eLIFELIST.com Bike Trip

Eureka, NV to Austin, NV – Austin, NV to Middlegate, NV

Day 62 and 63

From Eureka, NV to Austin, NV we were supposed in for a pretty serious summit, Bob Scott Summit and then Austin Summit, according to locals.  Even though we’d climbed over mountains almost 5,000 feet taller they still seemed to think these two summits were going to be tough on us.  Turns out they weren’t that bad, definitely the most difficult in Nevada but not of the trip by far.  About 15 miles outside of Nevada we saw a guy riding towards us on a one speed beach cruiser bike with huge knobby tires that looked like he’d custom painted it Polluck style.  After the initial shock that this scruffy guy in a skateboard helmet, teva sandals and a t-shirt was riding on highway 50 through Nevada on a one speed we got to talking to him and found out he wasn’t all there.  Joe was on his way across the country from Santa Rosa, CA “until he ran into the president.”  No final destination was stated just “until I meet him somewhere, I hear he likes coming out here.”  I egged him a bit and said “what are going to talk to him about.”  He replied, “Honesty.”  Joe literally had two tiny bags and about 2 Aquafina bottles of water with him, Brent and I were shocked he’d made it this far.  We told him to tell the president we said hello and he said “the desert has been great for my meditations.”  We parted ways and were relieved we were going in opposite directions.  


After riding through some rain, the weather is really crazy in Nevada by the way.  It’s pretty impossible to predict the clouds and storms.  The wind can be blowing west and the storm is moving east.  We got over the final two big climbs in Nevada two climbs that were supposed to break us and pulled into the little almost ghost town of Austin, NV.  The rain was still going and we opted for a motel room at the Lincoln, Motel whose TV had literally One channel, so we watch “Who wants to be a Millionaire” that night.  Sleeping in a bed was a nice change of pace and got us ready for our ride to Middlegate, NV, AKA the most desolate place we would bike through in Nevada.  A good night’s rest at the Lincoln and we were on our way to Middlegate.  In the afternoons the headwinds in Nevada were pretty nasty, there were several days in a row where we battle it out with the wind laughing in your face because you can’t go over 10 Mph.  We had a good lunch right off the side of Highway 50, which is called the “Loneliest Road in America” but Brent and I beg to differ.  We saw so many cars for it to be called that, probably 200 a day, after I was expecting to see maybe 15.  About five miles outside of Middlegate, NV to heard this quick noise to our right and looked over and saw that a pair of shoes had fallen from somewhere.  Upon closer examination we saw this tree filled with shoes, hundreds and hundreds of pairs of shoes.  I can’t explain how interesting and yet super creepy this tree was.  We joked that it was the shoes of all the people that had biked through and been eaten by the desert people, or died in the desert, all the worst possible scenarios.  Brent and I both threw a pair that had fallen in to the tree and continued on to Middlegate.  The story behind the shoe tree is that about 12 years ago a young married couple were arguing right by the tree and the woman started to storm off and said she would "walk home", the man said "oh no you won't, not if you don't have any shoes on."  Story goes he took her shoes and threw them in the tree.  Locals and people passing threw saw the shoes and heard the story and started throwing shoes in the tree.   

Now Middlegate turned out to be a really cool town, truck stop, restaurant bar, whatever you want to call it.  Home to 17 people that mostly live in the trailers around the one restaurant/bar, and work different shifts at the establishment.  They let cyclists camp out back behind the building for free and had a shower in a little red shack where were able to do laundry too.  Also there was a concrete slab and basketball goal, so of course we had to hoop it up.  There we were in our full spandex bike outfits playing basketball in the middle of the desert.  Brent beat me in PIG and HORSE but I stopped Brent’s trash talking pretty quick when we played some one on one.  We had a great burger for dinner and to our pleasant surprise watched some ESPN and college football at the bar.  We had a couple beers and ventured about 100 yards into the desert, away from the noise of the generator that runs 24/7, to finish them where we could hear 4X4’s and fireworks going off.  The stars in the desert really are amazing.  I woke up at one point in the middle of the night and heard singing and live music coming from the bar.  Middlegate was like this mix between the old west, the twilight zone, that movie “Nothing But Trouble” with Chevy Chase and Dan Akroid, and a place where the really kind residents knew they had something special all to themselves out in the desert. 

August 28th and 29th

 Day 60 + 61

 A very unique aspect of camping in the desert is sleeping under the stars every night with very little surrounding light, clear dry skies, and at high altitudes. This combination makes for some great star-gazing. This past night made for an even better combination since there was a lunar eclipse that we were able to see first hand in the desert right around dusk. After another peaceful night sleep in the desert we ate a very filling breakfast at the only joint in town, the hippie-ish café. With a full belly we were both ready to tackle the up and down landscape of Nevada for the day. Halfway up our second climb of the day, we had to make a stop at the only place between our two destinations for the day, which was a bar known as Majors Place in Majors Junction. It was a very strange place for a bar on ‘The Loneliest Highway in America” but we were sure glad it was there. It really is in the middle of nowhere between two ridges and halfway up the dry empty valleys between them. So we had to put up our dollar bill on the wall as a souvenir as hundreds of other people have already plastered the wall with their own. One thing we realized is that Corona goes down very quickly in the middle of the desert… After being fueled back up with fluids we had to pedal quickly uphill to run away from a storm that had snuck up on us as we were in the bar. What made it even tougher was that once we outran that storm, we found we were pedaling directly into another thunderstorm ahead of us at Ely, which was going to be our final destination of the day. Much like the weather in Colorado, the weather in Nevada has really thrown us for a loop. It seems every day it starts off perfect, blue skies, then as soon as you cross one set of mountains a very random storm (or several) appears and threatens to ruin your day. Plus it is very difficult to determine if it is coming at you or not. Anyway, we stopped on the side of the highway on our way into Ely to wait out the storm and try to figure out what was our best option. We had a big storm behind us, to the side of us, and a huge one ahead of us right over Ely, about 10 miles away. Luckily, waiting it out was the right call because the Ely storm blew through town in about an hour and we had a small window to ride into town and rode through the remnants of the storm into the unique little mining/gambling town of Ely. After several days of sleeping outside, we treated ourselves to a stay in the former tallest building in Nevada(through the ‘50s at least), the Hotel Nevada. This Hotel Nevada is a far cry from Vegas, but a cool little place that we didn’t expect to run across. I even managed to come away with the exact amount of money I went in with after a few hours at the $2 blackjack table, which I consider a success any time you can leave without losing a buck. 

The following day we loaded up on casino food for a ride that would include FOUR Nevada mountain passes without any services for the whole day. This situation is becoming more and more familiar to us now that this is the third day in a row with no water or food (minus the bar yesterday, which wasn’t on our maps) between towns. One thing that I find fascinating about the Nevada landscape we have experienced is the timelessness of it all. It is almost like walking into a time machine backwards. There really is nothing in between these towns; no towns, no development, no people, etc.. This Nevada is pretty much the same thing a person riding their horse across the desert would have experienced 150 years ago and we get to experience today on bicycles. It is SO quiet and very strange when the only thing you hear while riding is the wind whipping across you and the rolling of your tires on the pavement. This is the same trail that the Pony Express riders took and can only imagine how dangerous of a ride they must have gone through with the desolation, lack of water, and oh yeah, threat of Indian attack. The overall riding is very beautiful with such wide expanses between mountain ranges where you can see the road lead you from the top of one, down through the basin, up into your next climb for 25 miles. The climbing wasn’t too strenuous on the first three climbs, just very long and drawn out. The fourth and final climb was the tallest and steepest of the day, but once we reached the top, were only 5 miles from our next town that was all downhill too. It only took us about 10 minutes to make it into Eureka from the top. We used our trip-honed city park antennas and found our home for the night  and have to say they had some of the most comfortable grass we have encountered on the trip. It could be a little sad that I am complementing a city on the fluffy-ness of their grass, but it almost felt like a bed.

 

Once we settled in town and met some of the locals, we got the recommendation to eat at the Pony Expresso Café for breakfast in the morning and are we glad that we did. The food was served in ridiculously large portions, was very tasty, they made their own pastries from scratch, and was priced the way we like it. While we were eating we met Robbie, who turned out to be a driver for a fellow named Jim Armbruster. Jim is now 60 years old and is walking his way from Aurora, IL to San Francisco, twenty miles a day. Jim is raising money for the MarkLund Organization, which is a not-for-profit network of services providing a full life experience for infants, children and adults with developmental disabilities and his blog can be found here http://www.californiaorbustformarklundskids.org/). 

 
-Brent 

Cedar City to Baker:

August 26th and 27th Day 58 and 59

Happy 35th Anniversary to my parents on August 26th!  Congrats!
 
After a killer downhill into Cedar City we had a nice stay at the same KOA campground from about 10 days earlier with Niki on our way to Jackson.  Out ride from Cedar City, UT to Milford, UT was about 50 miles and we were only going that far because the next day would be 84 miles of no water, no services, no nothing.  We arrived early afternoon in ghost town Milford and hung out at the city park to kill some time, nap, read.  We ran into a guy throwing Frisbee with his dog that was part Mastiff, part black lab.  Come to find out he is an engineer and builds “custom bio-diesel trikes.”  He was spouting off some serious stats and info about bio-diesel and mechanics, sounded like a whole lot of bee, baa, boop, berp, to me and Brent.  He builds the bikes and sells them on eBay and has sold 6 so far.  All we could think was “how did he end up doing this kind of work in Milford, Utah?”  Check out his site at www.mpgtrikes.com

It started to rain late in the afternoon and didn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon so we hopped in the one motel in Milford to get a good night’s rest for our 84 mile day of desolation.  Milford is a railroad town and has two lines that intersect, so all the railroad workers stay the night at this motel during their 24 hours off before getting back on a train.  Turned out to be a really wise decision as it rained the whole night, we had great wireless Internet signal and we got breakfast with the room.  One thing I noticed hanging out in the hall as we were packing up to head out what a little scorpion right in the middle of the hallway.  A first scorpion sighting for me and no I didn’t yelp like Brent when I stumbled upon him.  

The 84 mile ride from Milford, UT to Baker, NV was great.  It wasn’t too hot, we had plenty of cold water, unlike this dead cow apparently, and got a great sense of how our entire ride through Nevada would be.  Basically in Nevada you go over a big mountain, down into a valley and you can see the next mountain you have to climb about 30 miles away.  I learned that Nevada is the most mountainous state in the country and all the mountains ranges run parallel to each other, who knew, I always just though of Nevada as absurdly hot, flat desert.  We stopped for lunch at a little house in the middle of the highway that appeared to be abandoned.  We’d heard about the house from several bikers coming east and the three older English Gentleman had apparently stayed there for a night.  The tree out front was good shelter for our trail mix and beef jerky lunch.  

The whole day we saw maybe 40 cars and we eventually crossed the Nevada border and finally reached Pacific time.  We crushed the rest of the day into Baker by around 3:30PM to snack, hydrate and get ready for dinner.  The one café in Baker, population 54, was called Lectrolux, run by Terry Marasco.  Terry is a photographer and artist and his café was great, we had pizza that night and then threw up our tents across the street behind the one gas pump in town.  After our longest day without anything, our Morale was up and Nevada didn’t seem like it was going to be that bad, in fact quite the contrary.   

Actual Satellite Map of the Route

August 25th – Day 57

Today we knew was going to be one of the last big real BIG climbs of the trip, let alone Utah. From the moment we started pedaling this morning, the climbing did not stop until we had climbed about 4000 ft. The good news was after all that climbing we could coast our way 20 miles into Cedar City, our home for the night.

What we found was there was no better way to start the day than an unlimited pancake breakfast put on by Panguitch’s Lions Club. Many pancakes, bacon, and sausages later we were fueled to do some climbing. Along the way we met the Red Burro Racing Club from Las Vegas out for a ride around the mountain. The overall climb was nothing too spectacular (compared to the past few days at least), just long, gradual, and surrounded by pines and aspens. But the reward for three and a half hours of climbing was very brilliant and worth all of the work. The top of the peak opened up to the rim of Cedar Breaks National Monument. The whole other side of the peak has eroded to reveal very dramatic red rock spires for several miles. Not only was this a great view but we were able to see Zion National Park off in the distance which we had visited nearly two weeks earlier.

The descent down the mountain didn’t last nearly long enough but was fun to scream down some fairly steep road through several canyons and forests. Soon enough we pulled into Cedar City, which is probably the biggest town we have been to in Utah and are getting ourselves ready to tackle the remote state of Nevada.

-Brent

Escalante to Panguitch:

The night before we were having a drink outside at the Escalante Outfitters and someone came up to us and said she heard we started our trip in North Carolina.  Her name was Kim Cardwell and turns out she is from Winston-Salem, NC!  She was there with her family on a long road trip through the west and flying back to Winston in a couple days.  She and her daughters Katie and Lauren had to get back to Winston for school starting.  

After coffee at the Escalante Outfitters shop we headed out towards Panguitch, UT.  For me, today was the most beautiful day of scenery the whole trip.  Just really spectacular natural formations that don’t even seem real they’re so insane looking.  We didn’t have that much climbing for the day except one brief significant haul into Bryce Canyon.  In Tropic, UT we chatted with Pat, who had recently quite his job working in oil fields to go on an 11 week motorcycle tour.  He started in Minnesota and from there headed to Alaska, which sounded unbelievable.  Pat was a cool guy and it was interesting to swap stories from our journeys.

After Tropic we began the climb into Bryce Canyon which really is unreal and otherworldly.  One of the coolest things was the bike path which ran down “Red Canyon.”  The bike path was about 7 miles long and had great views of the super red canyon walls, contrasted by tons of evergreens.  Our ride was pretty much downhill from there into Panguitch although the last 10 miles felt like battling uphill because of a really nasty, hot headwind.  As someone described, “it’s like a hair dryer on high a foot in front of your face.”  Once we arrived in Panguitch we quickly found the local pizza joint (finding food has become like a 6th sense for us) and devoured a whole pie to end a great day of riding.    

August 23rd – Day 55

The Grand Staircase!

Right off the bat this morning we had about 1500 ft of climbing to do just to get to breakfast. This was boat loads of fun, not only on an instant coffee breakfast but a fairly stiff headwind, going uphill.

We made it to a town called Torrey and fueled up for what we correctly thought was going to be a long day. The climbing continued for the next 2500 feet which turned into extremely magnificent country. We reached the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument and it was really tough to comprehend just how massive the landscape around us was. At one point during our ride we were on the road with 100 ft drop-offs on each side completely surrounded by the Monument. There were canyons, giant bald mountains, and spectacular rock formations for almost as far as we could see on either side of us. This stretch of the trip was truly very memorable and unique ride especially when we got to descend down this narrow road with a 14% grade (we were both glad we were going down this one) and a strong cross-wind threatening to push us INTO the canyons below.

Overall the day was truly an epic day with all the sights and what ended up being over 5000 ft of climbing due to a couple of steep little guys thrown in there at the end of the day. What made the day even better was instead of camping at a drab RV park listed on the map; we discovered and stayed at the Escalante Outfitters instead. There was a great little café attached to it where we enjoyed some of their own beer.

-Brent

YES!  Good connection!

August 21st and 22nd Day 53 and 54

After a great trip to Jackson, Wyoming to visit with my wife Melissa and her family and Brent spending time with some of his buddies we were back in the full swing of things on the trip.  The day after we returned we were scheduled to ride 130 miles through the desolation of “Grand Staircase Escalante” (which totals 2 million acres by the way and is a “monument”).  The first section was 75 miles with no services to “Hite Recreation Center” at Lake Powell in Utah.  We loaded up on water and set out to our first full day back on the bikes.  The ride wasn’t that bad and we had plenty of water to make it to Hite, we have these large water bags/bladders that we fill with ice and water.  We arrived at Hite around 5PM after riding through some really stunning scenery and seeing maybe 20 cars the whole day.  Scott and Zane, two students at Santa Cruz University were waiting at the Ranger station (which consisted of a bathroom and water fountain), they were heading east and had an impossible schedule planned out.  They were trying to make it to New York for their flight the 18th of September, attempting to do an average of 117 miles a day on average and that particular day they had only biked 60 miles and stopped because of the heat.  We chatted with them a bit and then they decided to go back out to the road and try to hitch a ride 50 miles east.  Apparently they got a ride from someone because we didn’t see them again.  What’s the point in "biking across the country" if you plan on catching rides over long distances, they were even talking about catching a bus at some point!  

After destroying Brent in several card games of “Speed” we got ready for sleep in the middle of the desert.  Brent decided to sleep outside while I set up my tent.  Our sleeping spots were about 100 yards apart and as Brent was walking back to his I heard this primal yelp that was a cross between a young girl’s scream and Homer Simpson’s scream.  Brent almost stepped on a baby Rattlesnake and the only way he avoided such a fate was because the snake rattled at him, thus causing the hilarious (in retrospect) yelp.  He was a little snake but it doesn’t matter we still would have had to go to the hospital somewhere more than 100 miles away if a bite occured.  Even after the encounter Brent still slept outside with no tent.  

Waking up the next day in the desert to absolute dead silence and the most vivid sunrise I’ve ever seen was pretty incredible.  We hopped back on the bikes to head to Fruita, a place where you can pick your own fruit in the Capital Reef National Park.  We had a significant amount of climbing out of Lake Powell, but I didn’t mind at all because of how ridiculously beautiful everything was.  We stopped in a Bakery on the way to Fruita (with nothing around for 50 miles) and had an interesting chat with the owner Randy.  He focuses on sustainable farming in addition to organic farming.  He gave us a sample of tiny fresh picked tomatoes (literally minutes before) and Ambrosia cantalope which he says doesn’t ship because it’s so fragile.  Unfortunately, we arrived 30 minutes too late for the “U-Pick” fruit picking in Fruita, we did have some tasty spaghetti O's and Chef Boyardi Ravioli though.  After two days of nothingness we were glad to be in a place with water and people and prepared to get a good night’s rest for the next day which would be our biggest day of climbing in Utah.  


        

Blanding, UT to Hite Recreation Center, UT

Hite Recreation Center, UT to Fruita, UT

August 19th – Day 51

Muddy Buddy!

One of the adventures that both of us had been looking forward to and one of the first things we officially planned to do on this trip was to compete in the Muddy Buddy race in Boulder. It was on our list to complete from last year even in Richmond but didn’t quite work out. So we were both pretty pumped to actually get to do this and voluntarily drag ourselves through a big mud pit at the end of the race.

The race consisted of 900 teams of two people, each team with one bike. There were five sections to the race and one teammate had to run while the other biked to the next section. Each part of the race was divided by a small obstacle where you swap your responsibilities after completing the task. The race itself was not challenging, especially if you have been biking every day for the past month and a half, but the real fun of the race is the whole atmosphere and camaraderie. They held a costume contest with well over 50 teams dressing in costumes (and racing in them) with the winning team being a couple of Umpa Lumpas. Everyone there was very excited to be racing and active. The weather was perfect, the organizers did a really great job putting it together, and it was great to watch teams come to the final section, the mud pit, and have a blast.

We personally did not set any land speed records but had a great time getting dirty…

-Brent

After a full several days of traveling back to Monticello, UT via plane and an overnight Greyhound bus we are back on the bikes to San Francisco.  We left Monticello, UT yesterday afternoon and biked 20 miles west to Blanding, UT.  We have a lot of pictures to upload and blogging to do and promise to do so as soon as our connection is good enough (this blog seriously took 30 minutes alone to upload, imagine pictures.).  Today we are headed into the wilderness (Glen Canyon area) for at least 2 days.  We have a 74 miles ride today with nothing in between, we’ll camp in the “Hite Recreation Area” around Lake Powell tonight and then tomorrow we have 50 miles with nothing.  We have packed tons of food and water for the next couple days.  Keep checking back and in the mean time sign the new “Guest Book” page on the blog and tell your friends to do the same.  Cheers.  

-Lee and Brent