Another great day of riding across the desert with no pesky towns or services to distract us
Almost got nailed by one of the ominous rainstorms we’ve been seeing, but we popped up a tent on the side of the road and had an impromptu jam session to wait out the deluge
Thought we had made it home-free when we turned onto the dirt road leading to a BLM campground, but it turns out the dirt was actually thick, clay-like mud. It stuck to our bikes to the point that both my wheels stopped turning, and I had to drag my bike into the campground. Luckily, there was a lake there, so we gave our bikes a good long bath.
We found some friendly camp neighbors – Greg and Rachel from Mount Vernon, WA – who agreed to give us and our bikes a lift back to the pavement the next morning
It got cold! My tent door was frozen when I woke up in the middle of the night
Monday
The ride to the road went off without a hitch. We dusted off our bikes as best we could and rolled down the hill into Ely, the biggest town in 250 miles
We hit up the all you can eat pizza buffet, then booked a hotel for our first shower in 5 days. Laundry was done, hot tubs were soaked in, beers were drunk. Good times
Tuesday
We got a slow start to the day, but we finally caught a tailwind. Despite two big climbs for over 3100 feet of climbing, we made quick work of the 64 miles to get us into Baker – the last town in Nevada!
Baker is the gateway to Great Basin National Park, and so, despite it being tiny, it had quite a few services. We met two west-bounders – Ben from Michigan, and Hugo from Paris – and had a great dinner here!
