From Moab I rode west through the desert back towards Escalante, one of the highlights earlier in my tour. There was a great camp site at Calf Creek which mate Adam recommended to me earlier and I was lucky to get the last spot and just beside the creek, after setting up camp I hiked up to the falls about a 5km round trip. Despite the isolation of this place there was plenty of other hikers out on the same trail. I thought the afternoon ‘shift’ might be quieter, but I was wrong there. One of the surprising and annoyances of US National Parks, is they allow dogs in the parks and on the trails… glad we don’t allow that at home.
Calf Creek Falls
I was a little low on food but managed to put what I had left into a decent meal and with little to do climbed into bed early around 7pm with my MP3 player and as a result got up early packed and left before most other campers had opened their eyes. Despite how tired one gets from constant travelling I have been able to survive on 4-5 hours sleep most nights, in some ways maybe I am ‘rested’ from the day to day drugery of work and life in a big city ?
From Escalante the landscape changes fairly rapidly from desert to forests and on one section of mountainside you are atop a lookout surrounded by pines trees looking out across a desert with canyons and mesa’s in the distance – quite a contrast, and then a little further you come across a forest of yellow Aspen Trees in full autumn bloom covering the mountain.
I ventured off the pavement at Cannonville heading south east across a neat mountian range where the trails had been freshly graded and made great pace cross country, a fun ride until I nearly came unstuck going a little too fast around one corner, but I still live to ride another day and I never fell off – great save ! Before I knew it I was back on pavement at Hwy 89 after a real fun section. From here it was back into Zion National Park which turned out to be a bad decision as it was Sunday and despite brand new ashphalt and some cracker sweeping corners I soon ended up amongst traffic and slow going.
The run down to Las Vegas was on Interstate 15, I loathe these long boring and generally flat slabs of concrete, competing with uncountable semi-trailers and RV’s and even when I reach the 70mph speed limit, I appear to be the slowest vehicle holding up America (?) The boring stretch started to look a little intersting when the distant cloud cover started to reveal rain in it’s midst and within 30 minutes of town, I rode into THE most gusty wind I had encountered on this tour, I was like a ping-pong ball being blown from side to side in a wind tunnel with plumes of dust and tumble weed running left to right across the desolate roadway. Into the outskirts of Vegas the city appeared covered in mini hurricane of dust and dirt.
I made it to my friends house in the south west of the city by minutes before the sky opened and down cometh the rain, it’s a little bit like Sydney, when it does fall it comes by the bucket loads and here’s an interesting observation – the houses do not have rain gutters, it just falls to the ground into your rock ‘garden’.
It was nice to be home for a few days to relax re-wash and re-pack and re-store after three weeks in the dusty ‘outback’. Tuesday brought around my 51st Birthday and lots of emails from family and friends reminding me of my ageing years, but glad to be here. The next day Charlie arrived from North Carolina on a couple of days break from the office and we dined at a ritzy steakhouse inside the Golden Nugget Casino downtown. Despite it’s name we both went for the stuffed salmon on recommendation from Billy back in Mebane, a good choice along with a bottle of Savignon Blanc from New Zealand – nice meal and thank you Charlie.
On Thursday I did a small pack and headed north to visit all my friends in Reno, as I didn’t need camping gear and food, I left the pannier bags off and just loaded my yellow top bag with a few items. Not long out of town the weather turned cold and I added an extra layer at my first gas stop, a little further up the highway the rain started and a roadside stop had me donning the wet weather gear. Without all the normal luggage onboard the bike really flew along and I was soon doing 80mph with ease.
The ride to Reno is 800km and little to no interstate pavement so it is a little more enjoyable, I stopped halfway at the town of Tonapah where once again Subway ‘saved my life’, throw in a bottle of American chocolate milk and I was fresh for the second part of the ride. A few hours south of my destination I found a Wal-mart and stocked up on some Australian wine, a bottle of Banrock Merlot for $4 and a bottle of Jacobs Creek Cab Sav for $6 – can’t go wrong with those wines at those prices.
I rode into Reno on I80 and negotiated the ‘spagetti’ with ease with the help of my GPS, I was quite proud of myself and maybe I was getting the hang of the road system here. I swung north and headed up 395 as the sun started to fade in the distance behind the Sierra Nevada ranges, getting to Scott & Joanne’s property nestled in Red Rock Valley – nice to be back at my ‘second home’.
The next day I was finally put to work and about time I earned my keep around here. Scott’s laptop had met with a fatal disease, a dead hard drive, so I spent the day recovering his data and working on a plan to restore the system. Scott and I drove down to Reno in the afternoon, purchased a new hard drive at BestBuy and joined Joanne next door at The Great Basin Brewery for beers and a feed, I selected the special, lamb shank with mashed potato and honey glazed sauce. Geez they must raise bloody big sheep in the USA – this thing would of fed an army ! One of the best meals I have eaten on this trip and the onsite brewed beer was pretty good too.
On Saturday the weather started to close in, that morning brought snow to the distant peaks and the fireplace was stoked with logs from the nearby mountain of wood right outside the door. Scott works for the County fire department over the nearby border in California, so has no shortage of firewood in winter. They are all stacked and ready for the upcoming season, fortunately I’ll be out of Nevada before it really gets cold up here.
Sunday brings rain and winds and we are watching grid-iron ‘football’, baking cookies and just ‘hanging out’ – one of those stay inside days. The region has had record rainfalls and that helped bring the bush fire season to an early close which makes Scott’s job a little easier.
Home on the 'range' at Scott & Joanne's 'ranch'.
Since my last visit they have been landscaping their semi-rural property, a row of nice trees have been planted down the driveway and some irrigation installed for a slab of grass on the south side of the house looking over the valley, I’ll certainly be coming back to enjoy the improvements they’re making.
On Monday I headed south to Sparks to catch up with Doug & Sande who I met in Alaska and enjoy their hospitality once more, even though this was autumn the temperature hovered around 6′ on the ride down. It reached 1′ overnight and I woke to snow on the surrounding mountainsides and I am not sure how I could cope living here in winter – I now understand the concept of motorcycle ‘riding season’ when all the bikers here put their bikes into hibernation in the cold months.
The next day was cool and sunny and we drove up into the hills to the historic town of Virginia where silver and gold were mined in the early days. The main street still has the same character as bygone years and the town earns it’s keep as a tourist attraction and is pretty busy most weekends.
Doing the 'Abbey Road' thing in Virginia City.
We went for a drink at the ‘Bucket of Blood’ Saloon which has a view from the back window to around 100 miles west into California on a clear day, but at $8 beer it would be an expensive way to get drunk !
I had heard of CostCo the Wholesale Hypermart and they have one store in Melbourne, here in the USA they are as common as Aldi, so I went down to the local ‘store’ with Doug & Sande to get a ‘few’ items. For a start the shoping trolleys are about twice the size of the Australian version so you can imagine what people buy at this place. Everything is bulk and the items change weekly, most are on pallets and the prices are amazing !
CostCo is not the only 'bulk' in this photo...
Food, wine, electronics, clothes, you can find some crazy items like 52 disposable razors in a bag for $20, why ’52′ one for each week ? I bought some OralB replacement brushes and some of those emergency reading glasses seeing as I have a habit of losing my prescription glasses !
My last social engagement with Doug & Sande was a neighbourhood Halloween party come wine tasting at the local community centre, I am not sure how the cowboy theme and line dancing worked it’s way into the function, but it was a good night all round and everyone dressed up for the occasion.
Doug & I getting into the spirit of Halloween...
At the party
