Thursday, February 2, 2012

West to Southwest of Center: Beers and Roads and Folds and Things

I thought I'd back up to a time a week before our stop at The Geographic Center of Nevada, a time just prior to our soak at Spencer Hot Springs. MOH and I had gone out to Austin, Nevada, and we had aimed, successfully, to arrive in time for Serbian Christmas.

Serbian Christmas is celebrated yearly at the International Cafe & Bar, and we've happened in once before without knowing that we were arriving on that celebrated date. This time, we postponed our already scheduled trip to Austin by one or two days in order to arrive on the 7th of January, which corresponds to December 25th on the Julian calendar.
By perfect celebratory standards, we got there just a wee bit late, but still in time to get a room with overrated free wi-fi (terrible bandwith, poor broadcasting) at the Mountain Motel, and time to sit in the bar for a drink or two — including some traditional plum brandy from Serbia — before moving to our table in the cafe. The Christmas dinner of pit-roasted pig served with various and sundry dishes and desserts begins at around 2 or 3 in the afternoon (or maybe as early as noon). I think we sat down just before 6:00 and the food was still coming. The meal is free (unless you order off the pizza menu), the experience is more than worth the price, and the cuisine is the best for miles around.

We spent much of the next day trying to find a certain locality in the Northumberland caldera, and at one point we came close to taking the right road.
The right road.
I somehow didn't manage to take a picture of the wrong road.
We found a nice Z fold in Ordovician cherts of the Vinnini Formation just a couple miles southeast of the turnoff to the right road. The Z fold was part of a larger fold or fold complex that was difficult to photograph with straight-down-sun lighting. You can barely make out the Z fold near the main fold axis, just to the right of the prominent, though thin, black chert band in the right hand part of the photo.
Here's a better look at the Z fold with my boot for scale
And here's the Z fold rotated into a Z postion. I'll leave it to all the diehard structural types in the audience to tell me which direction is up in the photo showing the whole fold.

Not knowing that we hadn't made it to our sought-after spot in the Northumberland caldera, we returned to Austin after partaking of the waters at Spencer Hot Springs. We had another beer or two at the bar before eating dinner at the International, and the next day we continued our journey.


View Northumberland in a larger map

3 comments:

Gaelyn said...

Perfect road trip, hot water, good food and drink, and rocks.

The Bobs said...

I assume the International Bar still has that amazing historic back bar?

Silver Fox said...

I've got some pictures of the bar on this post, so yes! Still there!