An inspirational report - from Nevada family at Searchlight

Well, we decided it was time to go to a Tea Party. The bank and Wall Street bailouts, takeover of auto companies, and now the health care bill.

We have never been fans of Harry Reid but, he used to be more of a moderate. Now he has lost his soul – his Nevada roots have been replaced by East Coast liberal values and the arrogance of Washington DC.

We bought three new lawn chairs, hauled out the rolling tote/suitcase to put our cooler full of chicken drumsticks and chicken wings, boiled eggs, tuna salad, crackers, apples, oranges, pears and drinks, etc.)

Left our house about 9:30 am and headed for Searchlight (about 1 hour from our house). Took the Searchlight turnoff and gradually slowed down and joined the others heading down the road. By then the highway was a long creeping parking lot – 2 miles in 1 hr. The radio said that the highway patrol was not allowing any more cars into the event area.. 3 miles from the turnoff – people were parallel parking along the highway – and were walking to the turnoff. Then walking another 2 ½ miles to the event site. Plus they were lugging totes, coolers, flags and signs. All ages – all colors – all sizes.

News helicopters were flying overhead – and press vans were cruising down the center divider, filming.

Husband Phil had his cart to ride – there were doubts he would be able to negotiate the gravel road or the desert dirt. Lana and I were not up to the long trek. But, we added to the mass – many others were doing the same. Some had not considered that Searchlight is about 10-12 degrees cooler than Las Vegas or Henderson. It was around 58 degrees and very windy. SO - many of them didn’t come prepared and didn’t hang around.

The return route was bumper to bumper. So, we drove on through Searchlight and took Rt. 164 over to Nipton, CA and stopped at the Oasis Café for lunch. Crazy little place that was planked together with barn wood when the railroad was built. Hamburgers wrapped in tortillas. Lana and I opted for patty melts on rye. The place is small – probably seats
about 25 inside. Tea Party people were in there – they had all given up and were heading to Vegas. So we went on to Primm, NV - south of the Las Vegas Strip. It was a loop around but much faster getting back home to Henderson.
Had our own picnic back home and tuned in to Fox News.

We learned that people started showing up in Searchlight in the middle of the night - RV city – I figure the crowd was probably 10,000 plus another 10,000 who went but couldn’t handle the walk, cold weather, wind, etc.

Can’t tell you how many people “wanted to go”, “thought about going”, etc.

Gotta go find me a “DUMP REID” sign.

The XXXXX Family – Henderson, NV