Elko, Nevada

Monday, January 3

You can learn a lot about a place by having a drink with the town coroner. Carl and I were lucky enough to have this experience in Elko, Nevada.

Leaving my sisters house in Driggs, Idaho, we took advantage of a break in the weather to get on the road on Monday. It had been snowing almost nonstop since we had arrived on December 23. Elko seemed like a good midway point between Idaho and the Bay Area. Using Hotwire we randomly chose the Ramada, advertised as a 2.5 star casino, with a pool, and free breakfast. The pool was outside and frozen over but the slot selection was reasonable (I lost $25) and the free breakfast was actually sizable and tasty greasy.

As we drove into town we saw several signs for Basque-style restaurants. Elko seemed to be the furthest thing from Basque country, but we decided to embrace the trend and walked over to the nearest Basque-style place, the historic Star Hotel, built in 1910. https://www.elkostarhotel.com/history/

A sizable Basque population moved to the west in the mid 1900s to be ranchers and sheep herders (cowboys!). The Star Hotel boasted a history of hosting and feeding Basque families for all kinds of occasions from wedding parties to pandemics. Picon Punch is a highball cocktail created by the Basque immigrants in the US that includes Amaro, grenadine, and a brandy float. The Star Hotel boasted their own Picon club with Picon glasses lining the shelves and members names printed in gold tape below each one.

When we first walked in, it was like a scene from an old western. Six men seated at the bar with cowboy hats and shoes slowly turned toward us as we swung open the heavy, wooden door. They looked us up and down, before turning back to their Picons and Bud Lights. We were too early for dinner so we got a drink at the bar while we waited. True to its history, the bar still had a trough below it so that lazy cowboys wouldn’t even have to get up to use the loo. The trough didn’t seem to still be in use, but we also did not test it to find out.

While we sat there, the cocktail and dinner crowd filed in. Of note was Bill, the town’s coroner. That day was his 73rd birthday. He said he normally doesn’t drink much but every year on his birthday he has one Picon at the Star Hotel. When asked where we are from we respond that we are moving from DC to California and watch his reaction as he realizes he is sitting next to the biggest liberals sleeping in Elko that night. Despite being on different teams, we had a nice, long conversation and he filled us in on everything Elko (including confirming the town name did come from Elk + “o”). He told us all about Elko history and museums that we said we would see the next time we are in town. We pushed back on his assertion that removing [confederate] statues meant the erasure of history (“losers don’t get statues”) but agreed it was a shame vaccinations had become so political. Finally Carl and I decided to get some dinner, and Bill gave us his business card as a goodbye token.

The dinner was advertised as Basque family style. We quickly realized that this meant a whole lot of very American food. First, they brought vegetable soup and French bread, followed by a salad. The second course was green beans, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, spaghetti, and French fries. We ordered baked lamb and trout but by the time the entrees came we were already stuffed. They let us package up most of it to go and we saw most of the other tables were doing the same.

We walked back to the hotel, had fun losing some money at the slots, and fell asleep to some good ol’ HGTV.