The Loneliest Road, and Anubis

From photo batch review, May 2026. Photos from the 1990 move from Denver to San Francisco.

The photos are from the drive: Highway 50, called the Loneliest Road in America, from Denver west to Nevada and then into California. I was moving from Denver to San Francisco with everything that would fit in the car.

One night along the way I pulled into a “motel” outside some small Nevada town — four mobile homes corralled together into a loose quadrangle. The night manager was shirtless and lifting weights. I was bleary-eyed and exhausted. I paid, showered, slept in an uncomfortable bed, woke up the next morning and drove to Fallon.

In Fallon I went to a Denny’s for breakfast. I came in, sat down, and waited. And waited. Nobody came.

I started to think: I must have died in the night. The man with the weights in the dark parking lot was Anubis. The highway was the path where I’d spend eternity. The Denny’s was — something. The in-between.

Then the waitress came over, brought water but no coffee and no menu, and I realized it was just bad service.