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Deep Into the Nevada Desert

After replenishing the GT-R's ever-dwindling supply of fuel at a lonely Chevron station near the Dam, we headed back through Vegas on our way north, to the fabled desert around Area 51, and immeasurable unanswered questions: Would we see secret military aircraft? Would we find the solitary Black Mailbox (which, truth be known, is now white)? Would government agents in white Jeep Cherokees come swooping down the hills to claim our Corvette-devouring sports car in the name of national security? Would we get caught up in an Independence Day-type fight with aliens just to get back to L.A.? But most importantly: How deep into triple digits would we take the GT-R on the lonely stretch of Nevada's Highway 375? We were about to find out.

After a brief stint on Interstate 15, we diverted onto U.S. 93, where strange things started to appear in the desert well before Area 51. In particular, we were blown away by the existence of a lush green valley on the west side of the highway. The Lower and Upper Pahranagat Lakes look as out of place here as the GT-R itself as it blasted by trucks laden like they were packed by the Joads as they headed north on U.S. 93. A quick glance east showed us hills and the usual scrub desert, making us imagine settlers cresting those low peaks, seeing the water and saying, "Screw California, we're staying here."

U.S. 93, like most of the roads we encountered, was long, flat, and straight. While Dan decided to take a short snooze (the scenery gets boring quickly out there), I decided to start playing with the throttle. Imagine my surprise how quickly the GT-R accelerated with just a tickle of the throttle; not even wide open, it accelerated briskly to more than twice the limit on the road we were on. At this point, I just want to mention that, if you do decide to speed on public roads - and we don't encourage it, not one single bit - but if you do, a radar detector is a handy device, as is plenty of daylight and a complete and total absence of other cars on the road. 'Nuff said.

With another gas stop behind us at Alamo, Nev., we continued north to Nevada Route 318, which quickly forks into Route 375: the Extraterrestrial Highway. We're not making that name up, by the way. It was officially renamed that in 1996 by then-governor Bob Miller. After turning onto the highway, it's immediately apparent that you're going the right way thanks to a squat Quonset hut fronted by a gigantic metal alien sculpture. It marks the home of the New Alien Research Center, and by the closed look of the place, we're guessing not a lot of research is currently happening there. Still, any doubt that we had taken a wrong turn vanished.

Once you get past a brief twisty area through some hills, you turn north and are confronted with a long straight, roughly 20 miles or so, that gently slopes down into a shallow valley and back up again. The sight lines are incredible, and you can see every inch of the road until it gently sweeps into the northern hills. The air is clean and clear, the sun is at just the right angle to glint off distant windshields regardless of the time of day, and if you listen closely, you can hear the road beckoning. We're not saying that it's the perfect road for high speeds, but if we were to design one, it'd look a lot like this. Did we succumb to the temptation? Well, did you read the first paragraph of this story?