Fallon

Driving east from Reno on US-50, the land is bone-dry sagebrush for an hour, and then, abruptly, it isn’t. Fallon rises out of the Lahontan Valley as an honest-to-God green oasis, irrigated fields of alfalfa, garlic, and the famous Hearts O’ Gold cantaloupes fanning out from a town that’s been farming this ancient lake bed since the Newlands Reclamation Project brought water here in 1903. Lia and I stopped at a farm stand on the edge of town on a whim and left with a melon so sweet it tasted almost fermented, the kind of produce that makes sense only once you understand the mineral-rich soil underneath it.

Cantaloupes, garlic, and the Lahontan Valley

We drove the back roads circling town, fields of alfalfa cut into neat green squares against the tan hills, center-pivot irrigation systems throwing arcs of water that catch the evening light. A farmer selling garlic braids from the bed of his truck told us Fallon’s soil, ironically enriched by minerals left over from the prehistoric Lake Lahontan that once covered this whole basin, is what makes the cantaloupes here famous statewide. It’s a strange origin story for a fruit — an ancient inland sea evaporating ten thousand years ago so that a melon stand could exist today.

Fighter jets over the desert

Fallon is also home to Naval Air Station Fallon, where the Navy’s elite Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program — the real-life Top Gun school — trains pilots in the open desert airspace surrounding town. We sat outside a diner on Maine Street one evening and watched jets scream low over the valley in formation, engine noise rolling across town seconds after we’d already spotted the contrails. Nobody else seemed to look up; for Fallon, it’s just the sound of a Tuesday.

Getting There

Fallon sits on US-50, about an hour east of Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO), making it an easy day trip or overnight stop for anyone driving the “Loneliest Road in America.” A car is essential — there’s no public transit connecting the valley to Reno — but the hour-long drive out of the Sierra foothills and into open basin country is a fitting introduction to the emptiness that follows east of town.