July 17, 2014
Day 38: Over the top
Things went rather smoothly at the start. We topped Carson Pass (the last major pass of the trip, woo-hoo!) and set about riding to our destination of Cook's Station.
The weather was nice and the scenery perfect. We also had the benefit of some road work. That might sound funny to some. Why would road work be good? But when the road crews send cars through a one lane road every 10 minutes or so, it means that the road is virtually empty for 10 minutes, with a short rush of cars coming through all at once.
So we made it to Cook's Station at 5pm, just as they were closing, had a meal and were told by the owner that we could camp on the back porch of the restaurant. The owner was really nice, and even let us use a small shower in the basement before he left for the night.
"I'll leave the (outdoor) bathrooms open for you, and be back at 7am for breakfast," the owner said.
It was perfect. Quite. Comfortable. Leo decided to sleep right on the deck and I set up the inside (minus the rain fly) portion of our tent. After that we read a bit, and I patched some inner tubes that had holes from previous days, and relaxed in the quietness.
It was all going well until about 8:00pm or so, when two guys came up, let themselves into the restaurant, and turned on the generator (which the owner said he leaves off at night to save money). They were pretty loud and, although it was a bit muddled and I only caught SOME of the words, I heard "drug deals," "your alibi sounds good", and various other things related to different caliber guns.
Of course they could have been saying, "...did you see that reality TV show about the drug deal, or, do I need an alibi to take the SAT exams for college, or something like that? But that was probably unlikely.
"What are your plans?" Leo asked them as they came out to get something from their car.
"We're going to party 'till 2 in the morning!" they said with a laugh, the way people who live to "party" do, before they went back inside.
Leo and I looked at each other. "Let's go," Leo said. And he got no argument from me.
So, with little time left in the day we hurriedly packed up our stuff and set out to find a place to camp in the woods.
It took us about 30 minutes but we eventually found something suitable and we set up just as the sun was vanishing behind the forest.
Our only regret is that we wondered what the restaurant owner would think when we weren't there in the morning. We wondered if he know that the nighttime visitors were even there? I guessed he did not. We would have liked to give him some more business by buying breakfast. I guess it just wasn't meant to be?
Tomorrow we head out of the mountains. Until then.
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Today's ride: 64 miles (103 km)
Total: 2,375 miles (3,822 km)
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