Ongi etorri!

That's Basque for "Welcome!" according to the Basque tourism website. Tonight I've landed in the Basque Country outpost of Elko, Nevada, populated in part by the descendants of Basque sheepherders who worked for nearby ranches. I learned this from the desk clerk at the Comfort Inn.

On her recommendation I went downtown to the Star Hotel and its Basque restaurant. A succession of Basque families has owned this hotel for more than 100 years. The main things to know about Basque food, at least in Elko, are that it's served family style - you're likely to be seated with strangers at a table for eight - and it's plentiful.

Item: These people are nice. The waitress spotted me as a newbie right away and gave me a quick rundown of how the meal works, including the best advice: "Pace yourself. Nobody finishes their food, don't even try." She checked back often and other staff also lent a hand. The rest of my table, locals who knew my waitress (but were waited on by the lone Basque waitress), included me in their conversation by the end of the meal and offered to share their excess food with me. The hostess left her post and spent five minutes rummaging in the office to give me a copy of the hotel's history from the back of the menu when I asked for it. The Basque welcome is at the top of this history in a variant spelling.

Item: The dinners are huge. Here to the best of my recollection is what she served me, in courses, each item in a separate serving dish with utensils - the poor dishwashers must be way overworked:

1. A pitcher of ice water.
2. A bread basket with two kinds of bread and many butter pats.
3. A tureen of delicious vegetable soup and a bowl of croutons.
4. A salad already coated with a nice garlicky dressing in a serving bowl.
5. Green beans.
6. French fries.
7. Small dark-brown beans.
8. Spaghetti (some amateur online reviewers claim it tastes canned but I thought it was like the spaghetti folks cooked in my rural hometown, not fashionable nowadays but authentic in its way).
9. My entree, a broiled chicken breast, amazingly tender with a dark cayenne coating (I asked for "hot" and it was just right), with whole pimientos on top.

The group already seated at my table, with their scrumptious-looking steaks, had larger dishes of the same sides and I should have just been told to share them - none of us finished any of our sides and I ate less than half of each of mine. Thanks to the waitress's timely advice I did save enough room to eat all of my entree, and wished I had room for more of that soup. She offered dessert but more as a joke since I was clearly stuffed.

Item: The price of  one of these monster dinners is surprisingly modest: mine, including a soda, was just $19 plus tip.

The hotel has no website and I refuse to link to the reviews I found on Yelp and TripAdvisor.com: snarky, smug, and unfair in my opinion.

There are three Basque restaurants around 4th and Silver Streets downtown and one on Idaho Street near I-80. If you get a chance, try one or more!

Elko's other claim to fame is the annual Cowboy Poetry Contest. I've heard some of it on NPR but can't say I'm sorry I missed it in person - I doubt I could have gotten a hotel room while it was going on.

Seeing Nevada for the first time

The drive today was eventful, mostly in a good way:

Crossing the Sacramento River just before I-680 meets I-80 was a bit hair-raising. Swirling crosswinds shoved Penny the Prius from one side of our lane to the other, and I kept a close eye on 18-wheelers struggling with the same wind. Fortunately, traffic by then was not very heavy. The stretch of the river valley that I-80 followed was lovely but I never found the "vista point" (called a "scenic overlook" on highways in the East) that one sign announced, so I have no photos, alas.

As I merged onto I-80 my GPS announced: "Follow Interstate 80 for one thousand one hundred and eighty miles." OK, shades of I-10 in Texas. That will get me to my turnoff for Scottsbluff in Nebraska; then the GPS wants to send me most of the rest of the way home on the same interstate. I think I'll head farther south after Nebraska, both for variety and to lessen the risk of snow and ice.

Between Sacramento and Reno I went through the Sierra Nevada. Up, up, up, as the clouds and mist closed in, the road narrowed and got wetter, and the temperature dropped from the low 50s to 27° at the 5,000-foot level and dirty plowed snowbanks lined the road. I caught glimpses of spectacular snow-covered hillsides through the mist but mostly concentrated on staying on the washboard road, slowing for "slippery when wet" signs, worrying about the lighted "have chains in car" signs, and looking out for ice and semis. The road was heavily salted (as you can see on Penny's sides) and everyone, including folks in SUVs passing at far higher speeds, made it through without incident. Between the tense driving and low visibility there was no chance of photos, so here's one looking back from near Reno after I descended from the Sierra.

After that it was just lovely, though I felt no temptation to visit Reno and Sparks as I drove through or to play in the casinos in almost every town, gas station, and restaurant. From then on I seemingly had the road almost to myself and it was mostly smooth, wide, and followed a level path across flat valleys between snow-capped mountains. The first stretch, just after Fernley, was a flat expanse of white with patches of water - apparently salt, perhaps the remains of an old lake bed? This photo is of a peak much later on, near Winnemucca.

About 30 miles out of Elko the highway climbed through the Emigrant Pass just above 6,000 feet and for the first time it snowed, but the road remained dry and driving was no problem.

As I write this, it's snowing gently in Elko. I went out for my running shoes for tomorrow morning's workout and Penny was covered with a half-inch of powder. So far no snow is sticking to the pavement. I reach the Rockies tomorrow. Oh my.