As I prepared to leave, four Nevada Highway Patrol cars pulled in to the restaurant next door for lunch. In an earlier segment I commented about the composition of the road. In much of the west, chip seal is the preferred material. It is roughly half inch round gravel which is poured over and pressed into a layer of tar-like oil sprayed on the road. Unlike asphalt which is more like putty, chip seal is less prone to cracking in the extreme changes of temperature - because it wasn't 'solid' to begin with.
Chip seal has one significant deficiency, though.
I turned off US 50 to take the old route through the Desatoya Mountains. It had a sharp right turn. The surface of the turn was darker than the road. My road survival training immediately kicked in and alerted me to slow down. Had I hit this unaware, I would have been very aware of hitting the ground in a hard lowside.