♪ energetic mandolin ♪ add bass I'm a journalist and I'm traveling across the United States of America.

On this journey.

I'll be visiting some iconic American experiences.

My next stop is Nevada.

♪ ♪ I've come to the state of Nevada.

This place is famous for gambling and having lots of fun in Las Vegas.

But I decided to go beyond that city and explore some hidden gems across the state.

My trip begins 166 miles north of Las Vegas in Cathedral Gorge State Park.

When you come to Nevada, there are so many parks that you can visit.

There's one national park and over 20 state parks.

And I've come to one that is a photographer's dream.

It is just so beautiful and I'm with Dawn Andone.

Dawn, tell me, how did Cathedral Gorge State Park get its name?

Well, back when the original settlers came here in the mid 1800's, they named the town Panaca and this was Panaca Gulch.

They didn't really want to come here and do anything because you couldn't raise crops or anything.

So they kind of ignored it.

By about the late 1800's you had people here who were actually using it for recreation.

And there was a lady in the area she used to ride a horse through here, and she thought that these great formations that you see actually reminded her of the cathedrals that you would see in Europe.

So she started calling it Cathedral Gulch.

Well, when we became a state park in the 1930's they changed the name to Cathedral Gorge.

Yeah, I can see why she saw the cathedrals here because I can see it with my own eyes, it's the most wonderful formations.

What are we going to do today, Dawn?

Well today we're going to go down to the park.

We're going to see those formations and we're going to walk through some of the great slot canyons that were left after the lake that was here drained away.

Wow.

Let's go.

All right.

♪ acoustic guitar Wow, I really love how there's these almost ledges Dawn, It's so neat.

[Dawn] Yeah.

So these ledges are actually forms.

That's a layer of limestone.

And so that's harder than the siltstone.

And that's how all these great formations are forms, because that layer forms a cap on top of those formations.

And as it rains and we get snow and they start to erode, that limestone is harder and it protects the siltstone beneath it but the siltstone starts to erode around that limestone and then you get these awesome formations.

♪ [Brandy] Wow.

These are just stunning.

[Dawn] Yes.

Aren't they?

Well, we're in the slot canyon area of the park.

And all of these are actually siltstone.

So you are touching the siltstone.

And the interesting thing about siltstone is if you knock on it... (tapping) It's like hollow.

It sounds hollow, doesn't it?

Weird.

So all of these slot canyons are formed because these actually erode not just from the outside in, but from the inside out.

So as that freeze / thaw process happens and the rain comes and gets down inside these, water always finds a path of least resistance.

And then it freezes and then it thaws and it keeps creating these different cracks and things that you see in here.

And it just gets deeper and deeper and cuts back further into the hillside.

This place looks so magical.

I feel like if I go around the corner, I'm going to bump into a fairy or something.

You never know, one might jump out at ya!

It's just wonderful.

This used to be a lake millions of years ago.

Wow.

And when the lake drained away, it left all of the sediments open to erosion.

Well, the sediments were brought here through the rivers and streams that came into the lake.

And so you will see areas where different types of rock are along, form different layers of this siltstone.

[Brandy] Wow, these are so neat.

[Dawn] Well, this is what people come here for.

Oh yeah, it's so high.

[Dawn] It is really high.

They're anywhere from usually 30 to 60 feet high.

You wouldn't want to be on top and fall in.

But you can kind of see how these are formed because the water comes in here and just runs down the sides of this.

And then it carries all that sediment out onto the valley floor.

Absolutely.

You know what?

I've never seen anything like this before.

This is very unique.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for taking me here.

You're very welcome.

I really enjoyed myself.

Now I'm going to go and get some really good photographs so I can brag all my friends.

Very good.

That's a good thing to do.

♪ For my next adventure, I traveled 116 miles north to the city of Ely.

♪ brass horns I love trains.

So while I'm here, I decided to visit the Nevada Northern Railway.

And I'm with Angie Stevens.

She's a Train Master.

Angie, tell me what you're going to allow me to do today?

We're gonna start up this locomotive and then we're gonna run it around the yard a little bit.

[Brandy] Wow, what kind of train is this?

It's a EMD from the Southern Pacific.

It was bought as part of the fleet when the mine was still operating for copper ore When they closed, we sold off the rest of the fleet, but we kept this one.

And we still run her for passenger service.

Ok. And do you find that a lot of people really like trains?

We get a lot of people here just for the trains.

More for steam, but quite a few for the diesel as well.

Well, I'm very interested in learning how to move this diesel train.

I've never done this before.

So what's the first step?

We're gonna come up here.

So the over-speed and the fuel pump are the control buttons that we're gonna be starting with.

Ok. What does the fuel pump do?

[Angie] Turns on the fuel pumps.

I guess you need fuel if you're gonna run a train.

So there we go.

And then over-speed.

What is over speed do?

It just turns on the control panel so that the engine'll start.

OK. Over speed.

Right!

I'm gonna have you come back over to the other panel.

Perfect.

[Angie] All right.

We're gonna turn on the engine run and the control and fuel pump.

Okay.

So I'm going to turn the engine run.

Obviously, it runs the engine and then the control and fuel pump turning on the fuel.

Yup.

And then we're gonna go outside and start the engine.

Wonderful.

♪ Wow.

All right.

So this is a fuel prime and the engine start.

You're gonna turn it to prime and when you hear the tone change, then you'll take it over and start.

So here we go.

Fuel: prime.

(rapid thrumming) Okay, the tone has changed so you start.

(Booming noises,speeding up) [Angie] All right.

You need to flip the switch here.

[Brandy] OK. Just go to run?

[Angie] Mm-Hmm.

[Brandy] All right!

[Angie] ... little further.

[Brandy] A little further?

(loud click) All right, come back over to this panel.

[Angie] You're gonna turn on all of the rest of these switches.

[Brandy] OK. Headlight.

Front number light, headlight for the rear, signal light, gauge light, dynamic braking, generator field, auto sanding.

This is your most important on.

It's your horn.

Can I do it!?

Yup.

(loud air horn) That's why everybody comes here, right?

A lot of people, yeah!

[Angie] You put your reverser to the left.

[Brandy] This one?

[Angie] M-hm.

[Brandy] Reverser to the left.

[Angie] OK. Three shorts on your horn.

[Brandy] Three shorts on my horn.

(toot) (toot) (toot) [Angie] Release your brake.

[Brandy] This one?

[Angie] Yep.

Just all the way to the left... (loud puff of air) and then bring your throttle out.

[Brandy] This one?

[Angie] Yep.

[Brandy] Don't touch the button ... and then... We're moving!

We're moving?

Yes!

♪ I'm drivin' a train, I'm driving a train!

♪ This is so fun.

I love it.

♪ [Brandy] Should I blow my horn just in case?

Um, you already gave the warning, but you're welcome to blow it again.

I think I should.

Go for it.

(air horn) (llaughing) ♪ [Barndy] This is so much fun!

♪ (air horn) (laughter) [Angie] This is the engine house of the Nevada Northern Railway.

We keep all of our engines and a few other cars in here.

This is Locomotive 93.

She's a 1909 Alco locomotive.

We have Coach Five.

She's one of the original coaches.

[Brandy] Wow.

I love this one.

This is my favourite.

[Angie] She's got stained glass windows from Poland.

If you go inside, it's segregated because back when this was built.

Men and women were segregated so half the seats are velvet, half are leather.

It's really cool.

[Brandy] Okay.

So this is our steam crane.

The rotary plow, there's a huge blade on the front that would throw the snow and then our Alcos, the 105, 109, and then the two Kennecott locomotives.

Well, thank you so much for showing me all these incredible trains and for giving me a hands on experience.

It's so wonderful to come here and actually be able to drive a train.

Well, we've got a lot of stuff to do if you want to spend the time to do it.

Thank you.

♪ I traveled just over five miles to find more treasures in Nevada.

♪ One of the really unique things that you can do near the city of Ely is visit the Garnet Hill Recreation Area.

They have these wonderful minerals called Garnets that you can find all over the ground and just take them home with you, maybe make a necklace.

I don't know.

I am with geologist Brett Wagers.

He's from the area.

Can you explain to me, please, what a garnet is?

Sure.

A garnet is a silicate mineral that has been used as gemstones and abrasives since the Bronze Age.

And they're kind almost like a deep red color.

[Brett] And it's interesting that you say that because the deep red actually originates from a fourteenth century English word called gernet.

So that's where the word "garnet" came from.

I noticed you brought this really interesting looking thing, what's this?

So this this is the atomic structure of Garnet.

Garnet is a nesosilicate which means it has isolated silica tetrahedra.

So the black represents silicon.

The orange and the red are oxygen and they're bonded together by the metals in the garnet.

[Brandy] Oh, interesting.

Ok.

I would love to see if we can go find some garnets with your expert eye.

Absolutely.

♪ [Brandy] So what are we looking for while we're searching for a place here, Brett?

So within this rhyolite, we actually have small garnets.

The garnets form in something called lithophysae.

Now, what lithophysae are is when the rhyolite was forming a lot of gas was coming up and actually forms little vesicles within the rhyolite.

Now, within those little vesicles is where the garnets precipitated.

Wow.

I think I just found one.

Oh, yeah, you did.

Wow.

Look at that.

[Brett] So the garnets we have here are called Almandine garnets and we actually have a little spessartine too, which contain iron, aluminum and manganese.

Oh, look, I think there's one on the other side.

Oh, yeah.

[Brandy] So how do we get that out?

So what a lot of people like to do is they'll actually take a little chisel and they'll chisel around the garnet slowly until it comes out, Ready to go here.

(tap, tap, tap) [Brandy] Wooo... We got one right there.

Great work.

Let's see.

Oh yeah... That's a nice one.

That is beautiful.

Well, Brett, thank you so much for taking me, out here and and teaching me how to find these garnets.

It's so interesting.

And it's it's really neat that you can come to a place so close to your home and find these treasures.

Well, you're welcome.

I certainly love livin' out here and love showing you this little part of Nevada.

Thank you.

Next, I drove 256 miles west to the city of Fallon.

♪ I really wanted to have an Indigenous tourism experience while I'm here in Nevada, so I've traveled to a reservation near the city of Fallon and I'm with Mike Williams.

He makes duck decoys and he is Paiute Shoshone.

These duck decoys used to be used and are still being used today by the indigenous people and they started making them over thousands of years ago.

Can you tell me how you learned how to make these?

I learned how to do this about eighteen years ago, I retired, took an early retirement, and it was a year after that I got interested in my traditional ways.

So I went to the museum.

I know they had artefacts there and went there and started researching out some of the things they had there and I found the decoy ducks and I read some information on the decoy ducks and they were made by our Paiute people here in Nevada.

So that really inspired me.

Being Paiute and Shoshone in Lovelock here really had a strong connection with that.

So I went out and got tules and started making decoy ducks.

[Brandy] Where do these ducks come from?

Where were they found?

These ducks were found in Lovelock, Nevada, in 1925, I think.

The miners found decoy ducks on one side of the cave in a pit, and it was covered with a tule mats similar to this.

[Brandy] And where are the originals that they found?

The originals; they're in Washington, D .C., in the Smithsonian.

And then there's two of them that are in Berkeley, California.

Wow.

This is so interesting.

I'd really like to see how you make these out of the tules.

Can you show me what a tule looks like?

Sure.

[Mike] The spirits are coming.

The tules here that I'll be using, Here's a razor knife, modern day tool here works real well.

What I do is I start wrapping the tule Wow.

into a duck head like this, like so.

This is a deer antler I use to tuck the tule inside.

It works good.

It's not sharp, real sharp where it'll break the tule.

It's a good tool to use.

Trim here... Have you ever hunted with them?

Yes.

I put them out there and I've hunted with them and they work real well.

They bring the ducks in.

(chuckles) Okay, what I do is I bend it this way here.

I'm going to wrap the neck part here.

Bend this over like this, bring it around the beak part and back around the neck here.

Around this way.

[Brandy] What does it feel like getting connected to your culture?

[Mike] I tell you what, it's a blessing to be reconnected with my culture now.

Traditional ways, I've gotten into many things with my tribe and helping the youth out.

And then also with the men that are incarcerated, the young ones, I go in and help them out with sweat ceremonies.

And it just really has opened a door for me to help other people and teach 'em this art, also.

I bundle them like this here.

(loud creak) (loud creak) I also got my own duck sound.

(creak, creak, creak) My duck-calling sound here.

(creak-creak) I usually keep it about two to two feet in length here.

(shrill sawing noise) Okay it's starting to take shape of the body there.

I'm going to do a figure eight loop on this.

Oh yeah, I'm starting to see the duck now.

Yeah.

Attach the head to it.

Wow!

One day there might be a smart duck that'll come by and say “Ah, that's a decoy there, I'm not gonna stop.” [Mike] It's a great feeling to be Paiute-Shoshone Indian here in Stillwater, Nevada, because we've had so much to offer to the people here.

That when it was taken, taken from us in the earlier years, we weren't able to give, give back, to show people what we have, what we've learned, what the creator taught us.

So he blessed us with traditional ways.

He blessed us with the connection of our “epah” mother earth “co me ba” father sky.

All these things, the “kuy ba”, the mountains, the “sunabee”, everything, we respect it so much.

So now we can in turn teach non-Indians what we know and the time is right to do that.

People are interested in learning.

People are interested in what we're doing.

Yes.

[Mike] You never stop learning, as old as you get.

You never stop learning.

And it's like now it's just a whole new adventure for me.

And I think it's that way with a lot of Indian people.

You know, they're out there and just want to learn as much as you can.

Wow.

There it is.

Just wonderful!

Wow!

Thank you so much for showing me the whole process and explaining to me about this wonderful traditional art form, which is used even to today in hunting.

Mike, I really appreciate you inviting me into your house and showing me this wonderful ancient activity.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Yes, that's a nice lookin' duck.

It is a very nice looking duck.

My final stop is the Carson Valley.

I traveled 78 miles southwest to get there.

The Carson Valley is known for its Basque culture and food.

And I really wanted to try some of that food.

So while I'm here in Nevada, I decided to come to J.T.

Basque Bar and Dining Room, I'm with Marie Louise Lekumberry.

Her family has run this restaurant since 1960.

Tell me a little bit about why the food is here, the Basque food?

Well, the Basque started immigrating here around the turn of the century.

A lot of single young men came here to work as sheepherders for a burgeoning sheep industry.

Restaurants were Basque.

Hotels like ours started popping up to accommodate the immigrants coming in.

We were home away-from-homes for many of these young men who came to just get a new start in this country.

And how would you describe the food?

What sort of ingredients are in it?

Well, a lot of traditional Basque recipes from the old world but based on ingredients that were available in the old west.

So hence we're heavy on the meat and potatoes end of it.

Today we're gonna be trying the lamb chops, which is a staple sheepherder food, of course, and a classic old-world Basque dish, the Basque chicken.

Mmmmm.

Okay, Let's...can we jump right in?

Let's do it!

Let's try this one first.

Okay?

Try and grab a little bit of sautéed garlic on the top.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, I have lots.

Shall we?

Yes, please!

Mmmm.

Mmm-hm.

That's my sautéed garlic dance.

It's really delicious.

I can imagine myself wanting to just tuck in and eat all that really quickly.

(laughing) Well, don't do that yet, we have to taste the Basque chicken.

Okay, should I go for a piece?

Do it!

And you have... red peppers here, green peppers?

[Marie Louise] M-hm.

Onion, tomato... Mmmm... [Marie Louise] The sweet, red bell pepper... gives it a nice, fresh taste, doesn't it?

It's very fresh.

That's an interesting way to describe it because it's true.

Mmmhm.

It's just wonderful.

It feels home-made.

Yes.

Simple.

But well-made.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

There's one more thing Brandy, your visit to our place would not be complete without a Picon Punch.

It's a traditional Basque drink invented in the Basque hotels in the American West.

You won't find it in Basque Country, so don't go looking for it there.

It's uniquely Basque American.

Wow.

That's so interesting!

Yeah.

I'm gonna mix us a couple of 'em here.

We've got a touch of grenadine.

A shot of Amer which is an aperitif... made from herbs, orange bitters.

Wow.

We're gonna put in a little bit of club soda.

We're gonna stir it up to get that grenadine off the bottom.

And we're gonna float some brandy on the top.

Wow, this is going to be very intense.

Mm-hmm, it is, it's called a picon punch, that is, because it definitely packs a punch.

A little lemon zest on top.

Wow.

Well, cheers.

Ah, cheers to you!

I can't wait to try this.

Thank you.

It smells so good.

Mmm, that is delicious.

It's so interesting because, it's kind of, it's kind of sweet, but it's not sweet.

And you can definitely feel that there's a lot of booze in here.

(laughing) It is boozy.

(laughing) And when would you drink this?

This is typically drunk before dinner, but in a Basque house, people were drinking it during dinner, after dinner.

It's a legendary cocktail.

I bet.

I bet it's so much fun, well, cheers!

Thank you so much...

Cheers to you.

...for sharing this culture with me.

Totally.

♪ ♪ Steel and acoustic guitar ♪ Steel and acoustic guitar I've come to the Pine Nut Mountain Range here in Carson Valley and I've come here because I want to see wild horses.

J.T.

Humphrey is a photographer and a guide who takes people out to see these wild horses.

JT Why are they here in the first place?

Well, they came from Spain, the Spanish brought 'em here five hundred years ago and they ultimately were released and became wild like they are today.

[Brandy] And can you tell me a little bit about what they're eating here, what keeps them alive basically?

[JT] Most of what we have o this range here is cheat grass, which is what they primarily eat.

Cheatgrass came in afte the wildfires here decades ago.

The cheatgrass blows in, takes over.

And recent studies have shown cheatgrass is very healthy for horses.

They also eat the natural grasses that grow under the sage.

They'll even eat the tops of the sage, the green, the real fresh green stuff.

[Brandy] And you're a photographer.

How did you get involved with horses?

I moved here eleven years ago.

It took me a year, over a year, to come out and see the horses.

I shoot wildlife; I've been involved with wildlie for over forty years.

And then I was finally realizing, wow, they really are wild.

They are truly wild animals.

And they had that wildlife behaviour that I see in other wildlife I've seen all over the United States.

I see the same behaviour in bison, in elk, in moose and even wolves.

[Brandy] Wow.

I really want to go and explore with you and see if we can find some more horses.

We will, we'll find some more.

OK. ♪ [JT] A lot of times I'll come out here and just shoot the landscape.

We got the mountain range, the Sierras; Lake Tahoe is just over this hill.

This whole range here, the Sierras, Joe's Peak that's actually in the clouds right now, it's covered, continues on down the Sierras, will continue south into California and off to the east we have our Pine Nut Mountains.

You get some great color in there, get down low, and get the mountains behind it.

And sometimes you get horses behind it.

[Brandy] Wouldn't that be fun?

[JT] Oh, yeah, that's a... well, you know, looks like Blue's comin' back.

[Brandy] Really!?

[JT] Yeah... Well this is Blue, Keanu and Lady.

Big Blue, King of the range here.

He, ah, he's coming in.

He's headin' towards his, his home range, actually.

[Brandy] Wow.

They're just wonderful.

[JT] Blue knows me.

He's at ease with me.

[Brandy] Wow.

[JT] Yeah, he's my healing spirit out here.

I love it.

That's wonderful, JT.

This here is very cool.

♪drums, banjo, acoustic guitar ♪ loud strum ♪ My trip to Nevada was so much fun.

I really enjoy getting out into nature and having so many hands-on experiences like finding a garnet and driving a train; that was so cool.

But my favourite part was coming out here and seeing the wild horses in their natural environment.

They're just so spectacular.

And I'll always remember that when I think of my trip to Nevada.

♪