Mile 600.6 - The road least travelled

When I woke up on day 8, it was 16 degrees outside. I am so glad I didn't camp. To kill time until it warmed up a bit, I took a nice leisurely breakfast at the cafe across from my motel. Having spent nearly two years managing and training waitstaff, I could tell immediately that it was the waitress' first day. Other than forgetting my side order, she did fine. Then, because it was still colder than I would have liked, I repacked all my bags, looking to drop a couple pounds. The first thing to go was the bike lock, which I have not used once and weighs more than 2 lbs. I also haven't seen the key for it since San Francisco. In fact, Jim, it may be in your backyard. I mailed the lock and map of the route I've already covered back home.

By 10 it had warmed up to the low 30's, so I bundled up and headed out. The morning started with a pair of climbs. Where I started in town was around 6700'. In less than two and a half miles, the switchbacks rose up to the Austin Summit at 7484'. It dropped a good 400' into a canyon then rose again to Scott Pass at 7214'. Then I dropped into the wide valley between the hill I was on and the ones on the horizon. Right around then, I did something for the first time on this tour, namely turning on my mp3 player. I only had one earphone on, so I could still hear the traffic coming behind me. But suddenly I was joined by Freddy Mercury and Bob Dylan and Manu Chao. At one point, a single hearing of Freebird lasted 3 miles. I got over a mile and a half in on the guitar riff alone. Up until now, I would have a series of songs go through my head, sometimes a single verse would repeat for an hour before I realized how much time had passed.

Anyway, after crossing the next bit of flat, I climbed up to the 6546' Hickson Pass. Just beyond that is a Petroglyph Park that was only a mile off my route, unlike the Itchyosaur Park sign I saw that got me really excited until I noticed it was 54 miles away. Sigh. Penny and I walked up a short trail to see the glyphs. They were kinda cool, though most had been vandalized by idiots over the years. I walked down into the parking lot, preparing to take a quick food break, when a couple from Michigan asked about the bike. I explained, and their response was to offer me a cold beer. Sweet! Let this be a lesson to all the rest of you across the country whom I haven't met yet so aren't reading this: free beer always wins me over. As I was talking to them, I guy from Minnesota overheard our conversation and was interested. The four of us talked for a while about our various trips before eventually going our separate ways.

I started again into the process of crossing a long valley, climbing the hills on the horizon, seeing the hills on the next horizon, crossing to them, climbing them, &c, &c, &c. While the terrain is pretty, it is also largely unremarkable scrub desert. So I thought I really would not have much else to report for the day, when some chance meetings occurred.

Before I describe who I met, I would like to illustrate the improbability of meeting someone where I did. Recall to your mind, the map of Nevada. Or open a new tab and pull one up. Picture (or zoom in) highway 50 crossing the center of the state. Near the middle of the line (you'll probably have to zoom in a bunch to see it) is the town of Austin. 78 miles east of there is Eureka. There is NOTHING in between. Not a gas station or side of the road bar, just long expanse of desert and hills. Just about halfway between the two towns was my first encounter. If there is a middle of nowhere, USA, I was riding toward its center.

And I saw, from a distance, a man walking along the side of the road. I caught up to him, slowed down, and asked where he was going. Bill, as it turns out, had just retired and, as he said, too many people just ease into their retirement, but it's a rite of passage. So, he's walking across the country. That, my friends, is inspirational to me. I asked how long he figures it will take and he shrugged and said next year sometime. He was going to fly home for the holidays, but then in January, pick up wherever he left off. What a fantastic thing to do. Also, see, there are people crazier than I am. I walked with him for a little while and am glad, even just for that fifteen minutes, that our two journeys aligned. Good luck to you, Bill. I expect you will make it.

Soon enough, I mounted up again, we took our respective sides of the road (me riding with traffic, him walking against) and I moved on. About five miles later, I crested the hill of whatever number horizon I was on for the day, and far in the distance I could make out a dark speck slowly moving along the side of the road. It was too small and slow to be a car, but too fast to be another person walking. I sped up and after about four miles, was catching up to a guy on a heavily loaded recumbent bike.

Wayne started from Sacramento and is going to Denver. But, along the way, he's visiting 11 national parks. Once he gets into Utah, he's going to bear south to the Grand Canyon. He's taking lots of pictures on the way that he posts to crazyguyonabike and is looking to make a photo journal when he's done. We talked a few minutes, then the speed difference in our bikes became apparent and I continued forward alone. Less than 15 minutes later, there's a turn in a hill, and I see two loaded bikes heading westbound.

I'm bad with names and if I had gotten these guys' I don't remember them. They started in Phoenix and were working their way to San Fransisco. They had the advantage of being able to spread the load between them and of having company the whole way, but they said they were working against the headwind basically every day. Yeah. That's why I'm going west to east. During the time we had stopped to talk, Wayne had caught up, so, briefly, there were four of us on touring bikes all in the same place a couple miles past the center of the middle of nowhere. I proclaimed that we had just started a tourist convention and took a picture.

All meetings on the road must end sooner or later. We wished each other good riding and fair weather and continued in our respective directions (at our respective paces). I hit mile 600 on the long climb into Eureka. As I pulled up to the general store (not to be confused with the gas station/laundromat/liquor store) three middle school aged boys rode up to me on their bikes. They asked where I was going. Brooklyn, I said. A young woman nearby who clearly knew the boys very well asked them 'Do you know where that is?'. They kinda shrugged and the oldest boy offered, 'yeah, that's like in the south somewhere'. No, it's New York City. Now, to these boys San Fransisco was a fantastically far off place, and to ride from there to Eureka is a monumental feat. One of them had ridden 20 miles, once, but with all the hills around, it was hard to ride out of town. New York, to them, is a semi-mythical far off realm that they see on the tv when there's a bomb scare or a parade.

I talked to them for a while, gave the young woman my card as she didn't seem likely to lose it, and the boys offered to watch my bike while I ran into the store. While I had come out, a fourth, younger boy had joined them. I came back out with my bananas, gatorade and instant oatmeal and talked to them a while longer, getting advice on the several restaurants in town. I hope that the boys do read this blog and if they do, the lesson I'd really like them to take away from meeting me is that I'm just an regular guy living out a ordinary american dream. Anyone can do it.

I grabbed a room at the motel the oldest boy had recommended. I tried for the second day in a row to do my laundry, but was rudely turned away at the gas station/laundromat/liquor store (where, of course, there are slot machines because this is Nevada) because the last load had to be in by 6 and it was now 6:07. I'm certain, in retrospect, that had I gotten to wash my clothes, the lady there would have died. Nothing else explains the urgency with which I was so rudely turned away.

From the boys' suggestions, I opted for the chinese-american restaurant. As I came in, there was an old chinese couple bickering at each other in rapid mandarin and a mother and daughter who I assume to be Shoshone, speaking their mother tounge. I suddenly felt like I was back home on the D train. Now I just needed someone reading a book in hebrew or a newspaper in hindi. From her reactions, I could tell that the chinese waitress was not used to white people being familiar with chinese food. She was surprised when I ordered a Tsingtao by name and I think maybe fell in love with me a little when I thanked her with a xiexie after taking my order. She came back with my soup and asked, in her intermediate english, if I lived nearby. No, Brooklyn. She asked what I did for work, and I told her I was a cook, but didn't have a job at the moment. She brightened up and asked if I was looking for a job here and seemed genuinely disappointed when I said no. But, it's good to know that I have a job lined up in Eureka, NV, if my life ever goes that route.

Day 8, Austin, NV - Eureka, NV
71.42 miles, 600.6 for the trip. 5:29:38 in the saddle today, 45:17:49 top speed 34.7mph