Day 17,
Continuing on
For some reason I woke up pretty early, right after the sunrise. I knew that today I had to ride much more than yesterday and arrive to Winnemucca.
I packed up the tent and went into the trailer one more time to look around when it’s bright. Thick layer of dust was covering everything inside. Newspapers were several years old. I haven’t found any water in the trailer and headed back to the road.
Something was about to happen here. When I got roughly half a mile from the trailer, I heard a car approaching from behind. I stopped and reached for the empty bottle. When the car was close enough to see the bottle, it pulled over. A middle aged man and a younger guy were sitting in the cabin (father and son, I assume). A man asked if I was okay and how many bottles I needed since they were already returning and still had almost a full case of bottled water. I told them that 3 bottles should be enough since I still had some water left. I thanked the guys for the water and they drove away. J Hey, this is cool.
Very soon I approached a little place called Sulfur, which used to be a place for miner’s houses but is now a ghost town. Along the road, I saw few, old, rotten-wood houses.
By the way, I was really surprised that the tires were still alright.
In a mile or so, I saw a big structure with big pipes that looked like some kind of factory.
I rode to the entrance on the little road and stopped close to a fence that surrounded a trailer. A Ford Explorer was parked in front with a security sign on it.
A little dog started parking at me from behind the tent and an older man came out and looked at me with a bike. We greeted each other and I said that I was just passing by and wanted to look at what these structures were. A man happened to be very friendly and opened the door inviting me in.
Dean introduced himself and explained that these structures are actually a part of the gold mine that doesn’t operate anymore. He asked few questions about my trip and said I was going to have a breakfast with him and his wife that walked out of the trailer. J Wow.
Dean is a retired police officer and works as a security guard for several years now. He likes this place fine as the trailer has air-conditioning, internet access, and a television. All of it made possible by electricity and satellite dish. There is no radio reception in the area though.
He invited me inside the cool little trailer, where I had a chance to take a glance at the news on the TV. Wow, it’s been so long since I saw moving picture, but I didn’t miss it all.
I asked Dean about the trailer I was in
earlier and he said it belongs to some man that lives somewhere like
Dean’s wife (sorry, I don’t know her name), brought a plate with baked potato, meat, home-cooked bread and cold milk. The food was great and I really appreciated their hospitality. I hurried up to go though as there was still long way to ride today. Dean said that worst parts of the road I already covered and it should improve somewhere along the way. Generally, this road is very severe on tires, so his Explorer was equipped with extra heavy duty (8plies?) tires.
I took a picture of Dean and then his wife photographed Dean and me together. I warmly thanked them for all they done and wanted to get the address so I could send a picture, but Dean said –“You just be careful”. Finally I said good-bye and rode away.
Not far from the mine, which by the way
was pretty good size, acquiring gold and silver in quantities of tons… oh yeah, not far
from the mine was a historical stone, as Dean described it. It was reminding a
shape of the preacher, so the early pioneers of the west would always stop to
camp here and then continue either to
The road indeed became much better, for some portion even without rocks at all. This didn’t last long, however, and still most of the time I was riding over rocks. I stopped to drink still cold bottle of root beer that Dean’s wife kindly gave me before I left.
On one of the down hills, I was going to fast and suddenly realized that I can’t steer around a half bared boulder that appeared ahead. I managed to avoid it with the front wheel, but rear one hit the boulder and I felt the impact to the rim. I looked at the wheel and it was wobbling pretty bad. Luckily, it didn’t touch the frame so I was able to continue riding.
Few hours later, I was riding through the open ranch. After the turn of the road, I stopped in front of the herd of cows. The actual cows ran away to the safe distance when they saw me, but one bull stayed on the road, turned directly against me and lowered its head. I am not familiar with live stock at all, so for the moment I didn’t know what to expect and was ready to throw the bike in front of me if the bull would start attacking me. The bull, however, hesitated, probably also not very familiar with people here, so for 10 second we were just looking at each other motionless. Then, since I had to use the opportunity, I yelled and ran towards the bull picking up stones. This made desirable effectthe bull ran away. Heh. J
In few hundred meters, I crossed the railroad. Hey, this is a good sign, the road now was running along the railroad and the landscape became much flatter.
At this moment, from all the vibration of riding on rocks, a head light bracket broke. Well, it was thinner than originally, so it also contributed to its weakness. I used a plastic tie to attach the lamp on the frame.
Meanwhile, a train was approaching from the distance and I got ready to take a picture. When it was close, I signed the machinist to honk and he did it. J Union Pacific. Nice.
Few more hours of riding and I was pretty tired and hungry again. I lied right on the road hiding the face in the shade produced by the bike. At this time another car passed me without slowing down. I didn’t make any moves either. J
At
Another hour and I was riding on the paved road, approaching the city.
First thing I saw, was a park, where I stopped and washed off some sweat at the washroom. Then I continued down into the city, looking for grocery store, bike shop etc.
The lady at the first convenient store told me that the bike shop was actually one block away so that is where I headed before it was five.
A man inside the shop asked me what I
needed and I showed him the rear wheel. He was pretty surprised to know I came
from here by
Then I stopped by the library and checked e-mail, informing my father and those two ladies in Gerlach that I made it to Winnemucca all right.
I took a shower at the fitness center of the local high school and the rest of the evening I spent eating at Mc Donald’s, walking through few grocery stores and hanging around nice gift shops.
When it got dark, I went to the local park and set up the tent on the grass, as far away from projectors as possible.
Finally the day was over - 65 miles today.
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