Connecticut to California – Day 16 – August 27, 2000

After that long day of rest yesterday, I was out of the rack at 05:30 this morning and getting the bike loaded for the trip to the right coast (as opposed to the left coast which I am now leaving.)

Everything is packed – Oz and a couple of guys are in the parking lot at 07:00 when I am ready to pull out – some more goodbyes – and then it’s on the road again.

Today’s ride is the Loneliest Road in America – Route 50 across Nevada.  After talking to Oz – I decided to scrap my previous plan to go up to Lake Tahoe to pick up 50 – and instead went back into Yosemite and up over Tioga Pass connecting with 395 and then picking up 50 at Carson City.

Although it was near 70 degrees in Mariposa when I left – the temperature soon dropped into the mid 50’s as I began the climb up to the pass.  As I rode higher and higher and the air got colder and colder – I began wishing that I could store the cold morning air – to be used later in the afternoon.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the trip across Nevada is going to be hot.

My final ride through Yosemite was awesome.  I stopped to take pictures as I climbed the mountain, but the pictures just don’t do it justice.  This is an experience – not a picture.  The only good a picture can do is to remind you of the feelings you had when you took it – or encourage you to go there and see for yourself – if you are looking at another’s pictures.  The vistas are so grand as not to be able to be captured by either film or words.

The gate to Yosemite is actually in Tioga Pass – I pass out of the gate and down the other side of the mountain to pick up 395.  Would you believe I met Mosa at the Mobil Mart.  Sorry, I just couldn’t resist all of those M’s.  Mosa left Mariposa (oops there I go again) about an hour after I did and pulled into the Mobil Mart about 5 minutes after I did.  It appears he was riding while I was stopping to take pictures and say my goodbyes to a truly wonderful place.

As fate would have it – Mosa was heading south on 395 and I was heading north – parting to perhaps meet another time – on this ride – or the next.

I guess two things surprised me today – The Loneliest Road in America isn’t all that lonely – and the Nevada desert ranges in elevation from about 4,000 ft to almost 7,000 ft.  I just never really thought about how high up deserts are – perhaps I always thought they were at sea level – you know we don’t have too many deserts in Connecticut.

The temperature for most of the day was in the 90’s even at 4000 ft.  I can’t imagine how hot it would have been if I had been at sea level.  During my ride through the pass this morning I was grateful for the periods of warming sunshine – in the afternoon I was grateful for the occasional cloud and even a brief shower that came my way.

I think when they say this is The Loneliest Road in America – they mean – that there is very little in the way of services – or even anything much different to look at as you make the long drive across the state.  I was sort of expecting no traffic – but I guess there were a lot of other people like me who wanted to see this lonely place.  Several times as I stopped to take a picture – I would have to wait for more than 5 minutes to be able to get a shot of the landscape without any cars in it.  Sounds kind of silly to take a picture of The Loneliest Road in America that is filled with cars – don’t you think?

Passing through Fallon, I was hoping to see some of the Navy’s best pilots – out doing some air-to-air practice or some low level bombing – but when I passed there was no evidence of any air operations on Sunday afternoon from Naval Air Station Fallon.  Pardon me, but it still sounds a little silly for the Navy to have a base in the middle of the desert.  I understand that they need all that empty space to play games, but NAS Fallon sort of hits me the way “military intelligence” hits me – if you know what I mean.

Driving across more that 300 miles of desert – does cause my mind to wander from the technology of the fighter aircraft – to the days of the Pony Express.  This was Pony Express country.  And in the days of Silicon Valley venture capital start up firms that go in and out of business like someone is turning a faucet on and off – I am reminded that the entire lifespan of the Pony Express was only 18 months.  The riders – the ponies – the stations were all put out to pasture by the new technology of the telegraph.  Startling to think of being downsized out of your job in 1861 – by technology.

Truthfully, the desert is a restful place.  It is magnificent in its own right – the changes from one mile to the next mile are subtle changes – calling the viewer to pay attention to the details.  The sun and the clouds play games on the ground with shadow shapes that remind me of contorted hands in a dark room illuminated by a flashlight.  I can almost hear them giggling as they play.

Periodically, it looks as though someone has laid a green carpet in a valley.  A rancher has found water – and there will be just acres of green in the middle of the never-ending brown – and I wonder who lives there – who brings this desert to life – who toils in this barren place – to create such beauty for me to see?

With prayers that all of us who travel – will do so safely – perhaps to meet again……

The bike trip meter says 520.9 the Garmin III+ trip meter says 535.9 and I say Goodnight  from Ely, Nevada.

Connecticut Yankee in Yosemite Valley- the Trek
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