Nevada is a land of contrasts. Glittering Las Vegas rises from the southern desert, drawing millions with its casinos, shows, and neon excess. In the north, Reno offers a smaller, scrappier version of the same, with Sierra Nevada skiing just over the mountains.
But the real Nevada is the vast, empty desert in between. Every year, the Burning Man festival transforms a dry lakebed in the northern desert into a temporary city of art, community, and radical self-expression. Ghost towns like Goldfield and Virginia City preserve the state's silver mining past. Rachel, on the Extraterrestrial Highway near Area 51, is one of the strangest stops in the American West.
Nevada became a state during the Civil War -- the story goes that the Union needed its silver, though the truth had more to do with electoral votes than heavy metals. The split between urban Clark County (Las Vegas) in the south and the rest of the state remains strong, visible in everything from university rivalries between UNLV's Runnin' Rebels and UNR's Wolf Pack to high school sports and political leanings.
