Well, that's pretty much it for the trip. I'll have fun in the city and Zion NP but the biking is certainly done. It was fun and certainly a challenge. Knowing I can do a ride like this gives me confidence that there's very little out there, at least in the US, that would be more difficult to accomplish. Name the route - is it tougher than highway 50? Probably not.
Thank you for following along. Until next year :)
Not holy. Location revealed to Brigham Young in a prophecy, but otherwise just a place to live and church headquarters.
I'm strolling through Temple Square and it's interesting to realize that I am at the headquarters (for lack of a better word?) of a religion.
So I want to know - is Salt Lake City a "holy" city for Mormons? Or is it like Rome for Catholics? (actually, do Catholics consider Rome "holy"? Or is it just where the Pope lives, and Jerusalem is holy? Or is it Bethlehem?) Is there anything religious about SLC, or is it only where the Mormons stopped when they moved west?
I'll go to the church history museum tomorrow, so if no one can tell before then I'll let you know the answer when I learn it!
A bittersweet feeling this morning in Provo. Last day of the bike trip (and probably not a great day of biking through suburbs). One one hand I feel great because this means I've accomplished my goal, and gotten myself across Nevada and western Utah (just about the entire Great Basin, it turns out). I'll get to explore a new city for a couple days, and then I'll finally see Alicia and begin the next phase down in Zion.
On the other hand, it's been a short trip but just long enough to put me in that "life on the road" state. It can be hard to pull yourself out of that. Or at least it is for me. I even have a decent beard already!
But all good things must end. And when this trip is done I can begin dreaming of where to go next!
I keep forgetting to put this up. When I got to the pool back in Fallon, the lifeguard looked at the bike and asked "are you one of those crazy people who just bikes and bikes forever?"
Great Salt Lake is, of course, the lowest point in the valley. Which means that it's almost all downhill from here! I'm in Santaquin, already half the way from Nephi to Provo. BYU, here I come!
Nephi is really nice but it's small and the pool is closed. I'm only 80-something miles from Salt Lake City, so I'm going to head north and see how far I get today. That will make for an easy day tomorrow and I will be in Salt Lake City a day early!
Slept in, took my time, enjoyed breakfast - now just getting started a few minutes before 10:00. I feel awesome.
Made it to Delta. I am wiped. Eating a sandwich then finding the pool. Then passing out (hopefully after leaving the pool).
Only about 50 miles tomorrow to Nephi. I'm sleeping in!
Made it across to civilization. Delta is another few miles down the road.
Today was not much fun. The scenery was flat and the wind was terrible for the last 20 miles. I feel like I could very easily not bike again for a while. I'm sure that feeling will pass in an hour or two.
The minor roads that end at highway 50 usually have some blinking light or reflective sign to stop you from driving through the intersection and into the desert on the other side. At the end of Cutoff Road is a big "WHOA" sign.
At this point I have to specify the state because right now I am technically looking at Utah!
Baker is a very small town a few miles west of the border. If I were heading southeast towards Zion, I would be staying here tonight. But since I've made the decision to brave the long stretch to Delta, I'm going to stay a bit farther along on 50, at the Border Inn (restaurant in Utah, casino in Nevada). They have camping there which is probably not great but it's hard to complain when you're sleeping at a glorified truck stop in the middle of a desert.
Baker is just outside Great Basin NP, one of the least-visited national parks. It actually gets 80,000 visitors a year, but that is dwarfed by the millions that go to Zion and Grand Canyon and the other famous parks.
Biking today was pretty awesome. Leaving Ely was the only hard part. Not because Ely was nice - it's a dump (vampires wouldn't go there. Ask me if you need an explanation of that joke) - but because it was slightly uphill with a nasty headwind for 17 miles. Then you reach the base of the next mountain and turn northeast, and suddenly the southerly wind is right behind you to blow you right up the mountain. The first pass was long and high (actual highest of the trip - sorry, Austin) and the second was shorter but pretty steep. There was a big wind farm in the basin between the two. Once over the second pass it was all downhill to Baker!
I actually took the turn to the Border Inn before deciding that I didn't want to spend the next 7 hours at a service station, so I took the aptly-named cutoff road over to Baker, where I have spent my time chatting up a park ranger, eating a sandwich and drinking beer. Also swapping stories with some cyclists who came in from Milford, to the southeast. Life is good today at the edge of Nevada.
I've noticed that I have relatively few posts about the things I see, and more summaries of the day, etc. I have two reasons for this. First, there's really very little to see. I take pictures at summits and of particularly impressive viewpoints, but there's really not much else going on. Second, I usually don't have service during the day, so even if I want to make a joke it doesn't seem funny anymore at the end of the day. Like a post about getting hungry at the top of Pancake Summit. Hilarious in the moment, less funny when you've thought about it for 5 hours.
Out at dinner in Ely, a guy's cellphone started ringing with the Imperial March from Star Wars. He picked it up and said "Hi honey".
I asked his friend - his wife DOES know that her ringtone is the best bad-guy music there is.
4 summits today, 77 miles. Not an easy day. Fortunately it was downhill the last 20 miles to Ely. Austin and Eureka were both halfway up a mountain, so it was nice to cruise into town instead of struggling uphill to end the day.
Pancake Summit! Yum!
During Eureka's mining heyday the town attracted people from all over the world. Chinese and Jewish residents are notable because they had their own cemeteries. I passed the Jewish cemetery this morning and took a look around. There are only 3 headstones, and two of them were for babies. But can you imagine the life of Hyman Gerson? Born in Wongrowitz, Prussia (now Poland), and ending up in Eureka, Nevada? Crazy.
The oldest and probably first structure in Eureka. The town burned down a few times in the 1870's but the cabin is away from downtown so it was spared.
Interesting thing is the size of the logs used to build it. Originally there were very large pine trees here, but they were all cut down (every tree within 50 miles, I read) for charcoal to power the mines. Any trees now are new growth and not that big yet.
Not sure what's going on. I can send text but pictures may come out small. But I should be up and running again.
Out at dinner, a guy's cellphone started ringing with the Imperial March from Star Wars. He picked it up and said "Hi honey".
I asked his friend - his wife DOES know that her ringtone is the best bad-guy music there is.
I sent in a few posts but it looks like they're not getting published. I'll figure it out eventually. In the meantime my GPS dot seems to be working so you can use that as a sign that I'm still kicking.
I had read about the shoe tree that was just past Middlegate. It's one of only a few trees east of Fallon.
Supposedly a husband and wife got into an argument near the tree and the wife threatened to walk home. The husband threw her shoes into the tree, apparently leaving her no choice but to get back in the car. So it became a tradition to throw shoes into the tree - there are hundreds of them up there. You won't be surprised to hear that I brought my old pair of shoes to toss into the tree (yes, and lug them through the desert to get there).
Well, or so I thought. Only yesterday morning did I learn that the tree was chopped down on December 31, 2010. So with a heavy heart I continued on to Middlegate, my shoes now only shoes - no longer my ticket to Americana.
Or so I thought. At Middlegate I learned that a neighboring tree had taken up the burden, and already had hundreds of shoes of its own. So with renewed happiness I reached the tree, picked out a good branch, and tossed in my shoes (it took 4 tries).
And here's the story of the guy who cut it down. He heard that his wife was going to meet her lover at the tree, so in a fit of jealous rage he cut it down. He was caught, and his punishment is to plant 400 trees in Nevada over the next 4 years. How great is that?
So the plan was to eat lunch here at Middlegate, then do another 13 miles to Cold Springs, putting me only 50 miles short of Austin.
But, when I got here I ordered the Monster Burger, then had to sit around a while until I didn't feel sick anymore. So that stuck me here for a while. Meanwhile, believe it or not, they are filming an independent film here today. When I arrived it sounded like a band was playing in the bar, which was technically true - only it was the band scene for the movie "Nowhere, Nevada". So while digesting my burger I watched the band play (the same song 3 times, but still fun).
Next I started talking to a woman who works here (Dee) and a cowboy who is basically Jeff Bridges (Rodney) . They're both awesome. Dee offers that if I decided to stay at Middlegate, I can use her spare bedroom. So that's nice, especially with the rain in the area. But I'm still torn. It's still early and the clouds make for perfect biking weather. In fact, the wind (which was really in my face today, which is odd) has finally died down - so biking could really be ideal.
But the kicker is that the movie crew and movie band are going to stick around for the night and hang out in the bar and possibly play a set. How could I miss that? Just to knock an hour off the ride tomorrow? Could be a really fun night!
So, I'll stop with the boring details of the exact endpoints...I'm biking across Nevada. It began as a plan to see Zion NP and Bryce Canyon, and finally grew to add the bike ride. I originally planned to start in San Jose, but timing made it easier to start in Reno (I didn't quit my job this time so I'll be on a finite schedule. So sad.)
Don't worry! The high desert of Highway 50 is very different from what you're thinking, which is the 100-degree-plus oven of Las Vegas. The average high where I'll be is closer to 90, and the forecast for next week looks like high 80's. The weather might end up being one of the best parts, rather than something to be concerned about.
The population will be sparser than anywhere I've been before, but not by that much. There is a town every 70 miles or so along highway 50, which is a pretty comfortable daily distance. The most desolate stretches last year were the same distance, but had one stop in the middle. The only difference now is that I don't get that one stop. If I bring enough food and water to get through the day, I should be just fine.
So that's the idea. The empty parts of the country (Wyoming, Montana, etc) were some of my favorite parts. I should get a real kick out of the emptiest!
The trip this year is from Reno, Nevada to Salt Lake City, Utah.
Actually, both of those locations may be somewhat untrue. I am flying into Reno today, but probably won't actually bike in the city at all. My friend Daryl moved to Nevada last year, and he's picking me up at the airport and driving me down to Minden. Tomorrow we may bike together over the mountain to the West and down to Lake Tahoe. If so, South Lake Tahoe (in California!) would be my point farthest west. But for simplicity, let's just say I'm starting in Reno.
The plan is to end up in Salt Lake City. But, I can choose between two roads after Ely, NV. One goes northeast to SLC, the other southeast to Cedar City and Zion National Park. Alicia is flying to Salt Lake, so if I meet her there we will drive together to Zion (the other, non-biking part of this trip). If I head south to the park by myself, she could drive down alone to meet me. It might be fun to see Salt Lake City, but it might be a gross day of biking through sprawl to get there. We'll see... I have plenty of time to decide.
So while I might end up not biking by either of the places pictured at the bottom of the blog, they'll have to be good enough.
