n8 moto

I woke up early in Fallon with intentions of blasting out of Nevada and getting into California via Lake Tahoe, before traffic gets bad (Sunday vacationers returning home). But as I was packing up, I saw a tweet from another adventurer that had just started his trip, @jryden. He said he was just leaving Carson City. I quickly hit him up on twitter to see if he wanted to get breakfast in Fernley, which is not too much out of the way for either of us. We met up at 9AM and had breakfast at a place called “Wigwam”. His name is Joe, nice guy…his bike looked so clean to me, being used to mine with a zillion bugs, mud, salt and grime. But I guess he is only 2 days into his trip. Follow his adventure on his blog and on twitter.

After breakfast, I continued west, passing thru Carson City and on towards Cali. I passed the “Welcome to California” sign just as I got into South Lake Tahoe. And predictably, into a big mess of people. I’ve been used to some solidarity on this trip so the sudden infusion of people into my trip was a little much. I took a break from the traffic and went down to the waterfront to take a pic or two. It’s beautiful there, may have to visit sometime.

After sitting in traffic for a while, I started fiddling with my GPS to find a new route. I discovered there is a ‘back road’ thru South Lake Tahoe and quickly went for it. What a time saver. I took SR-89 to SR-88, which was a great road with lots of curves that takes you through the Eldorado National Forest. I passed Caples Lake and Silver Lake. It would have been a great drive if it hadn’t been for the traffic…and a logging truck that wouldn’t use turnouts for anyone to pass. So I tried to relax and take in the scenery. It was a bit smokey, I assume due to a fire.

I got into Jackson, stopped for a fill-up and and phoned into my contact in SF to get directions to his place. I took SR-16 into Sacramento from there. Lots of farmland out in Northern Cali that I’d never seen before. Pretty rolling hills and “Happy Cows”.

I wanted to cross the Golden Gate bridge as part of the end of this trip, so I went north of San Pablo Bay thru Vallejo on SR-37 and stopped in Novato for gas. A pretty drive actually, with lots of potential for exploration…if you have a boat. Once I hit the 101, I started to think of how close I am to home and stopped to get a pic to send to Tracy. A fellow on a BMW 1150RT chatted me up at a gas station and actually offered to take the pic. Thanks man!

A cool tunnel on the way to the GG Bridge.

I hit up Golden Gate Park, to drive up the hill and get a shot of the bridge. Beautiful, but foggy and cold. It was 55F up there! And it had been in the low 100′s just a few hours earlier, nearly a 50 degree change. But the shots were awesome.

Finally got down to the Golden Gate. Crossed the bridge in a little bit of traffic. I got honks when they saw me taking shots. People are so impatient, I just wanted to capture my $6 view!

Didn’t realize it cost $6 to cross it or I’d have had my money ready. D-oh.

I had programmed my GPS to take me right to my destination for the night…but it decided to take me on a scenic tour of downtown San Francisco that lasted 45 minutes. When I finally stopped to see what was up, I realized I had passed his home just at the south end of the bridge, doh! My friend Paul had hooked me up with his college buddy Brian, whom I’d never met. He was super nice and his house was awesome. One challenge was parking my bike on the 45 degree angle street he lived on…thankfully he had an open garage and I slipped the bike inside. Decided I’d worry about how to get it out tomorrow. We dined on thai food and hit the sack around 11PM.

His view of the city at night.

My route for the day, 341 miles.

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Tomorrow, I do the Cali coast and on towards So-Cal!

I always seem to get up early when I’m in a tent. Not sure if it’s the restful sleep or the sunlight that does it…maybe both. Paul (on the Yellow Buell) and I were both up to help our fellow biker with his dead battery.

A jump didn’t do it so we push started it, which also didn’t work. And I tripped and fell on some huge rocks in the process…had I not been wearing my motorcycle gear, I would have been seriously hurt. Ouch. So I volunteered to go pick up a battery at the nearest auto parts store, Paul came with. Back a few min later, a new fully charged battery in hand, and we were on the road to get breakfast. I can’t seem to recall his name at the moment, but he was really nice and bought us both breakfast for helping him out.

Highway 50 is similar to Hwy 93 that I had taken yesterday…straight and lonely. Except I think 50 has a better marketing department. It wasn’t as lonely as 93, but the distance between towns (small ones!) and gas stations makes it a more lonely drive.

At the KOA the night before, one of the ladies at the desk had given me a Highway 50 survivors book…you go thru each town on the list and get a stamp and the Nevada Tourism Commission mails you a certificate. The first stop was Eureka, NV. I took a tour of the Eureka History Museum and got a shot of an old newspaper printing press. Even the modern versions of these are soon to be gone.

I didn’t get much rain today, in fact, it was quite dry and hot. And boring. And when the antelope darted out in front of me as I passed a small hill, things got a lot more exciting. If I hadn’t hit the brakes, I would have had antelope soup for lunch…or someone else would have had white boy soup with antelope on the side, or both. Catching my breath and needing a moment to calm down, I drove a little further and stopped for some pics.

As I got closer to Fallon, NV and closer to the end of the lonely highway, I passed the Shoe Tree. Legend has it that quarreling lovers stopped by the road and one threw the other’s shoes up in the tree. After they made up, the other reciprocated by tossing the first one’s shoes up in the tree. And people have been doing it ever since. I grabbed a pair that had fallen and tossed them up.

It was HOT at the end of the ride in the hills east of Fallon. I tried to snap a shot of the temp at 105 but by the time I got out my cam and focused it on the bike’s temp gauge, I hit a pocket of cooler air that was 100.3. And of course as soon as I put it away, the temps go back up. Oh well.

I stopped for some lunch at a 50′s diner. I had been noticing a vibration in the bike so I looked up bike shops I could take it to for a look. Actually, I had noticed the un-even tire back in Ohio, but it looked small enough to get back to SD for a repair. But I felt it was getting significantly worse after the trip thru the hot desert. It was a Saturday, and few shops were open. I called up Tu-Bruthers Motorsports and even though they’d closed 5 min before I rang, they told me to come over anyway. The brothers looked at my bike and immediately found that my rear rim was bent. Over the thousands of miles on the trip, the bent rim wore the tire unevenly and it started to show after 8K miles. I hadn’t hit any large potholes or anything that would have caused this on my trip so the brother’s theory was that Cycle Gear bent it when they put on my current set of rubber. They deemed it not dangerous to my health to continue the rest of the way to San Diego, so after talking with them for a while about my trip and their shop, I got back to eating my lunch. The waitress at the diner had let me leave and come back an hour later, I tipped her well.

These guys were awesome, I can’t recommend them enough.

Their 360 HP race bike.

I stayed the night in Fallon, NV at a hotel recommended by the Tu-Bruthers guys. A baseball tournament was in town so the hotel was packed full of obnoxious boys and even more annoying and obnoxious parents. I would have tried to camp but the nearest campsite I could find was an hour away, it was too hot and I was tired.

My route for the day, Highway 50.

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Tomorrow, into California and West to the coast!

I had a restful stay in Salt Lake City at my buddy Josh’s house. He took me out for burritos and ice-cream the night before, and his wife Natalie made me chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, yummy. I slept in later than usual and then Josh and I went out for lunch. We stopped by his mom’s house to see her awesome van, pictures describe it better than my words.

Jerry Garcia’s handprint.

Josh and I just as I was about to head out.

I hit the road on I-80 west. It was warm out, in the high 90′s. After driving an hour or so, a rest stop provides a cool view of the famous Salt Lake. I had planned on going out for a swim, but I was told it stinks like hell, it’s salty like brine and is HOT. I’m already hot, don’t need more of that. So I got a nice pic. The reflection makes it look like the distant mountains are floating.

The roads in North Western Utah are long and straight and provide for some beautiful scenery. Looks like some train cars just sitting there with no locomotive.

As you come to the border of Utah and Nevada, just before Wendover, you encounter the Bonneville Salt Flats. Home to the Bonneville Speedway and holy ground to land-speed racers, speed freaks and gear heads. And something I’ve been dreaming of seeing ever since I got into things that go fast.

It’s 5-6 miles just to drive out to the salt.

But when you get there, it’s very worth seeing.

There were signs posted all around that said “DO NOT DRIVE ON THE SALT, YOU MAY SINK”..or something like that. And cones that defined an area allowing you to get close-ish to the salt to take a pic. See when it rains, that place becomes a lake of muddy salt..in some spots up to 6 feet deep. So you can surely sink.

There were 3-4 cars and about a half dozen cruiser motorcycles all parked taking shots from the end of the access road where the signs were posted. Not good enough. I got off the bike and walked out onto the salt…as everybody looked at me like I was going to sink up to my waist at any moment. It seemed to be OK, and partly dry…only sunk in about 3/4 of an inch or so. So, I got back on my bike, fired it up, yelled “You only live once!” out loud into my helmet and sped off the concrete onto the salt. I’m sure the cars and cruisers were telling stories about how I wouldn’t make it back. But it was fine, decently dry I thought. Slippery tho…I tried to get up some speed but didn’t really feel comfy over about 50 mph or so…too squirrely, it felt like I was driving in mud. Guess it wasn’t that dry. After driving out far enough not to be able to see the access road anymore (1-2 miles, I would guess), I got off the bike for a picture. And boy, it was worth it.

Think I’ll have to get that first one framed. It’s so flat you can actually see the curvature of the earth in the salt. Amazing. I tasted the salt…yep, super salty! Spent a few moments in awe, taking pictures and then headed out.

Stopped for gas in Wendover…that’s when I noticed the salt. Everywhere. I walked from the pump over to the side of the station to kick it off my boots and noticed I left big salt foot prints. Oops. It was all over the bike too…I’d have to wash that off real soon.

I headed back to the highway and on towards Nevada. The roads just go on forever, straight as an arrow. This is Hwy 93-A towards Hwy 93 towards Ely, NV.

I drove thru 3 rain showers, but only one of them was enough to totally wet me. It was too hot to wear my rain gear but the cool rain felt good and it evaporated back to 100% dry in about 15 minutes in the dry Nevada air. I saw a couple dust-devils. They are sure cool to watch, just spin beautifully. I kinda wished one was on the road so I could drive thru it but I figured it’d knock me off the bike.

I stayed at the KOA in Ely, NV that night. Very nice, they even let me wash the salt off my bike at the maintenance shed out back. I had to wash it twice!

They put me in an area next to a bunch of other motorcyclists. A group of guys on cruisers headed to Sturgis, and a few other adventure riders headed to various areas of the country. Paul, on a Buell, was headed to Florida via a similar route that I’d taken, just in reverse. One guy had a BMW with a dead battery…we philosophized about how to get him started in the morning and then headed off to sleep. The cruiser guys gave Paul and I the last of their pizza and fried chicken, which was super cool of them.

I slept pretty good that night, going to bed about 9PM. I woke up at 4AM to take this shot of Venus out the front of my tent.

My route for the day, 247 miles.

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My destination for the day is Ely, NV…which you may know as the eastern starting point for HWY 50, the “Loneliest Highway in America”.