Geological Time, p. 13
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  Some folks back in Austin thought that there might be a B&B in the ghost town of Belmont far down at the end of the Monitor Valley, but we were unsuccessful in our attempts to make a reservation. At this point, after deciding not to camp, we had no choice except to make the long drive down the valley south to Belmont and take our chances on a room at the inn.
 

 

Driving 50 miles on a dirt road at dusk may not sound appealing, but the road was straight and fairly smooth. I was able to drive for long stretches at 50 or 60 MPH, thinking that if this moment were a TV commercial, it would be subtitled “Professional driver on a closed course.”
Once I stopped at an intersection with another dirt road to amuse my passenger by making a show of looking carefully in both directions at the deserted desert crossroads.
We did not see another car on this route the entire day. But we did encounter a herd of around 35 pronghorn antelope in the middle of the road. We stopped to watch them as they slowly moved out of our way, then scattered to the middle of the valley.

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Click the arrow to see the antelopes in a close-up view.
It was nearly dark when we got to the Belmont ghost town, where the only occupied dwelling, thankfully, was the bed and breakfast. After a nervous moment as the proprietor considered whether or not to accept the dog, we gratefully found our rooms upstairs in the comfortably remodeled inn. My room seemed less comfortable later, after the wood-burning fireplace didn’t draw properly and filled the room with smoke. When the generator was shut down late at night, I wandered outside to take in the landscape lit by the full moon.


The Belmont Courthouse. Drag to see the rest of the town.
   

The state’s ghost towns rate a travelblog of their own, as Nevada has ten of them for every city still inhabited. In Belmont, only the imposing courthouse, long ago the county seat, has been renovated and stabilized by the state. But it is locked most of the time.


The rest of the buildings are falling further into ruin. In the morning we visited the Belmont cemetery. Its wooden grave markers may themselves need some stabilization to survive many more seasons.
 
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