Continuing
Day 5, Wednesday
We
headed
away from Ely, South and West on US Highways 50 and 6, baking
along the way, and
arriving
at the beautiful Great Basin National Park visitor's center at
last. I am always so happy to walk into a national park visitor's
center: it's air conditioned and full of neat stuff and helpful people
and info. We were talking to one of the park workers about camping and
she said that the camp sites can fill up by 1:30 - and it was 12:30. All
but one of the Great Basin campgrounds are first-come, first served. A
guy nearby said he had just left his campsite in Upper Lehman Creek
Campground, #9, and that people were already driving through looking for
a place. We got back to the bikes and headed up. We got to Upper Lehman,
which is on the side of a mountain - all uphill - and it looked full:
almost every site had a piece of paper on it. And, sure enough, someone
had JUST parked in #9. Damn!
We ended up
camping
in site #11, which doesn't have a drive way: we parked on the side of
the driveway for the group parking next door to us. It turned out
to be the perfect site: the tent was in the shade as of the evening and
for the early morning, and an ever-babbling branch of Lehman Creek was
close enough as to drown out most surrounding noise. It's a tent-only
site - there's no place to park a camper. Not sure why they don't say
that on the campsite post. We unloaded, Stefan put up the tent and I
walked down to the information board and paid. I also noticed that most
of the sites with a piece of paper were, in fact, available: the camp
host hadn't collected the expired reservation notices. I always forget
this lesson:
when looking for a campsite, a piece of paper or sign
on a campsite post does NOT mean the site is occupied. Look at the
paper or sign to make sure the camper didn't leave that day or that the
reservation isn't a few days from now. And I think the park ranger was
wrong: Sunday through Wednesday nights, you can probably still get a
campsite in Great Basin National Park until about 5 in the evening -
maybe later.
We took off our shoes and put on our Teva sandles and waded into the
creek. It felt AMAZING. I wanted to lay down in it.
Only thing we were worried about: the group site next to us was a sea
of bags and trash thrown haphazardly everywhere. There was no one there
at the moment, but whoever was staying there wasn't respecting the site
nor the park. There were no signs warning of bears, but every national
park campsite has critters, whether bears or marmots or chipmunks, and
they get into things left around. Also, you may need to leave a campsite
quickly, because of a fire or a flash flood - that's never happened to
us, but I think about it, because it could (and if you keep reading this
travelogue...). And, honestly, it's just about respect: you are a guest.
You are paying pennies to camp, relatively speaking. You are paying far,
far below the market value of what you are experiencing. Show your
appreciation for public lands, which of all of our lands, and don't
throw your crap everywhere.
We would love to have gone all the way up and camped at Wheeler Peak
Campground, and if we had been on a trip where we would have done more
hiking, we would have. But this way, we were closer to the caves and the
visitors' center, and I didn't like the idea of going up that oh-so-high
and curvy road at night after the astronomy presentation on Thursday
night.
We had originally wanted to stay in a campground along Strawberry
Creek, but it all of these were closed due to fire recovery effort. And
it turned out that wouldn't have been a good option for us anyway: we
had just one full day to enjoy Great Basin, and that would have put us
far from all we wanted to do in that one day.
This, our half day, we used to
go
to Lehman Visitor's Center to sign up for a cave tour the next day
and confirm that there would be an astronomy show on Thursday despite
the full moon. Yes, a full moon... the entire reason I had wanted to
visit Great Basin National Park was because of their perfect dark sky. I
had wanted to look up and gasp at the sight of the Milky Way in such a
setting. I've seen the Milky Way a lot, but there have been some times
where I have seen a perfectly clear starry sky, and I longed to see that
again, and the night sky of Great Basin was legendary. But we didn't to
our homework and, so, here we were, with a full moon so bright it
obliterated most of the night sky. Oh, well, the moon would be pretty...
We'd visited the Lehman Visitor's Center just passing through back in
2014 on our way from Utah. The big change now: the antique rifle on
display. In November 2014, archaeologists discovered a 1873 rifle
leaning against a juniper tree in Great Basin National Park. Just
leaning there. They posted about it on Facebook and that post went
viral, with a deluge of speculation about what happened to result in
this gun standing there for so many years. Based on its condition, it's
probably not been out there since 1873, but it has been out there for a
long, long time: the cracked wood stock, weathered to grey, and the
brown rusted barrel blended into the colors of the old juniper tree in a
remote rocky outcrop, keeping the rifle hidden for many years. The
imagination runs wild at what happened to the owner after he - probably
he - set that gun up against that tree once upon a time.
We sign up for the last cave tour of the following day, figuring that
the cool cave air would feel awesome in the height of the heat of the
day. The ranger said we were the first to sign up, so we could decide if
the tour would be the 60 minute or the 90 minute tour. 90 minutes, of
course! Show it ALL to us, baby! I also got a compliment from a park
worker on my Gram Parsons' t-shirt.
We watched the two videos in the center, and learned about a site we
would love to visit: the ruins of the Johnson Lake Mine: a few log
cabins, mining equipment, the vestiges of an aerial tramway and
artifacts from miners and their families that lived there in the early
1900s. Yeah, not that old, but we love remote ghost towns. But
Johnson Lake Historic Mining District cannot be reached by car. It is
accessible by a strenuous 7.4 mile round trip hike that begins at 8,000
ft and climbs over 2,700 ft in elevation. We didn't have the time, the
clothes, the shoes, my walking sticks nor the weather for such a
hike.
We also skipped the Baker Archaeological Site, which contains the
remains of a Fremont Indian village occupied from approximately 1220 to
1295 AD. It's located outside the park - we had seen the sign on our way
in. The site was excavated by Brigham Young University's Office of
Public Archaeology in the 1990s, and all the recovered artifacts are
stored at BYU's Museum of People and Cultures in Provo, Utah. The site
was reburied with the dirt and the foundations of the village can no
longer be seen on the surface. Given the weather and the lack of
anything to see, we didn't think it was worth going to.
It rained at one point, and it was delightful. But that meant the
group next to us came roaring back into their site in their van,
throwing things into their van. They were loud. REALLY loud. It's my
number one complaint about any campground, particularly ones in the
forest or remote areas: noise. Please don't go to a campground if you
cannot respect the quiet. Go stay in a KOA campground.
We met the people in site #9 and teased them about "stealing" our
site. They gave us all of the firewood that the previous camper had left
- they said they weren't going to have a fire. Stefan went to Baker, the
tiny town right outside the park, for ice and beer, and then I cooked
supper and we had a nice evening just enjoying the cool of the evening
and
enjoying
a small fire to get rid of the bugs. I was so freakin' tired,
which I always am at the end of a day of riding, but we hadn't really
ridden that far. I was more tired than I should have been, just as I had
been far more anxious the day before than I should have been. I went
into the tent to lay down at about 8 p.m. and fell deeply asleep. I woke
up about 90 minutes later because the people next door were SO LOUD. Why
do people not understand that voices carry in a campground? They did
finally quiet down at 10:30 p.m. and I fell right back into that deep
sleep. It cooled off in the night. It felt great.
Day 6, Thursday
In the morning, despite it being cool, despite all those many hours
of sleep, I wasn't feeling good. I'm always just a bit nauseous in the
early mornings, but I was even more nauseous than usual on this trip,
and once again, on that morning I couldn't finish my coffee. In fact, I
couldn't even get more than a few sips down. I tried to eat some
oatmeal, but couldn't finish. And when I went to the pit toilet, I
opened the door and the smell - which really wasn't THAT bad - made me
puke. Literally. I'm so glad no one saw and that there is a water pump
right next to the bathroom. I was sick. I was sick on our only full day
in Great Basin National Park. Did I mention this park visit was the primary
purpose of our trip? I drank a lot of water and went to the bathroom a
lot and felt a bit better after about an hour. We decided we would go
ahead with our plans and just play the day by ear, slowly. We also
decided not to wear our motorcycle pants - we'd wear our hiking pants
instead. Yeah, I know - not ATGATT. But for just riding around the park
and nearby town, we decided to chance it - the heat was just crazy and
dangerous. I needed to NOT overheat. And thank goodness Stefan had
bought a small bottle of Coke the night before and the night had been
cool - that cold Coke that morning felt unbelievably good.
It
was a hot but beautiful day. We rode up to Wheeler Peak
Campground. We could have gone two up on Stefan's motorcycle, but we did
that back in 2014 when we were just passing through - I'd parked my bike
at Lehman visitor's center, because I was still feeling tepid about
winding roads after my Moab wreck. Now, four years later, I was
determined to ride myself. And it's really not at all that hard - I've
done much harder.
It's
paved the whole way and
there
are some sharp turns, but nothing too awful. There aren't a lot of
places to pull over that aren't soft, thick, narrow gravel, however.
Just after we started up, there was suddenly 10 cars behind me, so I
stopped far over on the road to let them pass. When we got to the top,
one of the passengers came over to thank me. The cars were all a part of
the Las Vegas Hiking Club, and they were adorkable: all over 50, all
full of vim and vigor and hilarious conversation.
I wasn't feeling great, but the ride had cooled me off, and I felt
good enough to slowly stroll through Wheeler Peak Campground. It was all
I could manage, unfortunately.
It's
a beautiful campground, but we had no regrets not camping there -
it would have been a pain to run up and down that road two or three
times a day, as we would have had to do for our one day in the park. We
admired a Mercedes camper van and the owner generously let us look
inside. Sooooo niiiiiice....
we
also saw a deer, who wasn't looking for food from people but
wasn't all that intimidated that we were nearby as she ate.
Here's
a video of her. Oh, and a couple of the pit toilets in the
campground are, literally, brick shit houses.
We drove down the mountain,
stopping
a few times along the way, and then on to Baker for lunch - I was,
at last, hungry. Famished, in fact. I had a quesadilla, which probably
would have been mediocre on any other day but, at that moment, were the
most delicious things I'd ever eaten. I was feeling way better after
eating, as well as drinking cold soda. Wearing the lighter pants
definitely helped. We bought a few items at the tiny store next door,
including some peanut butter, which I planned to try to eat for
breakfast the next day.
This
place looks interesting - it was across the street, but the
restaurant wasn't open.
We went back to the main visitor's center and looked around the gift
shop, enjoying the air conditioning and talking to one of the park
workers. I bought a t-shirt featuring the starry sky I had missed and a
sticker for my panniers. Then we headed to the cafe at Lehman's
Visitor's Center for more air conditioning and ice cream and for our
late afternoon cave tour.
Every cave tour makes me think of my first national park visit ever.
I was about 8 or so, and my aunt Norma, visiting from Florida, took me,
my brothers and her three children to Mammoth Cave National Park. I
loved that trip. I thought the park ranger that lead our tour was the
smartest, funniest human being ever. If someone had said, "You know,
Jayne, you could study biology or wildlife management and, someday, you
could be a park ranger," I would have TOTALLY DONE THAT. But I had no
idea how people became whatever it was they became, and I didn't visit a
national park again for almost two decades. Before our tour way back
then in the 1970s, a picture was taken of our large group before our
tour. I would love to have that photo.
We went back up to our camp site for a nap next to the creek. We put
pulled out our air mattresses and put them almost right next to the
creek behind our tent in the shade, then took off our shoes and laid
down. I fell asleep. I don't know how long. But it felt wonderful. I
always complain on our trips that we don't take a day to just hang out
somewhere beautiful, to relax and read and do nothing. Just ONE day. I
was sorry that it took me getting sick to force us to do it, but I loved
it. And I would have been happy to do it for even longer, but the RV
campers that were moving into the group site next door (the loud folks
had left) couldn't get their massive huge stupid RV into the parking
space unless we moved our motorcycles, so one of them came over to wake
us up and tell us. Argh.
I don't remember if we cooked dinner or not. I think our big lunch
was enough. But we had cold drinks, and drinking them felt marvelous. At
7:15, we headed back down to Lehman Visitor's Center for the astronomy
show. We were WAY early, but there were already people that had set up
their seats
for
the slide show, so we did too, using our panniers as seats. There
were
two
huge telescopes already in place, each about $10,000 in value. I
couldn't wait to look through them! I was giddy with excitement. I'm a
nerd. About 80 people showed up and the slide show presentation began
and... it was the first time in my life I have been disappointed in a
Park Ranger presentation. She was very nice, but not a good compiler of
information nor a good presenter of such. You are talking about the
STARS and the MOON - how could anyone make that boring? She did. She
obviously loves astronomy, but she doesn't understand how to talk about
it to non-astronomers. Such a let down... and clouds were moving in and
she rambled. I couldn't believe she wasn't wrapping up early to ensure
everyone got to look through the telescopes before the clouds covered
anything. I kept looking up at the sky and looking at her and thinking,
end the presentation early. Don't deny this opportunity to everyone.
STOP TALKING! But she rambled on, even presenting some slides twice. At
last, we were told we could walk to the telescopes. I let some little
kids go in front of me, because I didn't want them to miss this amazing
opportunity, and I rushed my view of the moon because I knew not
everyone was going to get to look, and I wanted as many people as
possible to see it. And, indeed, halfway through the lines, the viewing
was called off as clouds rolled over the entire sky, including that
beautiful moon.
One helpful thing she did do was point out Mars, Jupiter and Venus,
and for the rest of the trip, if there was a clear enough sky, I could
find all three easily. Mars is closer to the Earth than it was in 2003
and is SO bright right now in the sky. I would loved to have seen it
through that telescope...
We went back to the campground and I could not shake off my
disappointment at not having my "wow!" moment. In fact, it felt like
everything was going wrong: two flats, a wreck, no petroglyphs viewing,
no ghost town touring, me being sick, a full moon and clouds ruining my
much dreamed-of night sky viewing, a disappointing park ranger
presentation, the horrible heat... maybe we should just go home...
Stefan said if I was still feeling sick we could reserve our campsite
for another night and while I rested all day Friday, he could ride to
Ely, get the inntertube at Napa and come back - he'd be gone for a
couple of hours or more. But I refused. What if the innertube wasn't
there? What if something went wrong on his way there? We needed to stay
together.
Looking back, I think my let down was more because of my illness than
anything that did, or didn't, happen on the trip. Because as I look back
on this trip, I'm so happy about it. As I write about it, I get excited
about it.
Day 7, Friday
The next day, we got up early, about 6 a.m. I didn't even try to
drink coffee. I drank milk (oh how I love Stefan's little cooler) and
ate peanut butter and drank a lot of water. I was still nauseous, but
not nearly as bad as the previous morning. We watched
some
wild turkeys mosey through the campground, packed up, and talked
with the camp hosts, who were going through the campground cleaning up
anything left behind (which they should NOT have to do if people were
more respectful). We were heading out of the campground before 9 a.m.,
and almost got significantly delayed by a family in a rental RV trying
to back into a camp site - it was Friday, and there were already people
driving through the campground to snag anything available.
We were headed back to Ely and, on the way away from Great Basin, we
once again passed the turnoff for Osceola - it's another place we would
have visited had the weather been in the low 90s or lower and we'd known
then what we know now.
Osceloa
is a ghost town, site of a mine where the largest gold nugget ever found
in Nevada (for the time) was discovered May 1877. It was one of the
first towns in Nevada to have electric lights and the first telephone in
White Pine County. There are a few structures, but its the cemetery
that's supposed to be particularly interesting, and great views of the
valley below. The roads from US Highway 6 & 50, one three miles and
one five miles (the road curves around the mountain where the town was
located), are supposedly well maintained and not difficult to navigate.
We got back to Ely and went straight to Napa. And... the innertube
hadn't come. The UPS truck had already made his deliveries that morning.
The soonest we could expect it now was Monday. We were hot, hungry and
super cranky. I asked them for a recommendation for breakfast - I felt
like we needed to sit in air conditioning, eat a good meal and make
decisions with a clear head. One guy recommended a Mexican restaurant at
the Prospector Hotel and Casino. He was absolutely right on: the
breakfast was amazing, the service was perfect, and we ate, calmed down,
and did our best to think clearly.
We would be taking a terrible chance trying to complete this trip
without a spare innertube. But there was no innertube in any town we
would visit for the next three or four days. Since our furthest South
goal was Rachel, Nevada, we decided we would continue to go south, camp
at Cathedral Gorge State Park that evening, and the next day, drive all
the way to Vegas to buy an innertube, and we would just stay in Vegas
that night. Yuck. But it's all we could think of.
We got gas before we left Ely, and headed back South. It was a very
hot but short ride - just 116 miles - to Cathedral Gorge State Park. We
try to stop every 40 or 50 miles to hydrate and stretch our legs, but
when there is no shade and no towns, this can be quite difficult. At
last, I saw
a
tiny bit of shade on the shoulder of the road, at a mostly empty
ranch, and we parked under it to hydrate. But, of course, a postal
delivery person came along right at that moment and needed access to
that mailbox blocked by my bike. The postal worker had a great sense of
humor about it, thankfully, and said, absolutely, we should be there -
it was just too hot not to rest. We continued on and after another
30 or so miles, saw
a
rest stop with a wee bit of shade. When we would stop, I would
drink lots of water and then dip my hand into Stefan's cooler and splash
water on my face, head and neck. I was determined not to overheat.
We skipped stopping for lunch, since we had had such a big breakfast
in Ely. I was so worried: it was Friday and, even though it was
early, even though it was really hot, the park might already be
full. It's got a reputation for its amazing beauty and its hiking - it's
not like most state parks, in that it DOES attract international
travelers. Would we be too late?
We turned off at the sign for
Cathedral
Gorge State Park in Nevada and saw lots of dirt all over the
road outside the visitor center, and crews working to clean it up. A
layer of dirt covered parts of the road all the way to the campground
- which was empty and roped off, though the road through it was still
open. The dirt of the campground had been freshly raked, but the
campground was empty - closed. On a Friday?
There were two RVs parked in the paved sites for people with
disabilities, right next to the bathrooms, near the information sign
where you pay your fee to stay. We rode over and started reading -
still nothing at all that the campground was closed. One of the RV
folks walked out to us and told us that there had been a flash flood
the week before in the park - an emergency situation where the water
had risen so quickly, some people had to leave their RVs behind and
come back for them later, and get towed out. Evacuated campers had to
sleep in a nearby school. It sounded terrifying.
A
newspaper article says heavy rains and winds, upwards of 60 mph,
covered the valley with water that rushed down Highway 93. As the
water rushed in all around them, campers called 911. A local volunteer
fire department used one of its high clearance brush engines to drive
through rising waters. One man in a minivan had water deep enough to
be at the side windows of his van, but it didn’t sweep it away.
Sections of the campground were under 3 to 4 feet of water (more than
a meter).
Indeed, officially, the campground was closed, even though there
were no signs saying so, but if we were staying just one night, the
lady in the RV said that was probably fine and we should set up our
tent over in the group activity area, which was still open. She and
her husband were stranded waiting for a replacement windshield for
their RV to arrive in a nearby town, and she was acting as an
unofficial camp host.
So stay we did. We
put
the tent up right under the picnic shelter. Yes, it was
oh-so-hot. But it was also beautiful, and I felt better than I had in
a few days. We did laundry, washing underwear and socks in the
collapsible sink fabric/plastic we bring on these trips for just such
an occasion - there was a water pump just a few steps from where we
were camping. Stefan blew up his air mattress, put it on top of one of
the picnic tables and took a nap in the oh-so-hot afternoon. I sat at
a table and updated my notes for the travelogue you, dear reader, are
reading now, and paid the $5 for Internet access for the next 30 days
at all Nevada State Parks and got caught up on email and social media
messages and the news.
As I said, there were two RVs in the park, right next to each
other. One was for the lady we talked to and her husband. They would
be there for a few more days. The other was a stubborn family that had
made reservations for that weekend and decided, by gosh, they were
camping there no matter what. But there was someone else, a guy on a
bicycle, over in the other group shelter. He was just sitting there,
drinking out of a bicycle water bottle, facing the canyon. He didn't
have much stuff, it seemed. We see long-distance bicycle travelers
regularly on our trips - I cannot believe they pedal on the roads we
ride - and you will recall I had met one a few days before, so I
didn't really think much about this guy, in terms of being anything
out of the ordinary. Maybe he was staying somewhere else and had biked
here and was having a break before biking back. But after we had set
up camp and Stefan was napping and I was writing and playing on the
Internet - it was too hot to do anything else - I started glancing
over as subtly as I could to watch him. I realized he wasn't a bicycle
traveler: he was dressed entirely inappropriately for such, wearing a
thick jacket, thick baggy pants and flip flops. He looked like he was
in his 50s or 60s. He was standing up and doing something with a bag
on his bike, but it didn't seem like he was doing anything with it,
really, just trying to look like he was, I could see that his gear was
a mishmash of plastic bags and bags that weren't designed for bicycle
travel. I realized he was absolutely aware of us and was trying to
decide if he should come over or not. Stefan woke up at last and I
told him what I'd figured out. He agreed - the clothes were the
giveaway for him. I said the guy would be coming over any minute to
bum a cigarette or ask for money.
Rather than tell what happened in a regular narrative, I'll just
share
my tweets - I was trying to give him the cold shoulder and be
intensely interested in my phone, hoping he would go away. It didn't
work:
She did, eventually, take him away. No way she was his girlfriend -
she was just someone who lived locally that he'd roped into helping
him. Again. The other campers told me that he had been spinning tales
and asking for things for the two days he had been there and one of
the campers was about to call the police on him - she was DONE with
him. He was also very drunk: the "mint tea" he was drinking after a
bicycle bottle most definitely wasn't mint tea, and I didn't realize
that until things were starting to get out of hand, when he was
rambling and seemed to be leading up to something - I'll never know
what. This is the first time this has ever happened to us, being
approached at a campground by someone who is homeless and an addict.
The reactions to this story have been interesting: some feel I was
way, way too hard on the guy, others feel we should have told him to
leave much earlier. My opinion? I was way, way too generous with him -
he asked for a cigarette, Stefan looked at me and I said, "okay." He
asked for the beer and I also relented - I don't know why. It was a
stupid thing to do. I guess I was thinking, if he WAS a bicycle
traveler, we would have given him a cigarette, and we would have
offered the beer - he wouldn't have had to ask. And you know
what? That's not an appropriate comparison. Addicts lie, they play the
pity game to get what they want, they make decisions that hurt people,
and they take and take and take. Been there, had that happen to me
already, long before this, and I should not have tolerated for a
second, especially when I'm camping, with no door to lock behind me
when I sleep.
Anyway....
State parks are so awesome in that, usually, they have flush
toilets and sinks, as this one did. They also had showers! I took a
shower. It was disappointing - hot water only! I wanted an absolutely
cold shower, but I couldn't control the water temperature. It was a
quarter for five minutes, which is a fair price. Large lizards had
frolicked outside the bathrooms, dining on the bugs gathering around
the lights.
It was so nice sit in the campsite with freshly-washed, wet hair.
I cooked that night, but I don't remember what (something out of a
can).
We sat and watched the colors change in the gorge as the sun set.
Another person showed up to camp - she set up a single person tent
just off the road, and that was it for the night. We were
so
happy when the sun went down. It didn't cool off nearly as much
as we were hoping, but it was enough to sleep. The moon was big and
beautiful but red behind the smoke.
Our
photos of it, without a tripod, aren't that great. It had felt
luxurious to be camping and still so easily brush my teeth before bed,
in a real sink, and then again when I woke up, without having to look
for a waste water screen to spit into, to wash my hands whenever I
wanted, etc. All amid a gorgeous setting of canyons. It ended up being
a very nice, but warm, evening.
Day 8, Saturday
We'd heard coyotes yapping and howling in the night.
Set the alarm on the phone for 6 a.m. again, to beat the heat. I
didn't eat oats - I'd given up on oats for this trip, because of my
morning nausea. Instead, I had some peanut butter, a few crackers,
and drank milk. I couldn't drink coffee - I was too worried what it
would do to my innards. As we were packing up,
Stefan
found a scorpion on the ground near where our tent was. I was
so glad we had always made sure the tent door was closed after we
put the tent up and that Stefan had taken that nap on the picnic
table rather than the ground. A desert may look dead, but the
ground, and below the ground, is oh-so-alive with critters.
The sun was rising higher into the sky - it was time to push on.
Our plan was to go all the way to Vegas, get the innertubes, find a
hotel and stay there, and then on Sunday come back up the road and
go to Rachel. We drove through Caliente and I was so sorry we didn't
have time to have a closer look at its
historic
train station. We also had to miss the
Oak
Springs Trilobite Area - it's BLM land, and there's a sign for
the area. I so wanted to stop but - say it with me now:
it was
just too hot. "Originally completely immersed with water
500-524 million years ago, the fossils to be explored at Oak Springs
are the remains of animals that lived in this seabed. Most of which
were comprised of the Olenellidae family, a sort of
crustacean-looking creature with a shell similar to a horseshoe crab
with jointed legs, and the ability to curl into a ball... by
devoting an hour or so of time scouring the area, you’re almost sure
to uncover a trace of a fossil. "
We stopped at the intersection of Nevada state highway 318,
Nevada state highway 375 (the Extraterrestrial Highway) and US
Highway 93 because there was a
funky
little shop there and
nothing else, and, well, did I
mention it looked funky? It has a
fantastic
alien-themed mural outside, as well as a
warning
about snakes. Inside was an air-conditioned store and a very
friendly shop manager. We drank cold juice, ate some pre-packaged
ice cream, looked over the
kitschy
alien-themed stuff for sale and heard stories from the manager
about the strangest thing she's ever seen - which was a customer,
not an alien. Like me, she's a non-believer, but finds alien
conspiracy theorists fascinating (when they aren't scary) and, when
they buy stuff, profitable.
We headed on US Highway 93 through Ash Springs, stopped for gas
and a more proper lunch in Alamo at a very large convenience store -
since I wasn't eating much in the early mornings, I was famished by
10:30 a.m. and ready for early lunches. We headed South and, for a
while, the desert was somewhat interesting: there were Joshua trees
(in the Yucca family) dotting the landscape. But then it got quite
boring - just straight, with no variation. We stopped at the turnoff
for Interstate 15 - 22 miles outside of Vegas, at a Love's Travel
Stop. We went inside to cool off, get a cold drink and talk about
next steps. We sat inside the section for Subway, got the directions
to the motorcycle shop off the GPS, and then I started trying to
find a hotel in Vegas via Booking.com. And I lost the ONE affordable
room at a not-infested-by-cockroaches motel as I was reserving it -
I didn't type fast enough. Suddenly, all the hotel rooms jumped to
$250. I'm not even kidding. Had I done it even 30 minutes earlier, I
would have gotten the room.
I am an idiot. It was freakin' Saturday. SATURDAY. What was I
thinking? Why had I not reserved the room the day before? I had
started to suggest that at Cathedral Gorge, since I had Internet
access, but then got the impression that Stefan hadn't picked the
place where he was going to get the innertube, so I didn't want to
pick a hotel that was across town from where we needed to go. But he
had already picked a place -
Motorcycle
Tire Center. I blame the heat for both of our fuzzy thinking.
No, of course there was no hotel room in Vegas on a Saturday by
10:30 a.m. Everyone knows that, idiot.
After some intense oh-shit-we-have-totally-screwed-up moments, I
got an idea for what we should have done ALL ALONG: we go to Vegas,
get the innertube (in fact, get TWO), and then we go back up the
road to Alamo and stay somewhere there - a hotel, because it was
well over 100 degrees and I was not camping. We had to go back in
that direction anyway, to get to Rachel the next day. It made so
much more sense. Stefan agreed, and then suggested I stay at the
truck stop while he went to Vegas by himself. I was worried - what
if something went wrong? But we had phone service, we had Internet
access, we could reach each other if something went wrong. So, I sat
in air conditioning, watching the folks at Subway work their damn
asses off (they were so impressive, I tweeted about it), while
Stefan sweated all the way to Vegas, picked up the innertubes, and
came back. In that time, I got a raging headache - thank you, Advil,
for getting rid of that.
I am really happy for some reason that I have seen so much of
Nevada - many hundreds of miles of it - but still have never seen
Las Vegas. I've never even driven through it. For some reason, the
idea that everyone goes to Vegas if they visit to Nevada, but I go
to the rest of the state, makes me feel special.
Stefan got the innertubes, no problem, and texted me from the
shop so I knew all was well. He got back and we shared a personal
pizza while he cooled off. We got gas and then we set off back for
Alamo, just 73 miles away. It was over 100 degrees as we rode. I
wanted to drive straight through without stopping, not only because
I hated the heat, but because I knew there was NOWHERE to pull over
to rest along the way, except for a rest stop just 10 miles outside
of Alamo. I don't mean there wasn't anywhere shaded where we could
pull over until we were almost to Alamo, I mean there was NO WHERE
to pull over, not a drive way, nothing. I had noticed that on the
drive down and it has worried me. I played every mind game I could
think of to take my mind off the heat as we rode - singing songs,
reciting poetry and movie dialogue. Yes, that's what I do. But after
about 40 miles, I started to feel very overheated, and every few
miles, it got significantly worse. I was so hot I was hurting. I was
trying not to cry. I was misjudging distance as well, thinking the
rest stop would be around every curve - and it wasn't there, and it
wasn't there, and it wasn't there. It felt like it was getting
farther away. I think I made a noise when I finally saw it. I pulled
in, past the state worker sitting on the side of the driveway, ready
to inspect recreational boats, I found an empty spot where I could
safely park under shade, I parked, and I was so exhausted, I
couldn't get off the bike. I waited for Stefan to walk up, and when
he did, I said, "I need water from the cooler. I need it right now."
He didn't quite get what I meant, and thought I wanted drinking
water, so while he was trying to fill a water bottle with cold water
from the cooler, I finally managed to get off the bike, strip off my
helmet, gloves and jacket, run over to the cooler and start
splashing water on my face. Then I laid down next to my bike and
tried to calm down. My heart was racing. I just laid there and
breathed as calmly as I could. Stefan brought me water and said,
"It's only 10 miles to Alamo." He didn't seem to quite comprehend
that I was having a meltdown. I poured water on me instead of
drinking it. Finally, I said, "I need you to be a first responder
now." He got it and knelt beside me and took my pulse. By then, I
was already starting to feel better, but I needed to lay there for a
while and cool down and calm down.
I found it fascinating that no one who drove by or parked came
over to see if I was okay. If I saw someone laying on their back in
a drive way or parking lot, at a rest stop or otherwise, I would
absolutely walk over and say, "Is everything okay?" Especially a
person that had been riding a motorcycle.
I pulled myself together - just laying in the shade, even in such
heat, had really helped - and we went on to Alamo. I regret that it
was too hot to stop at the visitor's center for the
Pahranagat
National Wildlife Refuge, to see what that was all about.
We had a reservation at the Windmill Hotel and I rode straight
there instead of stopping at the gas station for supplies for the
evening. We stopped in the front parking lot, walked into the air
conditioned lobby, and even through my heat exhaustion I saw the
signed Adam West head shot hanging in the lobby and had a fan girl
moment. We got our key and road over to
our
cabin and I was so happy that the room was already air
conditioned. I pealed everything off, took a quick, very cold
shower, pulled back the lovely quilt and collapsed on the bed. I
fell asleep almost immediately and, when I woke, realized Stefan
still wasn't back from going to get beer. Turns out that Alamo is a
dry town - no alcohol sold. Though the restaurant does sell BEER
battered cod fish... anyway, Stefan had to go on to Ash Springs for
a six pack and things for me, like cold juice.
My feet and ankles were still swelling. I would look at them at
the end of the day, like on this day, and get super worried. I made
sure my feet were elevated every moment we weren't on the motorcycle
or in a restaurant - even at a picnic table, I would always have my
feet up. By the morning, they were less swollen, but still swollen.
I know it was a combination of my weight, the heat, and how little
walking we were doing on this trip.
Stefan had ridden 282 miles that Saturday. I road 65 miles less
than that. All but 14 miles of those miles were because of the
diversion for those damn intertubes in Vegas. And, yet, we STILL
weren't behind our very loose schedule - I had wanted to be in
Rachel by Saturday or Sunday, the mid point in the trip, and that
would be happening. How were we managing to still be okay, time
wise? Well, unfortunately, we weren't stopping to see anything. No
ghost towns. No petroglyphs. No wildlife refuges. No hikes. The
caves at Great Basin and the crevices at Cathedral Gorge were pretty
much all of our sight-seeing. It was just way, way too hot to walk
around in the day time. We also were leaving a place two hours
earlier than when we camp, because there's so little to pack up. It
didn't at all feel like we were rushing, but we weren't dawdling or
walking anywhere the way I love to - and we just couldn't. It was
too damn hot.
I thought the hotel where we were staying might be more upscale
than what we wanted, but it was actually just our speed in terms of
affordability and style. What IS upscale and way out of our price
range is just down the road - a
Cowboy's
Dream Bed & Breakfast. But as Stefan pointed out, it's
still cheaper than Las Vegas on a weekend.
That evening, we had supper at the Windmill Hotel restaurant,
just a short walk from our cabin. I was famished. I ordered roast
beef and it was delicious, but it was too much, so I took my
leftovers back to our room. Stefan had a bunch of dinner rolls he
had bought for breakfast, and I suggest we use some of them to make
lunch sandwiches for the next day. And so I did. I wrapped them in a
plastic bag we had recycled (we carry a LOT of plastic bags -
amazing how much you need them) and put them in the cooler. Have I
mentioned how much I love that cooler? Stefan sat out a bit with the
Austrian couple in the other side of our cabin celebrating their
Elvis Vegas wedding. I would have LOVED to have chatted with them
and heard about the wedding, I really would have, but I was dead.
Absolutely dead. I went to bed early. I hope they don't think I was
being a snob.
I also discovered no one at the Windmill Hotel knows who Adam
West is. They had no idea why that headshot was hanging in the
lobby. Tragic, these kids today...
And now a word from my husband:
Adventure Motorcycle Luggage
& Accessories
www.coyotetrips.com
Aluminum Panniers and Top Cases,
Top Case Adapter Plates,
Tough Motorcycle Fuel Containers, & More
Designed or Curated by an experienced adventure motorcycle world
traveler
Based in Oregon
You won't find these exact products anywhere else;
these are available only from Coyotetrips
(my husband)
Disclaimer
Any activity incurs risk. The author assumes no responsibility for the
use of information contained within this document.
Comments are welcomed, and motivate me to
keep writing -- without comments, I start to think I'm talking to
cyberair.
Quick Links
about Jayne Cravens
contact me
Follow
me! @jayne_a_broad
(coyotebroad)
My tweets are about travel, motorcycling, camping, bicycling (as a
commuter), politics and things I find amusing. Eric Idol has replied
to me twice. No, really!
become
Coyote Broad's fan on Facebook
Posts are only about travel, hiking and camping
Getting Started as a Motorcycle Rider: My
Journey (Tips for Women Who Want To Ride)
My Travel Maps
Coyotebroad
in Germany | in Afghanistan
| in Ukraine
Coyotebroad
adventures in Europe, Africa, as well as road trips in the USA
women
travelers: general information and advice (especially for women
novice travelers, NOT geared towards just motorcycle riders)
Saving Money for
Travel (or to pay off your debt)
transire
benefaciendo: "to travel along while doing good." advice for those
wanting to make their travel more than sight-seeing and shopping.
Permission is
granted to copy, present and/or distribute a limited amount of
material from my web site without charge
if the information is kept intact and is credited to Jayne
Cravens.
Please contact me for permission to
reprint, present or distribute these materials.
The art work and material on
this site was created and is copyrighted 1996-2019
by Jayne Cravens, all rights reserved
(unless noted otherwise, or the art comes from a link to another web
site).
