Downtown ghost town

ä Location: Rhyolite NV

Not only does Nevada lead the country with the best casinos and Elvis impersonators, it also hosts the best ghost towns in America!  Scattered across the Silver State, these ghost towns are interesting and inexpensives places to explore for those who don't mind hours of desolate driving and through some of the weirdest and remotest settlements in North America.

120 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the ruins in the photo serve as the final testimony to a great Nevada city of yesteryear.  In the early 1900s, Rhyolite boasted a population of 10,000 (considered a pulsing metropolis at the time) and a center of national gold production.  Today, it lies about five miles from the town of Beatty, itself almost a ghost town.  The only thing modern about Rhyolite is the port-a-potty placed by the Nevada tourism people to discourage you from publicly urinating in a ghost town and being cited by the ghost police.

It was so quiet and still when I took this photo, the only thing I could hear was my heartbeat and ants ruffling through desert foliage.