff goes downhill... paranoid type I suppose.

[puerco-bellies]

12. These people were definately not the liberal type.

I know "the stare" when I see it, and man did I see it there. We were in the only store there and some old guy walked in there and looked me up and down, then turned to the clerk/owner and asked if there were any "problems". The owner said no and the guy immediately walked out with no purchases or another word. Our van with the Cali plates was parked outside and I think that is what attracted him.

[Tikki]

9. We had a mini-family reunion some years back.....

in tiny Lamoille Nevada....at the foot of the Ruby Mountains.

There is a beautiful Community Park there, The Grove, and a sweet
young couple getting married at the Park that day shared the Park with us...

I doubt I could ever live that rural...but, I definitely could visit again and again.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/06/TR28548.DTL


Tikki

[hippywife]

10. Here's my guess.

I kinda doubt they are W's base. Looking at those pics, the Ron Paul signs, and the descriptions your hosts gave you, I would guess they are hard-core Libertarians, flat out not trusting of any government regardless of which major party is in power.

W's base is definitely the holier-than-thou hard-core religious right. They are the only ones who have yet to begin doubting him. Even the redneck Republicans at this point are goin' "Shee-it! Drop the fuckin' bomb! We need that money here!"

Glad you and Ali had a good time! How was the surface collecting? Any really good finds?

:hi:

[tigereye]

14. poverty, isolation, some odd sense of freedom, but freedom from what?

reminds me of David Koresh or folks who are always hiding out from the government..


Do people own this land? It seems odd that they don't build actual houses.

[DarkTirade]

15. I see this as just the opposite extreme of how some hippies live in communes or tree houses.

Some people are just far enough out on the fringe that they can't feel comfortable living in 'civilization'. (I use the term loosely. :P )

[Lethe]

18. right

there are anarcho-primitivists in the world today who do not want to be in contact with civilization at all

[harmonicon]

16. with what money would they build houses?

And who would build them? Where would the material come from?

[tigereye]

21. I live in PA and there are certainly areas where trailers are more common

esp. some of the rural parts where I grew up, but it's odd in this period of time to see lack of housing stock. That's all.

[LeftyMom]

19. The land is cheap, but most of the people there are barely getting by.

And even if they're doing pretty well for themselves, there's not a lot of local industry and the towns are pretty far apart, so you can't really call local contractors out for bids, unless you're in an actual town (mostly you just ask around for some local handyman type if you need anything done you can't do DIY, but the upside is it's probably some semi-retired old man who won't let you pay much more than it cost him to do the work- people out there do take care of each other really well) and it might be hours drive to the nearest hardware store or lumberyard. Y'know when people on DU post stories about how there's no place to shop where they live but a WalMart? In some of the towns out there, you drive an hour or more just to get to the town where there's nothing but a WalMart. Though there is a Costco in Elko- Elko's the closest thing there is to an actual city between Reno and Salt Lake.

Also, outside of the larger towns and right along the freeway, gas/electric/telephone services tend to be cost-prohibitive to put in, so most of those little places are on generator or solar power. They can't really be very big because there's a very limited amount of electricity to run them, so, combined with the above factors, it's more affordable to wheel in a trailer than to build on site, especially if you have to sink a lot of money into a solar setup. Mostly people start out with a mobile and then just build around it- I've seen quite a few nice looking houses that you might not realize started life that way if you didn't know the area.

[tigereye]

20. that's very interesting - a very different way of life than those of us

from the east, who lives mostly in the city or small towns... a very different type of ethos.

thanks for the explanation :hi:

[Lethe]

17. these people are most likely libertarian types

it's not necessarily that they don't like liberals coming in to their town, they just don't like anyone who isn't local

That government is best which governs least.