I proceeded into town at a measured pace then photographed the Jackson House, the Keyhole Bar, and the Opera House all in one shot. I also got inside two of them and I bet you can guess which two. That's Jim I captured beneath the deer. Back in the car, I checked my Lincoln Highway Companion to see if it was also Jim in Brian's similar photo and I'm convinced it isn't. But I did make two startling discoveries. I had remembered something about the deer singing and queried Jim about it. He responded by prodding the deer into a gripping performance of "Suspicious Minds". My first discovery was that the Lincoln Highway Companion suggested asking for "Rawhide". Right deer, wrong song. My second discovery was that including hotel, bar, and opera house in one picture wasn't entirely original. In fact, Brian has the three in a similar pose in ...Companion. But no one can confuse the pictures or accuse me of copying. The pickup trucks in front of the opera house are completely different. And "Suspicious Minds" is a darned good song, too.

I remember reading, in Roughing It, Mark Twain's telling of the tale about a guy who carried a sack of flour around the country and repeatedly auctioned it off for charity. That true story started in Austin, Nevada, and this is the store that the guy, Reuel Gridley, owned when he lost the bet that triggered the flurry of carrying and auctioning.

The third picture is of Stokes Castle at the west edge of Austin. The structure itself is alright but the view is spectacular. That's Route 50 running diagonally all the way across the picture and (I believe) an older and fainter alignment of the Lincoln Highway running almost horizontal across the left two-thirds. The last picture was taken on the way back down the well maintained winding 1/2 mile dirt road that leads to the tower.

That's Mark in the second picture along with Jan the bartender. He explained the "dead people" then gave me a tour of the place. There's a "pig pit" in back where they roast a pig for big holidays like the upcoming Labor Day. The restaurant (which is only open Wednesday through Sunday so I missed out on) holds the hotel's original restored and working neon sign. I intended to get a shot of the current one when it was lit but forgot. The porcupine now resting on the US-50 sign was once kidnapped by some sailors and traveled around the world for four or five years. Teddy Roosevelt stayed here multiple times; always in the same room. The hotel was and is (you can see the radiator in the corner of my room) heated by steam. To make sure Teddy was toasty, an extra radiator was mounted below the floor of that room. There are plenty more stories but I have to get to the "dead people". The ashes of four people, with more connection to the hotel than to family, set along the wall of the bar and others have expressed there intentions to do the same. That fish in the last picture set a Nevada record when it was caught in 1998. The guy who caught it, Billy Foster, is in the box on the shelf above it. Right where he wanted to be.