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$1.50 | TheEurekaCountyStar.com | Vol. 4 No. 11 | e Week of September 10, 2026
Shining a light on all of Eureka County. Our Mission: Inform, enlighten, educate and entertain—Enjoy the journey.
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Big wide load rough downtown eureka Highway 50’s Big Boy Shipments
e Secrets of Watermelons By Trina Machacek Watermelons were on sale at the grocery store last weekend. I thumped and looked at two full bins of the green-eyed summer happy face makers. I don’t know why the store puts some of them outside on the sidewalk in bins? I know the melons grow in fields, but aer they are picked, I can’t see my way to buy one that has sat in the sun. No, I buy from the bins inside. ey are cooler and I figure that makes them better. But. Yes, a green and yellow lined “but.” No matter where the melon comes from, at this time of the year they are all heavier than early summer melons. Why, and what’s the secret?
Photos courtesy Robin Blanco. By Trina Machacek
I found my perfect choice that sounded as hollow as the promise I make to not have a second twinkie when there is an entire box in front of me. I knew it was ripe because of the lines that met at the stem in a slight swirl. Picking a melon is a whole thing with me. Color, thump, and checked the spot on what was the bottom as it sat and grew in the field. Making sure it wasn’t so. Everything has to be considered. Aer scrutinizing I do my best farmwife choosing. en I bent to grab my smallish choice to put it in my cart. UMPH! It didn’t look as heavy as it actually was. It should have been a snap to roll it up the side of the bin. Slide my hand under it and li it to the cart. Somehow it was hiding a few pounds. HAHA, but aren’t we all!? When I buy a new watermelon I let it sit in the fridge for a day or two to get as cold as it can get all the way through. en the feasting can begin. What amazed me about this late August piece of fruit was, again, how remarkably heavy it was. It reminded me of the short story Mark Twain wrote in 1865, e Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. How the little boys poured lead shot into the competing frogs so they could not out-jump their frogs. I would have sworn that someone had put lead shot in this melon. It should have weighed maybe six or seven pounds, but it came in at over near fieen! I know. I weighed the thing. When I cut the rind the cut ran ahead of the knife, a very good sign of ripeness. en the juice ran out onto the counter like a red sticky river of goodness. e meaty fruit was as sweet as any melon could be. You’re licking your lips at the thought of a cool bite, right? Of course I could not just let it go—that weight. It was a good thing that melons were on sale by the piece at $4.99 each. Shoot if it had been sold by the pound at even fiy cents a pound it would have been near $7.50. Oh, worth every penny, but I am a girl that loves a sale. Not wanting to let it go, of course I Googled my weighted quandary. One thing I learned is that I am not imagining that my late August melon weighs more than the one of approximately the same size I bought in May. I know they were about the same size in measuring because I have learned over time that my eyes can sometimes be bigger than my tummy. at will always lead to a melon that gets mushy and mealy before I can gobble up that last end piece. But, why is this thing so heavy? Here’s the short answer. “Because.” Isn’t that the ultimate answer to questions. at and this one, “Because I said so,” is also an ultimate answer. Moving on. Actually the answer is quite remarkable and undeniably easy to understand. It’s because the days are longer. Making the melons grow and become fuller of water as they grow in the heat of the summer. It stands to reason that things in gardens and in farmer’s fields would grow and grow as the season grows in length too. I mean have you ever seen the pictures of what grows in Alaska in the summer? Where they have the land of the midnight sun. e gardeners happily post pictures of forty-pound heads of cabbage and huge carrots. Bugs Bunny would be in 7th Heaven living in Alaska in the summer. Probably not so much in the winter. Even though a bunny has an attached rabbit coat, there are limits. Even for bunnies. Enjoy the extra pounds of your summer delights. Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at itybytrina@yahoo. Really!
e Star reported the coming attraction of a line of wide HUGE loads coming through our town and across Nevada. e move as outlined below has begun. “Starting Monday, Aug. 17, drivers across Nevada and Utah may spot a series of a dozen massive superloads carrying crystallizer components bound for acker Pass on U.S. Route 50. the arrival of these crystallizers are another marker of construction progress at acker Pass.” On August 29, the first of the crystallizers came through Eureka and the move was captured by Robin Blanco as she was working at Champs service stationconvenience store on Main Street in Eureka. FYI: e empty truck was seen going back to Utah on the morning of August 31. e load was hauled with one semi in front and one pushing in back. e load is carried on the tires of 15 duel-tired axels and two single axled drivers on each truck. at is 124 tires keeping the load going on down the road. Each of the massive crystallizer components (specifically the brine concentrator heater bodies)
To put the size in perspective, the Owl club sign is approximately 42 feet high and the Opera House is approx. 62 feet high, both are dwarfed by the load as it passed by on Main Street in Eureka, Nevada August 29.
being moved from Great Basin Industrial in Plymouth, Utah to the acker Pass lithium project in Nevada has a combined transport weight exceeding 800,000 lbs., (400 tons) including the truck and trailer. e absolute record for the heaviest highway load in Nevada history was a 2.4-million-pound decommissioned nuclear reactor pressure vessel moved in 2020, that massive convoy bypassed U.S. Route 50 in favor of U.S. Route 93 and State Route 318 through Lund and down through e Narrows. Travelers along the route may see law enforcement escorts, staging trucks overnight in designated areas, and temporary traffic pauses as loads move through. (Editor’s note: In Eureka we call the route on highway 318, the Lund cutoff going to Las Vegas which saves us 42 miles— ‘bout 40 minutes, which translates into one pit stop a bag of Cheetos and one soda!) Lithium Americas reported, “Superload shipment timeframes will be posted by Nevada Department of Transportation to NVRoads.com before transportation day. Lithium Americas will also share shipment updates in our weekly community newsletter so Nevada residents and travelers can plan ahead. To read more about the superloads scan the QR-code.”
The 600 mile route the loads will be taking from Plymouth, Utah to Thacker Pass, Nevada.
TIDDLES-N-BITTLES are you this old? If you are that old or just want to learn about what it was that made a car go VAROOOOM, the Eureka VFW car show wants to see and show your car. Fill out the form (see page 5 in this edition of e Star) and enter your baby in the upcoming September Car Show & Burn Out Contest in Eureka! Prizes, food and bragging rights galore. semi trailer fire On Aug. 21 Crescent Valley Fire, Beowawe Fire, Eureka County Sheriff's, and Battle Mtn. Fire responded to a semi trailer fire with small wildland extension on I-80 MM267. Wildland fire was contained quickly and the trailer fire was contained shortly aer there were several areas of the trailer that took some time to cool down.
what day will we get our first freeze? e ‘Ber’ months have arrived. Septem-ber, October-ber, Novem-ber and Decem-ber. A cooling off time has arrived in the high mountain desert of Eureka County. Morning temperatures have already dipped into the mid-40’s. Have you a guess as to what day we will get our first freeze? If so, let us know and we will report as it happens. Send your guesstimation date and temperature to trina@theeurekacountystar.com with “freeze guess” in the subject line.
IN THIS EDITION Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Worship Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Johnny’s Tech Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Market Prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Ask A Doc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Tried & True . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 From our Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Commissioners News & Notes . . . . . .5
Senior Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Courts & Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6