Location: Shoshone Mountains near Austin, NV
Activity: Off-Roading and Camping
Duration: 2 Days
Cocktail: Hot Buttered Bourbon
Trip Details: This was an unexpectedly interesting trip. Which, I guess, is why I enjoy visiting new places. I set out with the agenda of visiting Austin, NV and camping off-road in the Shoshone Mountains, mostly because I have never been there. I also knew that the drive would be fairly leisurely as opposed to the goal of just getting from point A to point B. That's not always the case for me. Time is typically a factor and the destination has enough for me to do, that I tend to just want to get there efficiently and start my adventure.
However, for this trip along RT 50 (called the "Loneliest Road in America"), I stopped at all the historical marker signs and read them. I took a dirt road with a sign that advertised "Earthquake Fault" 6 miles ahead. I did a 3 mile roundtrip hike to an old Pony Express station that was mostly just the ruins of a stone walled structure. They did a good job with the signage there to explain each room's purpose and you could walk around the site and throughout the rock foundation.
I stopped to get a breakfast to-go order from Cold Springs Station, which is mostly just a singular rest-stop style area with a diner, motel and camping sites. I ate my breakfast at an old telegraph station nearby. It was similar to the ruins of the Pony Express Station, but was fenced off and wasn't as hands-on.
I passed the Shoe Tree. A tree with old sneakers hanging from it, like decorations on some sort of confused Christmas Tree. Middlegate was a town with one gas pump that requires you to go into the tavern and pay the bartender for the gas. Then, I finally made it to the town of Austin. If you actually follow my travels on a map, you'll notice the list is not exactly linear. That's because Cold Springs Station did not have a gas station, which was unexpected. So I had to back track to Middlegate before moving on in my journey.
Austin itself was a bit underwhelming. Mostly because the one agenda I did have was stopping in for a drink at the historic International Hotel. However, despite looking it up in advance to make sure it was open on Saturdays and knowing their hours, when I arrived, I was surprised to see it closed. Fairly disappointing since that was one of two reasons for visiting the town.
The other reason for visiting was the Stokes Castle. This is a building that was a private residence up on a hill and definitely has some traits you may picture with a castle, such as the stone walls and semi-turret type of features on top. The size is certainly not that of a castle, and seems more like a 3-story tower to me. Still, it is unique and easily accessible and free. And it does have nice views, so it is easy to see why someone would want to build a home there.
From there, I topped off my gas tank at Champs (seemingly the only store and gas station, and also burger joint, in the town), and then continued down the road to start exploring the Shoshone Mountains. I did some off-road traveling until I found a spot worthy of camping for the evening.
The spot I chose had a nice hilltop view and some trees, and I setup camp there for the night. I watched the sunset, fed the dogs, enjoyed a cocktail and called it a night. The next day was a great scenic ride home along RT 722. It meandered over a pass and had free-range cattle on the both sides of the highway, as well as a few on the road itself. I only drove about 25 MPH since the scenery was nice, I was the only car on the road, and the fear of coming around a bend to find a cow standing in the middle of the road. The newly paved road under their hooves did not make for a fast getaway by them either. It was almost like seeing them walk on ice.
This post is longer than most, but I felt there were a lot of little things that made this a worthwhile trip. Any one item by itself, perhaps isn't worth a 2-hour drive. Collectively, it was more than I expected. I even omitted a few additional features in an effort to condense the posting.
Drink Details: Due to the time of year, I felt a warm beverage would be most appropriate. After some searching online, I found the Hot Buttered Bourbon, which is a spinoff of the Hot Buttered Rum. Neither of which I was familiar with previously. In advance, I melted the butter, and added brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and salt in a saucepan. After a few minutes of melting the butter and stirring in the ingredients, I poured it into a metal cup with a lid to take with me to simplify the process.
I chose Makers Mark bourbon mostly because the recipe said to use a decent whisky, such as Makers Mark. The recipe also called for a large batch of the "hot buttered bourbon mix", but I greatly scaled that down for one person. I liked the idea of this hot beverage for the cooler Fall night sleeping outside, but it definitely had much more of a Christmassy smell to it.
After making the mix at home, the cocktail was fairly simple for the outdoors. I heated up the mix at my site since the butter had hardened, as expected. This is why I used a metal cup to store it. I just reheated directly in the cup. Simple. I boiled the water, poured it into my glass and then put a spoonful of the buttered bourbon mix in the glass and stirred until dissolved. I added 1.5 ounces of bourbon, put a few drops of angostura bitters, and topped with a cinnamon stick.
Photo Description: This photo was taken at my remote campsite near North Shoshone Peak. I added some Fall festive pumpkins just for the picture. They were in no way ingredients for the drink. I just wanted to add some flair to the photo. You can also see the metal cup that I used to store the buttered mix, and at the top of the picture is the valley in the distance.
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