Day 14,
A Beautiful Day
A morning started rather strange and funny. I woke up hearing someone approaching the tent. The place I actually set up the tent is at the end of the bike path/ walking road, that had a closed gate half a mile before it.
I managed to flip the lock up and open the door in the fence, going further to the closed part of the walk way.
Well, as it turned out, I was not the only one to do this, as this old man after the same operation, was coming closer to the tent.
The man was around 60-70 years old, wearing a sports costume and walking shoes. He obviously was local, making his routine morning exercise. I managed to get out of the tent before he came closer and started to put it down.
When the man was near the tent, he made a circle around it and when I thought he was going to walk back, he started to walk right around my little tent making circle after circle.
For some reason I didn’t feel like doing or saying anything so I just kept putting the tent down and wandered what was up with that guy.
He circled around the tent for around 10 or 15 times and finally, without words, started walking back on the bike path.
When I packed up and started cycling back, I caught up with the old man, and, for a second, had an idea of making circles around him on the bike while he walked. J This seemed funny to me, but of course I didn’t actually do it as it would be very disrespectful for an older person.
Today I want to accomplish more than yesterday, in terms of mileage. J
I went to the grocery store and bought
nearly 5 pounds of bananas, then stopped at Wal-Mart and bought two boxes of
donuts and two cans of peanut butter. Butter has so many calories, I could
probably ride to
I also got another frozen Mexican dinner and ate it in 15 minutes heated up in the magnetron (Dutch word for microwaveJ), on the nearest gas station.
I got on Nevada Hwy. 50 going North
East. The road was going through the busy part of town and climbing few hills,
in 11 miles I rolled down into little town called
It’ pretty hot today.
Another hour and a half I was going on
a now quitter portion of Hwy.50. In 25 miles I rode into place called Silver Springs.
There was an intersection of Hwy. 50 and Hwy. 90, with a little gas station
near by and NOTHING else. As far as I could see, there was just this grey, sun
burnt land going to the horizon. By the way, Highway
50 is called The Loneliest
Road in America.
I continued
on Hwy. 95 North heading to Fernley. That is another 15 miles. The road again
started going uphill and for about 2-3 miles I was walking. Luckily, cars would
pass only about every 5 minutes, so I basically had the road to myself.
The road was
going among very dead looking area, with no plants or any signs of life.
In 30 minutes,
already close to Fernley, I was passing by the high school. Since it’s summer,
school hasn’t started yet and there were no students. I rode to the school
and walked into a big fitness center looking for showers. The doors were
closed, unfortunately.
In few more
miles I entered the town of
As soon as I saw nearest Mc Donald’s, I headed straight in, to hide from the heat. Since the food I had in the bags will be needed later on the deserted roads, I used an opportunity and ate a chicken sandwich with ice-cream cone.
Across the street was a grocery store, so I went there and got some bread.
Now, since I wanted to visit a friend
in
I turned around and went to search for the beginning of 447. As it turned out, first I had to ride few mines on 427 and go under the Freeway.
The surroundings soon begun to look more and more isolated.
One more time I stopped to ask for direction to 447, at the cement factory, where I met a very nice person – Coley.
He was extremely polite and at the same
time simple. Coley worked on this factory for more than 20 years, which
supplies cement for
Finally, I saw the beginning of 447 and stopped at near by “sale” that employed a very attractive to tourists sign “Nothing knew”. Problem was, there were not many tourists.
On the sale there was another bicycle for $5. Hey, bikes get cheaper in the desert. J The wheels were 26 inches diameter, so I couldn’t use anything from it. One Indian man was looking at the bicycle with an interest.
In 10 or 15 minutes riding, I stopped to look around shocked with the scenery I never saw before. It was very special atmosphere, being somewhere in the desert with the bicycle. Meaning you can’t just get out of here – and there are very few people – far from civilization. I took few pictures still being shocked by the views. Before continuing to ride, I walked on the road enjoying the view of the road going far away.
I rode another 15 miles and the time
was approximately
Finally, before crossing a bridge, I saw an oasis on the right. J It was a GREEN area near the creek. I found a little road going approximately that direction and soon came the beautiful place near the water.
I was happy like dog to be rewarded with such a place after the hot day.
Before it got dark, I set up the tent and went to walk around the creek and look at the plants. One thing was notable about this place – the great amount of blood hungry loud mosquitoes.
After washing off, I got into the tent as soon as I could. Few mosquitoes still made it inside, and I had to kill them before going to sleep. I caught them and there was already plenty of blood in them. I wonder who they sucked it from. Cows??
The sound of them angrily trying to get through mosquito net, was my tonight’s melody under which I soon feel asleep.
Today – 70 miles.
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