A few years ago, I took an enormous trip through Nevada.

It was more than a thousand miles over five days with 50 different stops.

And along the way, we knew that there was one place we had to visit, a motel, in the

middle of Nevada desert, on the edge of an old frontier town between Reno and Las Vegas.

It was a little bit of a rough and tumble place.

It had a pretty dusty vibe, but it only cost about 30 bucks a night to stay there.

The main clientele were truckers and bikers, and it sits right at the edge of the desert,

right before there's just kind of nothing.

Picture sort of the baits motel.

The low slung doors open directly to the parking lot, and the first thing you see when

you step outside your room, other than the highway, is the abandoned minor cemetery right

next door.

And there's one more thing about this motel, and it was the reason that I knew I had

to stay there.

It's a clown motel.

Clowns in the lobby, clowns in the rooms, clowns watching your every move.

I'm Don Therese, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange and wondrous

places.

Today, we visit Tonopon, Nevada, and we stay at the clown motel.

The old Tonopos cemetery is just about the last stop in town.

It's a dry, pretty bare bones place, no grass, no trees in sight.

The people buried here died of grim frontier town causes.

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