A 48 mile day with a little bit of climbing and light winds to Middlegate Station. We’re still not on speaking terms with our legs though but we still averaged over 12 mph.
We left Fallon around 6:45 and US50 soon opened up to 70mph. The day was beautiful again and the traffic mostly light, trucks hauling ATV’s or trailers, but everyone slid left and gave us space. Note the nice rumble strips protecting us from using the shoulder again.
These are all towns we’re planning on sleeping in but not our stop for the day, little Middlegate Station.
Cow catches, worse than rumble strips.
Our first break from the bikes was about 8am at the Salt Wells RV dump. Amazing how your standards can lower so easily on a bike trip through desolation.
Len is Steady Freddy today as he cruises through the salt flats.
We found where all the trucks with ATVs were headed this morning, the Sand Mountain Recreation Area. It reminded us of the Great Sand Dunes back in Colorado.
Our second break was at the Pony Express Monument. I finally get to use my 2-legged camp chair for the 20 minute rest stop!
Our crossing of Nevada will consist or climbing up ranges and dropping into basins like this one the whole way. 
Our 2nd basin today was thick with these creatures, thousands had committed suicide on the highway, death by vehicle. At first we called them crawdad hoppers but when I stopped to take this close up of a rescue attempt by one to drag his wounded brother off the road the others started crawling up my leg. This spurred Len to call them Crotch Crickets. The name stuck.
It’s about 12:30 and we’re dropping down into Middlegate Station.
And this is Middlegate Station where we had lunch, drinks, dinner and just hung out with the locals and travelers alike AND they had live music all afternoon and evening. They’re open everyday except Christmas and did a brisk business while we were there.
And this was our room for the night, the one with the fancy windows in the door. It reminded me of a Nevada desert version of an Appalachian crack house. Len and I took care to make sure we were using clean needles when we shot up. To be fair, it was only $40/night and the people who run the place were genuinely kind.
We had tasty dinner and waddled back to our room for the night.
Looks like you two had a great Sunday. Scott, how are you keeping from getting a sunburn? Lots of sunscreen lotion?
ReplyDeleteI put sun screen on every morning. I noticed today I might need to start reapplying to my arms. Old skin ages even faster!!!
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