Goodbye Nevada!

Sunday

  • 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!