High Country News posted this story from the Elko Daily Free Press as an example of "an interesting new trend in energy development." In short, backers of a natural gas pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon contributed $20 million to benefit two conservation groups in exchange for the groups dropping any opposition to the proposed Ruby Pipeline.

A commenter on the Facebook page for High Country News responded "selling out is nothing new."

(Below: the Ruby Mountains, near Elko, Nev.)

It wasn't until the stream in Jett Canyon was running through my shoes that I finally escaped from Las Vegas.

It was late afternoon and we'd driven from Tonopah, where we stayed the night, to Belmont, Manhattan, the Big Smoky Valley, through the community of Hadley and, finally, to a shady spot by a gushing stream in Jett Canyon.

I didn't go to Warren's final memorial.

It followed a lovely ceremony in a nice room at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas.

It's been weeks since we skipped out on Vegas and on Sunday morning the tension got to be unbearable.

The job. Work on the house. Some sad news. All of those hung like a dark cloud over Vegas, made all the worse because the actual weather had been gorgeous for days and we hadn't taken advantage.

We (Elko, Robin and myself) had to leave Las Vegas and go someplace empty. So we hit the road for Dreamland, aka, Paradise Ranch, aka Area 51, or as close as we could get to it without getting arrested. And that was Rachel, Nev.