A Naked Foxhunter's Wild Nevada Adventure

I went to the airline counter at a little after midnight. “It’s probably in Phoenix, but it will take at least 24 hours to locate it,” said the airline representative of my bag.  That was not good news, as Lynn’s traveling foxhunting crew was picking me up at 7 a.m. to go on the road trip to Belmont.

Belmont is a ghost town in central Nevada about 7,400 feet in elevation. It has no public utilities: no electricity, no mail, no phones, and no stores to buy the needed particulars to replace those currently vacationing with my luggage.

I relayed my plans to leave Reno and not to return to the city for another five days. “Well,” the representative said, “what is the address where you will be, so we can Fed-Ex your bag to you?”

I know I must have given her one incredulous look.  “There is no address in Belmont.  It’s a ghost town about 300 miles from here. Mail doesn’t exactly go there,” I replied.

I am born and raised in Tennessee. I had never been to Nevada before and didn’t even know exactly what a ghost town was. In preparation for the December cold, I had bought the best Smart Wool tops, bottoms and socks that I could find in Knoxville.  Lucky me, all my preparations were now vacationing without me in Phoenix of all places.

My carry-on bag held just my wallet, camera and lenses—not one stitch of clothing. Can you imagine traveling cross-country to foxhunt, then arriving without your boots? Without breeches? Hell, without underwear? In the snow? When your final destination is a real ghost town with no electricity? Ah!

When it reached the civilized hour of 5:30 a.m., I called Angela Murray, whipper-in for the Red Rock Hounds, from the hotel. “Well, Angela, I’m here, my camera is here, but my clothes are not,” I told her.

She paused, and then said, “Give me five minutes.”

A few minutes later, her 11-year-old daughter, Audrey, called me to say, “Mommy’s getting you some clothes.” Little did I know what an understatement that would turn out to be.

At this point, I decided to kick on and give up on my clothes. I again called the highly irritating 800 number to tell the airline to ship my bag home to Tennessee whenever they finally found it. I then proceeded to spend a most fantastic trip wearing other peoples’ clothes.

Magic Santa Bags

Angela and Lynn must have only had about 30 minutes to pack clothes for me, but they sure did a great job in that short time frame. I had two bags full of clothes. They were the Magic Santa Bags: every morning I would look in them and find clothes that I didn’t know were in there the
day before.
   
The first morning that I rummaged around in the Magic Santa Bags, I found a generously sized pink bra. I held up the vast expanse of hot pink and said, “Oh, my. She was very optimistic—bless her!”
   
The morning of the first hunt, I found every article of proper hunting attire in the bags, plus long johns and wool socks. The day I went hiking on the hill behind the saloon, I found a pair of fleece-lined boots that fit. The day it was 4 degrees in the morning, I found a knit hat and ear warmers. When it snowed the last day, I discovered ski pants and gloves in the bottom of the bag. I even had cowboy-boot slippers. It was like Christmas every time I looked in the bags!

 A Ghost Town