The Lonely Road: Part 1

Just before July 4th I was presented with a mission. Old Goodman needed his machine (a 2008 Shadow) moved from San Francisco to Boulder, Colorado and asked if I was interested. I promptly responded that “I’m your man”. A week later I packed the bike up and hit the road east toward Colorado.

My path was from SF to Sacto, then to take Rt. 50 east from Sac to South Lake Tahoe. This was my first sight of the Lake from the South…

After stopping for some cheap tacos in South Lake I headed north on Rt. 89 to Truckee, CA where I had a couch to crash on lined up.

On the way I passed by Emerald Bay and had to pull over to take it all in…

I made it to Truckee to crash with Big Cam & Tea-Nya at their place. Thanks for the food, beers and hospitality. You two freakin rule.

– Day 2 –

On the second day I was early to rise and headed east to Reno on interstate 80 to connect with Rt. 50, known as the Loneliest Road in America.

My first stop was in Fallon, NV to have breakfast. I found a little diner called the Maine Street Cafe. After a classic two egg meal I was back on the road.

As I passed through the little downtown of Fallen I thought about what it would be like to live there…

Then Found The Double Eagle?!?!?! I almost stayed the night just to find out how much it’s like the Double Eagle we know and love in Waldorf, MD… but decided to keep moving. I had a long ride ahead of me.

The first section of Rt. 50, in Southern Nevada, just east of Fallon is so crazy. There. Is. Nothing there… You start to have the feeling inside that you are completely alone. The passing motorist are the only sign of life for hours in all directions…

After hours of riding you come to Austin, NV. Austin is the first sign of life you come across. It’s a very small town in central southern Nevada that from what I can tell might not even make it onto most maps. I stopped for gas and water, a small cookie.. then was back to the road…

Eureka, NV is the second sign of life along the lonely passage. My thoughts when looking at the map was that it was more of a town… but I was quite wrong. Austin was looking like a major city compared to Eureka. It was a booming town 100 years ago, but is now nothing more then a small truck stop along a hardly traveled lonely road…

Eureka’s history.

Ely, NV was my riding goal and I made it by around 4pm. Perfect timing because my ass was completely numb and I was starving to say the least.

I was so bummed this place wasn’t open…

Rolled up to this place asking to meet “The G”…

When went car shopping for a minute…

But then it was time to find a place to sleep. My first attempt at camping was at the Cave Lake Campground just south of Ely. As I pulled up to the “Drop your money here” spot there was a bunch of “Beware of Rattle Snakes” signs and a completely empty camp… after a gut feeling and a quick decision I decided to find somewhere else for the night.

I finally ended up at the local KOA campsite for the night. It was my first KOA experience and for what I was looking for it was perfect. Sure I found myself being tortured by 10 year old kids yelling “Hey can you pop a wheelie on that thing!!” and “OH HE’S GOT A SKATEBOARD!!”. but I was able to ride to the other side of camp and avoid the kids. They have hot showers, clean bathrooms and a convenient store on camp! After dusting three $1.50 (12 oz) beers I crawled into my REI home for the night.

Now one unavoidable fact about bikes is you can’t pack much on um. I stopped in town to pick up food for the campsite and was able to fit a few bananas, an apple and some animal crackers into my bag. Fine dining to say the least. Day 2 was over. I laid in my tent and plotted out my route for the following day. I was going to continue on Rt. 50 into Utah and then to Moab for my second night of camping.

To Be continued…