Category: Nevada

Nevada

Day 10, The outlaw state

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Tonight is our last night in Nevada. A couple of things that I have noticed as we say fairwell to this state:
There are a lot of prisons (seemingly) considering the low density of population. We have seen three along our route, just between Carson city and Baker.
The wind here is unpredictable. Just when you think the head wind will never shift, you get a nice tail wind to help you over the last pass.
The lonliest highway is not really that lonely. There are plenty of cars, and we’ve encountered a lot of nice people, both cyclists and others.
This morning we left Ely. It should have been a reasonably easy ride today, only 64 miles and two climbs, but we got a late start, and had a hell of a head wind for the first 20 miles. We stopped in Majors Junction, which is basically just a bar by the side of the road, and had a decent steak sandwich for lunch. We made it into Baker around 3:30pm, got some iced tea and ice cream and waited for the guy who runs the local campsite to show up. By the time we were ready to go to dinner, two guys we had run into in both Eureka and Ely had arrived in town. We ended up having dinner with Jack and John. The restaurant is run by Terry, who is a local photographer, and I had some pretty decent Thai food. This place was definitely a gem, and we really enjoyed ourselves. Tomorrow we have another long, tough day.
-Sarah

Here’s a video clip of our descent into the Great Basin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZN7SkOViI

Day 11, Out of the basin into Utah

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Today was our longest ride without services of the entire trip, 84 miles. Between the two of us we carried almost 8 liters of water.

We reached the Utah border quickly after only 7 miles. Even though we faced a slight head wind, we made good progress as the clouds cooperated and gave us cover from the sun.

As the day wore on, the miles started to wear on us. We found a lone patch of shade to eat our lunch, at an abandoned farm house where 2 lush trees grew in a completely barren valley. Someone seems intent on keeping the 2 trees alive by keeping a garden hose running.

We had 3 climbs for the day each one becoming increasingly more difficult. On our descents we faced very strong side winds coming from the south, making it difficult to keep the bikes under control. At one point we brushed with a storm system moving through one of the valleys, and got a brief sprinkle.

When we finally reached our destination of Milford, we found the RV park not completely inviting, so we went to a nearby motel to check on rooms and recommendations for camping locations. While there we met Richard who was staying at the motel, and was just getting ready to work the night shift at a nearby wind farm under construction. He had done some touring himself and offered us the use of his room since he was done with it and would be checking out in the morning. This act of generousity has completely erased any bad after taste from the incident at Cold Springs. We were very tired and grateful, best free camping ever.