Last week I drove with my then-fiancee from San Diego to Minden, NV
(near Tahoe) to get married.  We decided to go by way of Las Vegas and
points in between, i.e., you-know-where.  Somebody posted directions to
a "viewing site" a few months back, so we used those and an aeronautical
sectional chart to find our way.  Groom Lake is clearly marked on the
sectional, with a road going through it in a loop from the northeast,
then out to the north, where it joins up with the road from the Nevada
Test Site.
 
The directions that were posted to this list say (in part): "Just after
Ash Springs take the left fork in the road which will be highway 375,
and after you come down from Hancock Pass into the valley you will see a
straight dirt road about 10 miles long.  That's the northeast entrance
to Groom Lake.  Turn off a few hundred feet, and look to the south at
sunset or a little after..."  Well, I guess if you just want to see the
glow or whatever from the tests being run there, those are good
directions.  BUT.  Here's what we found: coming down from Hancock
Summit, sure enough there's a road.  A very nice, well-maintained dirt
road, with no fences or markings of any sort except for "speed limit 45
mph".  Driving a few hundred feet down the road gets you a view of
absolutely nothing--less, in fact, than you can see from Hancock Summit
itself, which is still pretty much nothing.  The dirt road crosses a
nearly-flat valley, with what looks like a ranch perhaps two miles off
to the right of the road, out in the middle.
 
Seeing no reason *not* to do so, I started driving down the dirt road.
As we headed down, I saw a dust cloud on the road coming from the
ranch--evidently another vehicle was driving toward our road,
perpendicular to us.  Just before it got to the road we were on, the
dust cloud stopped.  As we got closer, we could see the vehicle waiting,
about 100 feet back from our road.  It was a black 4x4 type truck, white
on top, with no markings whatsoever, but a big set of red lights on top.
We kept going.  After we had gone about 1/4 mile, the truck turned out
and started going in our direction.  I was keeping the speed well below
the posted speed limit, and they gradually caught up with us, then
stayed a couple hundred feet behind.  As we approached the opposite side
of the valley, the road started climbing up to the saddle point that hid
Groom Lake from our view.  It started to wind around, got a bit more
narrow and rocky, and the speed limit went down to 35.  At a point that
I judge from my aeronautical chart to be about 2 miles from the crest of
the saddle, nervousness got the better of both of us.  Here we were on
the way to our wedding, in a car with a bunch of rather high-tech radio
equipment scanning away, with a mag-mount antenna on top that didn't
really look like your standard CB antenna.  As far as I could tell we
weren't doing anything the least bit illegal or harmful, but--well, you
know how those feds can be, and I had no desire to jeopardize either my
wedding or my radios.  So we stopped and began to turn around.
 
The black-and-white truck stopped about 20 feet beyond us, giving us a
good look at the occupants, two guys in camouflage fatigues, and
allowing me to confirm that there were *no* markings on the vehicle
except for license plates that read "US GOVERNMENT," with a number
beneath--"R3582" or something like that.  As we turned around, I could
see the driver saying something on his handie-talkie, then as we drove
away he got out of the truck and watched us through binoculars.  I set
the trip meter as we started back, and when we reached highway 375
again, it read exactly 13 miles.  The black-and-white truck stayed put
until we were headed along 375, then we saw its dust cloud disappear
over the top of the saddle.
 
And that's it, pretty much.  I didn't see anything else but desert.  I
have to wonder what we might have seen if we had kept going--in other
circumstances maybe I would have.  There was *lots* of radio activity on
the Federal Government utility FM bands (138 - 142 MHz and 400 - 420
MHz), but nothing obviously related to aircraft.  Military aircraft
band, 225 - 400 MHz AM, was dead.  Some of the radio traffic was very
obviously related to weapons testing (e.g., "weapons comin' across"),
but after all this is right next to the Nevada Test Site, and presumably
there are all sorts of tests going on out there.  The 400 MHz
transmissions can be heard easily all the way on the other side of Death
Valley, which is quite a ways from Groom Lake.
 
There were a couple other things we saw that were of at least marginal
interest: north of Groom Lake, near the little hamlet of Rachel, there's
a bar and cafe that calls itself "The Little Ale'le'inn", and has a
picture of a sterotypical space alien with huge slanted eyes, and a
slogan that reads "EARTHLINGS WELCOME".  And in the Panamint Valley,
west of Death Valley (far from Groom Lake), as we entered the valley
from the north we came to a large sign that read "Warning: experimental
aircraft test area.  Possible sonic booms next 13 miles."  Below the
lettering is a weird logo with a black bat shape and "AIRTEVRON 5".
 
I wish I had more to report, but that's everything.  So now, who's going
to drive the next two miles?  As far as I can see there's nothing
illegal about doing that.  In fact, there was a deserted VW Rabbit
parked along the dirt road, so apparently someone was camping or hiking
around the area.  If anybody decides to try a trip, *please* let me
know--my curiosity is killing me.