Lovelock, Nevada There I Go

The figurative me has made it to Lovelock, Nevada . The literal me as been through Lovelock too many times to count, and I am glad that only the figurative me is currently there.



According to the City of Lovelock ’s webpage, the City was named after a Welsh man, George Lovelock. George was born, interestingly enough for those of you following this narrative, in Swansea , Wales , in 1824. In a few days, I will report on our trip to Swansea , Wales . He left Wales with his wife in approximately 1847, going first to Australia . After working in the Copper mines, he went first to the Sandwich Islands and in 1850, moved on to California . In California , he worked around the central valley building houses. In 1860, he moved on to Nevada . In 1866, he bought the squatter rights to 360 acres. This plot had the oldest water rights on the Humboldt River . He built a stage coach station and built an irrigation canel. When the railroad came in 1868, he gave the Central Pacific Railway 88 acres of land which the Company named Lovelock. The railroad company was supposed to give George a block in the town. Those good old robber barons, however, reneged, and charged George $500.00 for half a block. After that, he made some money in mining. See, you can take the boy out of Swansea , but you can’t take the Swansea out of the boy. He lived until the age of 83.



Since the day of George, the town has moved from mining into agriculture, especially alfalfa. In fact, one website reports that a special bee strain was developed to pollinate the alfalfa. These bees do not live in hives, but individual nests. The female will live in any pre-existing hole. The author reports, “Thus soda straws left unattended when the females are feeling the mating urge, will be filled with nest and eggs. So will the corrugations in a piece of cardboard, and so will empty nailholes in a fencepost. One local man had to give up on his outdoor barbecue when the leaf-cutters insisted on nesting in the gas jets of the burner.”



Today, Lovelock has a population of 2,280. It is the county seat of Pershing County .



My own memories of Lovelock are few. Generally, it has not been a place we stop on either the way to or from Utah . Going east, we gas up in Sparks , and fly right by Lovelock. Going west, we hope to get to Sparks before stopping for gas. Plus, I sort of remember that there is very few fastfood restaurants in town. There is now, I think, a McDonald’s, but that is about it. So Lovelock is a place we wave at as we drive by.



There are two points, though. All across the desert, there are signs to a gas station, Two Stiffs Selling Gas. One would think that, with all these signs, that it would be an oasis in the desert–sort of like the Little America in Wyoming . Nope, it is a dump. It does not even have, a la Little America–50 cent soft serve ice cream cones.



Second, my mother reports seeing a guy at a gas station in Lovelock eating onions out of a bag just as if he were eating apples. She reports that these were Purple Onions, not green ones, but still...One wonders how much loving goes on in Lovelock if they eat onions out of the bag. (Ok, I extrapolate).



I have walked 670,886 steps since leaving Alameda 55 days ago. I have thus walked 317 miles to date. My next major stop is Winnemucca, which is 386 miles from my home, or 69 miles from Lovelock. To reach Winnemucca, I will climb north a little as I follow the I-80.