So I crossed through Utah in 2 days, and got to Nevada 2 nights ago, and stayed in Montello. Last night I decided to take a break day and get a motel that I heard good things about in West Wendover, NV, so I biked over here.
Utah was beautiful. There was pretty much a dramatic shift from Wyoming's barren mountains to pine tree mountains and lakes as I crossed the border. Bear Lake had fun looking beaches and a touristy town that was big on raspberries (though I decided to give in and buy some too late!). There were some big hills I had to walk, but I ended up having a gorgeous 40ish mile ride downhill through tree lined canyons and the logan river. It was probably the best ride I've had so far, though there was a lot of weekend traffic on the highway, no shoulder, and an asshole that honked and screamed something out of his car as he drove buy. I just ignored him. I took some video of the ride, so I'm looking forward to compiling the movie in the end, so you can see everything I've been talking about come to fruition in moving picture form at the end (I have that literally in time lapses!). The first night in Utah I stayed at Cache National Forest at a beautiful campground near the logan river. The highlight there was campfire reading at night and then a chilly morning bath in the river before heading out.
From there I biked to Western Utah, taking a 32 mile dirt road through mountains around the Great Salt Lake. This state has so many different contrasting, gorgeous landscapes! I set up on top of the tallest hill before a descent at the halfway point of the 32 mile dirt road leading to the highway out of Utah. I got to face the sunset over the mountains in the West with the Salt Lake in the distance to the South, with its amazing mountainous islands in the middle. (My camera is at the other side of the campground, but I might have enough time to run and get it and upload the photos before heading out. I feel like it would be unjust if I didn't put them up to give you a sense of how cool it was).
Funny thing happened though. It was a bit chilly around 3am, so I opened my eyes a bit, and I saw a brief flash through my tent. I thought, "is someone out there with a flashlight?" (I get paranoid sometimes when I'm camping in undesignated places- I'm too conditioned to campgrounds...though this was probably public land anyways, and there were no "no trespassing" signs). It flashes again, in rhythm, and I think, weird, is there a plane beacon on top of the hill? But then the flash doesn't come in rhythmn again. So I open my tent door, facing west, and there's a clear, starry sky. So I close the door and try to see if there's a rhythmn again, thinking it has to be a beacon. And there isn't, so that narrows things down to one thing- a lightning storm. I come out of my tent, and to the East of me, there's a huge cloud with vicious lightning flashing, but I can't hear it. Let me tell you, being on top of a mountain during a lightning storm is pretty much the best way to get hit by lightning. When I was in Nebraska, the nurse guy, Jeremy, randomly told me a story from the news lately about some guy that went up on a mountain to propose to his fiance, and she got hit by lightning and died because a storm came as he was doing it (ouch). SO, I packed as FAST. AS. I. COULD. I got my tent down and everything packed in 10 frantic minutes- (what usually takes me like 45-60 minutes)- and I ran/rolled the bike down the hill, and started pedaling as fast as I could on the dirt road, with 2 priorities in my head- 1) get off the mountain to low ground 2) find a shelter somehow. I solved priority one to find that low ground meant I was surrounded by nothing but "Salt Wells" and flat land. So in essence, I was being served up on a platter with salt to the lightning thanks to the salt flats. I thought I was pretty screwed and would have to do the 30-30 lightning maneuver I emailed the outdoor listhost to find out about (if you hear thunder 30 seconds after seeing lightning, assume the lightning position for 30 minutes- which is sitting on your pack, touching ankles, and wrapping your hands around your thighs so that if you get hit by lightning, it arch through your lower body rather than your upper heart area). Luckily, after about 40 minutes or an hour of riding, I started to hit hilly area again with boulders. I stopped at one boulder thinking I can find shelter, but they were too narrow. Then, amazingly, luckily, I found a REAL cave. What are the chances of that?? The lightning storm was still far off, it turned out I got a flat tire in the process of my frantic gravel biking, but I set up cozily in the cave, and even made breakfast/dinner before dozing off to wait for sunrise. It actually ended up being really great in the end, and the storm never came/passed through the Northwest. I woke up to sunshine and the remnants of the storm clouds to my North. Hurray.
That day I biked about 90 gruelling miles, and my adventure for that day was running out of water, since I was going 2 days without contact with civilization. Fortunately, the gravel road I took had signs to Highway 30 that took me North earlier than I planned, which ended up taking me to a small town where I found a faucet behind an abondoned? motel. I'm glad I found water, because it was getting really uncomfortable for the 40min I knew I was completely out of water, thinking I was elsewhere on highway 30, and would probably have 50 miles of nothing. To add to that, the 50 miles of highway 30 to the border are through my first real desert. It was probably 100 degrees in the sun, though biking, I get a breeze so it's not that bad. After a gruelling day, and a painful last 10 miles from the border to Montello, where the motels where sold out but I stayed in the park, I finally got to Nevada- in 2 days!
That brings me to yesterday, where I planned to bike the 53 miles to West Wendover, to a motel a guy in the park told me cost $22 dollars with a 2.99 breakfast. Unfortunately, I came to town during it's busiest tourist week of the year- Bonneville Speedfest on the Salt Flats. Motel prices went from $32 a night to $140. So my dream of having a day in bed watching movies and eating pizza and junk food died:( in the sun:*( I also got found my bike had a flat coming out of the motel disillusioned. I try not to be pessimistic in my blog posts, but there are times where everything just seems to go wrong on the trip when you hope for the best, and it really sucks. But then you have to suck it up, and just make the best of the situation and tell yourself, just fix it, and get on with it. So I fixed the flat and compromised with the KOA campground (yay wifi, yay first shower in a week). And to make up for it, I bought a large pizza, 16 chicken wings, a party tray of veggies and dip, a cantelope, and pop. Then I streamed things online and brought my spirits up:) And I've eaten most of it since last night, haha. (As a side note, I've found myself spoiling myself more with food towards the end of the trip because I'm sick of Lipton dinners and I need the extra boosts.)
The Bonneville Speedfest actually looks like it would be fun to attend. People bring their old cars and motorcycles from around the US (and Canada?) and race them on the salt flats. I see cars with salt sud all over them in the parking lots. In fact, there's salt all over the roads. West Wendover itself is a main road with lots of Casinos, and a flashing neon cowboy at the entrance, "wendover will". Even the supermarket has little casino games at the entrance. lol.
Also, I didn't mention, riding over "three mile hill" into town from I-80 was surreal. You get the strangest angle perspective of the town at the corner of the Salt Flats that go flatly, without features, straight into the horizon towards the South (I'm looking from the west), reflecting the sky, and highway I-80 going in a perfectly straight line to the Northeast probably 8 miles into the horizon. The highway was the most striking part, it looked like the massive landscapes of Blade Runner, but without all of the buildings, just the road.
Tomorrow I'll end the day in Ely, NV, the starting point of highway 50, "the loneliest highway in America". I should be on it for 4 or 5 days before I hit the Lake Tahoe area, cross over to California, make it to Sacramento, and then to San Francisco!!! I should have less than 10 days left!!! And I'm really looking forward to getting there finally and then getting back to my real life! Wooo!
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