Category: A Trip to Groom Lake

About a mile and a half or two miles into my journey down the dirt rode, I noticed another dust trail far off in the distance. It was moving pretty fast and was running perpendicular to the rode I was on (towards the road). Soon, I saw another dust trail on the other side of the road, again, running towards the road I was on. Both trails were far off in the distance, probably a good ten miles or so little nervous. I couldn’t tell what was making the trails at this point. A little farther down the road, I could see flashing lights, every now and then, coming from the dust cloud which was now coming towards me. I slowed down a bit […] Read More

Dave Schmitz (a.k.a the writer) currently lives in San Francisco. He works as a Software Engineer contractor for the NASA Ames Research Center. The Middle of the Fucking Desert II (Return to Groom Lake) Yes, another trip. My second. For those of you who accidentally missed my first story let me give you a little background along with a few lame reasons why I do this to myself. There lies an area out in southwestern Nevada, about 125-150 miles north of Las Vegas (translation: the middle of the fucking desert) which was used for above-ground nuclear testing back in the 50’s and ’60s. This section of land is called the Nevada Test Site. Adjacent to this land is another area of desert called the […] Read More

A quick half an hour drive brings us to Las Vegas. You gotta like this town. If not for the gaming, free drinks, and legal prostitution (For the record, I take part in the first two but not the third.), then just for the fact that people lead real lives out here. Here in the middle of the fucking desert lies the city. It’s a city built from one law. A law that says, it’s O.K. to give your money away if you want. Four hours east from Los Angeles is where it resides, for those of you who have never been here. Out in the middle of nowhere if you can imagine, for those of you who live in the crowded cities of […] Read More

So, we left the last gas station in Alamo with a full tank of gas and few bottles of hydro-florescent caffeine (a.k.a Mountain Dew). Back on the highway. Soon we would leave the major interstate (if you could still call it that) and head west on state route 375. This would be where traffic would thin out to about a car every few hours. The closest town to us would be located about 25-30 miles away. It is here in the town of Rachel, Nevada  (population about 100) where our closed gas station quietly slept. The sun continued to fall. They had sky changed from the magnificent clear blue of the day to a soft orange glow, then to a reddish, forewarning light. As […] Read More

We now temporarily abandon our trusty Montero (which is becoming more and more important to us as we get further and further away from civilization and closer and closer to a ‘non-existent’ government installation). We strayed out away from the dirt track, carefully walking along the border through the scrub. We peered across the border, looking for anything. What we would find as we walked was a huge chrome sphere mounted high on a steel post. This post was in-line with the border. We cautiously approach it, thinking back to the first time we saw H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Is it just a marker? Maybe there’s a camera inside recording our slow movements. (Smile!) Maybe it’s capacitors are charging as we stare […] Read More

We stayed up on top of the roof for quite awhile. We tracked numerous satellites, saw several bright shooting stars and simply enjoyed the now lowered temperature. Actually, the wind was kind of howling and it was getting pretty chilly out. Another extreme was the desert itself. During the daylight hours, the temperature easily burst past the hundred degree mark. At night, it quickly cooled to the low sixties or even fifties. The extreme temperature difference was responsible for the wind. A few beers, some left over Fritio crumbs and a non-existent desert base. Yes, it was a weird kind of way to enjoy a Thursday night. However, the change of pace was actually kind of nice. We scoped out any movements we saw […] Read More

How thoughtful. How tasty! We’d be sure to make millions. We’d obviously call it – Groom Lake Lemonade. After catching our breath and wiping the tears from our eyes we started thinking again. Our establishment soon was taking on competitors as we conjured up the new Groom Lake KFC and of course a fabulous Groom Lake T-Bell, which would soon follow (that’s Taco Hell, for those of you who don’t visit quite often enough.) We would continue to talk about stealth paint, aliens, night-vision goggled camo guys, Groom Lake Denny’s, breakfast, and where the leftover Frito’s bag hid. 4:30 am is the last time I have on tape before morning. It was now about 7:00 am. The Den-man was up and out before I. […] Read More