Where
the Fucca is Winnemucca?
This Spot Check by Chris Carnel
Gems
are where you might ignore them. If you ever find yourself driving
through the vast expanse of rare open desert in America and
you're situated on Interstate 80 between Reno and Salt Lake
City, you might wanna stop. Remember a place where you probably
exited to get gas called Winnemucca, Nevada? Like a jewel in
the desert, this small town with its economy based on mining
oddly enough has a modern-day cement skatepark. Andy Haney,
Jon North, Mike Shearer, Forensic Cory, Kevin Mcguire, Greg
Janess and I traveled the two-and-a-half hour trip from Reno
to Winnemucca for the sake of hearsay and curiosity. After finding
the park situated across the street from the Emergency Center
(in a grassy public park) I was rolling into the hot dog shaped
bowl as a virgin of this terrain and discovered I nearly rode
over a used condom down near the drain. We got the heebie-jeebies
and much humor out of this incident as the local kids skating
(that I could count on one hand) seemed unfazed by it and skated
through the dirt infested bowls (that we later swept out) with
no fear whatsoever. Padless, they performed some unique and
funky line dance western hybrid styles of skating. Yeah! What
aerial benders. We were all stoked to watch and soon had the
park to ourselves as the kids were departing to head into the
hills for a night of under-aged drinking that started right
at about 7:00 p.m.Boom! Out
of nowhere the lights came on. "Just so you guys know,
the switch to turn them off is over near the baseball dugout.
Later!" one of the locals told us. What a bonus. On our
next trip back to Winnemucca the park was full of kids hanging
out (not skating) as cheerleaders from the local high school
were strutting their stuff across the parking lot from the park
on the spacious lawn. Andy made them ooh and ahh as he pulled
a crazy ass bowl to bowl transfer on his third try traveling
at mach 10. We skated through the hot afternoon and into dusk
then grabbed some Mexi food at a cool place down the road from
the park (next to Scolaris Market). We made it out of town just
as the sunset and alpenglow was fading and in just enough time
to check out a unique place 45 minutes back towards Reno called
Thunder Mountain. Thunder Mountain (Imlay exit) is not a mountain
at all, but a statue of bizarre found objects hand cemented
into various forms. There's heavy poetry carved into its walls;
some written and some conveyed in a wacky and spooky-spiritual
sense. (Note: For good luck and no kooky Indian curses leave
a tip in the donation box and be cool. Here's why.) Upon driving
up we all stepped out of the car and were immediately attacked
by mass mosquitoes. It was fricken out of a Hitchcock movie!
Our retreat with long sleeves, hoods and pants made things more
bearable but not quite for me. My drive back to Reno would be
visually impaired as I had been bitten in the forehead, directly
between the eyes of all places and a huge pale bump was growing
as the minutes passed. Still I was stoked to have skated with
friends and explored these kinds of gems in the land of cowboys,
Indians and miners, Nevada's crazy open desert.
Gems
are where you might ignore them. If you ever find yourself driving
through the vast expanse of rare open desert in America and
you're situated on Interstate 80 between Reno and Salt Lake
City, you might wanna stop. Remember a place where you probably
exited to get gas called Winnemucca, Nevada? Like a jewel in
the desert, this small town with its economy based on mining
oddly enough has a modern-day cement skatepark. Andy Haney,
Jon North, Mike Shearer, Forensic Cory, Kevin Mcguire, Greg
Janess and I traveled the two-and-a-half hour trip from Reno
to Winnemucca for the sake of hearsay and curiosity. After finding
the park situated across the street from the Emergency Center
(in a grassy public park) I was rolling into the hot dog shaped
bowl as a virgin of this terrain and discovered I nearly rode
over a used condom down near the drain. We got the heebie-jeebies
and much humor out of this incident as the local kids skating
(that I could count on one hand) seemed unfazed by it and skated
through the dirt infested bowls (that we later swept out) with
no fear whatsoever. Padless, they performed some unique and
funky line dance western hybrid styles of skating. Yeah! What
aerial benders. We were all stoked to watch and soon had the
park to ourselves as the kids were departing to head into the
hills for a night of under-aged drinking that started right
at about 7:00 p.m.Boom!
Out
of nowhere the lights came on. "Just so you guys know,
the switch to turn them off is over near the baseball dugout.
Later!" one of the locals told us. What a bonus. On our
next trip back to Winnemucca the park was full of kids hanging
out (not skating) as cheerleaders from the local high school
were strutting their stuff across the parking lot from the park
on the spacious lawn. Andy made them ooh and ahh as he pulled
a crazy ass bowl to bowl transfer on his third try traveling
at mach 10. We skated through the hot afternoon and into dusk
then grabbed some Mexi food at a cool place down the road from
the park (next to Scolaris Market). We made it out of town just
as the sunset and alpenglow was fading and in just enough time
to check out a unique place 45 minutes back towards Reno called
Thunder Mountain. Thunder Mountain (Imlay exit) is not a mountain
at all, but a statue of bizarre found objects hand cemented
into various forms. There's heavy poetry carved into its walls;
some written and some conveyed in a wacky and spooky-spiritual
sense. (Note: For good luck and no kooky Indian curses leave
a tip in the donation box and be cool. Here's why.) Upon driving
up we all stepped out of the car and were immediately attacked
by mass mosquitoes. It was fricken out of a Hitchcock movie!
Our retreat with long sleeves, hoods and pants made things more
bearable but not quite for me. My drive back to Reno would be
visually impaired as I had been bitten in the forehead, directly
between the eyes of all places and a huge pale bump was growing
as the minutes passed. Still I was stoked to have skated with
friends and explored these kinds of gems in the land of cowboys,
Indians and miners, Nevada's crazy open desert.