I didn't want to say too much about it because until this afternoon there was still a chance we would not make the trip, but we are now in Tonopah for the 4th of July weekend, staying at the wonderful Belvada Hotel, the lovely hotel built in the former Nevada State Bank & Trust building across the street from the Mizpah Hotel. I'll have more to say about this later, but our first impressions are very good.

The the alternative timeline where COVID-19 didn't happen, today would have been the first day of Westercon 74. In our timeline, yesterday should have been the first day of Westercon 73 in Seattle, but the Seattle committee had to turn in the keys and the convention won't happen until Thanksgiving as part of Loscon 47. So we decided to come to Tonopah to see what the town is like on the equivalent weekend of our originally-scheduled convention. I'll have more to say later because frankly I've been awake since 2 AM this morning and am exhausted, but our first impressions are highly favorable.



As we neared Tonopah, we were surprised to see that the Crescent Dunes solar thermal power plant appears to be once again lit up and possibly producing power. That bright white tower is black unless the mirrors are focusing the sun's rays onto the tower to melt salt used to heat water and generate electricity. I was unable to find any information confirming that the plant is back online after NV Energy terminated their contract due to multiple technical problems with what is effectively a full-scale pilot project, but I certainly hope that they managed to get it working and producing dispatchable power again.

We arrived in Tonopah around 7 PM, after a roughly five hour drive from Fernley. My first impression: It's cool. Well, not cold, but definitely cooler than Fernley. It looks like today's high temperature was around 32°C/90°F and the low should be around 15°C/60°F, which is so much better than it was in Fernley and dramatically better than the horrible heat that's been blanketing much of Western North America. Tonopah is around 1825 m / 6000 ft, and that makes a big difference in the temperatures. These temperatures appear to be typical for this time of the year here, and include a slight (5%) chance of thunderstorms.



This is the view of the Belvada from the parking lot (shared with the Convention Center). The Belvada is the closest hotel to the Convention Center. I has only forty rooms, but they are nice rooms. (We'll have more to say about our room later.)



I checked us into our room while Lisa took photos of the lobby. The last time we were in this building, it was for a "hard hat" tour during the multi-year renovation project. The hotel reopened last October, which added the challenge of opening a new hotel during a pandemic to the ordinary business risks.

We took a bunch of pictures of our hotel room (which includes a kitchenette with both a microwave and a conventional oven) before moving in, but I'm too tired to post them tonight. We did run down to Raley's grocery store and brought back groceries including a pizza we cooked in the room's oven, as neither Lisa nor I got a lot of sleep last night and dining in seemed like a good idea. We didn't worry about buying too many groceries, as much of them are non-perishable, so anything we don't use we can just take home when we leave on Monday.

We'll have a lot more to say about this later, but for now it's time for us to relax and rest in a very nice hotel room in air-conditioned comfort. We have plans for tomorrow, but they have no firm schedule, and that's good because we both need sleep.