Beatty Days, October 26, 2019

It was a complete surprise to us.  Coincidentally, our sojourn in Beatty fell on the weekend of the major festival of the year – featuring a big parade, a carnival in the town center and various other events and attractions.  The parade began at 10 AM on Saturday the 26th, and that whole day we just stayed in town and enjoyed it all.

The flag-bearers were followed by various dignitaries – the Parade Marshal (a stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bear), the festival and her court, the Nye County Sheriff in his latest high-powered police interceptor (a dune buggy), and the local justice of the peace in his Volkswagen minivan.

Then came a seemingly endless variety of floats and other entries. One of the first was devoted to the town’s ladies of the evening.

We had seen the Atomic Inn’s float – a flying saucer with aliens – under construction in the parking lot, so we knew what to expect. It was our favorite float, and it won the Grand Prize.

There was a wide variety of different kinds of entries – vintage cars and hot rods, motorcycles, motor-tricycles, bicycles, jeeps and other 4-WD vehicles, ATVs, trucks – it went on and on.

Also represented in the panoply of vehicle types were motor homes. In particular, the motor home pictured below aroused my curiosity. I think I’ve seen ones like this before, but I have no idea who made it and when. I suspect it’s from the ’60s or ’70s, but I haven’t a clue. If anyone knows about it, I’d appreciate hearing from them!

Not surprisingly, since it was late October, some of the entries had Halloween-related motifs, like the Catmobile pictured here, though ideally the cat should have been black.

It was a great day for viewing early Fords – Model Ts, Model As, Deuces and ’34s and so on.

Both original restorations and hot-rods were well represented. Among the latter was this ruby-red Model A crackerbox sedan, with a modern OHV V-8 under the hood.

And not to be left out, the epitome of the classic hot rod, a Deuce (1932 Ford) roadster, also sporting a modern V-8.

A gaggle of semis brought up the rear of the parade. Actually, they weren’t part of the parade; they were just the trucks that had been waiting until the parade was over to pass through Beatty – because the parade ran down the main highway (US 95), which had been closed for the event!

After the parade was over, everybody went over to the carnival, which was held on the Beatty village green. Among the attractions was an Old West mockup town where re-enactments of famous gunfights and other events were held.

The fair’s electric power requirements evidently exceeded the capabilities of the Beatty (population 1000), so diesel generators were brought in to augment the supply.

There were dozens of booths selling all kinds of wares – all kinds of food, of course; clothing, trinkets of various kinds, etc. There was a Hat Pavilion, where I bought myself a camo hat with a chin tie-string (which my regular Aussie leather hat doesn’t have) to keep it on my head when the wind is blowing. This turned out to be a very fortuitous purchase, in view of subsequent events.

Something I would never have expected was a tower for rock-climbers. After all, it’s not like there aren’t any good places for rock-climbing around Death Valley.

Beatty Days was scheduled to last three days, from Friday the 25th through Sunday the 27th. But on Saturday night a tremendous wind came up and blew away the whole shebang, putting a premature end to the celebration as well as whipping up a blinding dust storm on the floor of Death Valley.