Toppling of the Porta-John

July 21, 2013

Day 28: Ely, Nevada to Eureka, Nevada

Riding so many days without a day off is starting to make me tired, and I really didn't feel like getting up and riding out at dawn this morning, even though it made a lot of sense given how hot (and sometimes windy) it gets by midday. It's been days, maybe even weeks, since I actually got up when my alarm went off.

So, the sun was already up when I rolled out of the motel at 6:00. This was going to be another long day with no services until the next town, Eureka, so I decided to fortify myself by having breakfast across the street at the Hotel Nevada, which is also a casino.

It was a little disorienting to see people gambling and drinking beer at 6:00 on a Sunday morning. The scene seemed very shabby to me, but then I have a distaste for gambling, so maybe I'm not being fair. As I waited for my pancakes, I indulged in my usual pastime of people watching. I noticed a man sitting alone at one table with a bottle of Bud Light. He was well dressed except for his shoes, which were falling apart. One of them was literally held together with duct tape. Perhaps he had been forced to sell his expensive shoes to pay a gambling debt.

In the booth next to mine a woman with very heavy makeup was telling an older, bleary-eyed man stories about her past success in the music business in Los Angeles. She dropped the names of several famous people she had worked with, but it all sounded completely fabricated to me.

Somehow the restaurant had run out of real syrup, and I made do with sugar-free syrup, which I had never tried before. It was pretty bad.

I left the depressing scene and got back on the Loneliest Road in America, US 50. I guess one must give credit to whatever Nevada tourism bureau employee thought of attempting to make a tourist attraction out of this long stretch of road, interrupted only every 60 to 80 miles by a small town. When what you've got to work with is an empty road, I guess you make the best of it.

Today was much like yesterday, but with more climbing. I'm finding it hard to describe the actual riding of the last few days, because it is so samey. Climb a couple of thousand feet to a summit. As you climb, watch the subtle changes in the landscape: The bushes get bigger, and you begin to see scrubby trees, then slightly bigger trees. You reach the top, look at the summit sign, then coast down a few thousand feet where it's warmer and the trees have disapppeared. Do some flat riding for a while, then start climbing to the next summit. I can't make it more interesting than that, unfortunately.

The ride today was pleasant, although a little boring, until I rode toward a dark cloud. It took about half an hour before I could see that there was a storm in progress. Eventually I got close enough that a few rain drops hit me. The wind picked up. A few miles ahead I could see dust blowing. There had been virtually no places to pull off the road so far today, but now I saw a gravel lot with a couple of shade trees and a Porta-John. A sign informed me that it was private property, and was "Under Surveillance" (yeah, right), but I pulled off the road anyway. I used the bathroom and came out to find that the storm was almost on top of me. Very quickly the wind had gotten extremely strong. I ducked behind a parked truck and watched as the portable bathroom, which I had occupied five minutes before, toppled.

I really, really don't want to imagine what it would have been like to have been inside the thing when it fell over.

The storm passed by in a few minutes, and I got back on the road. The fourth and final climb of the day wasn't too bad, and then it was a quick coast down to Eureka, my destination. After a large fountain root beer at the convenience store, I rode over to the city park, which was nice and shady. No shower though. Often the best camping spots have no showers, while the worst (RV Parks, for example) do have showers.

Andy and Claudia, the young couple doing the TransAmerica + Western Express, were already in the park, and had set up under the pavilion. As is their custom, they had left Ely in the middle of the night, and done much of their ride in the cool darkness. I truly admire their ability to get up that early, but I doubt I'll ever do it, since my hatred of getting out of bed in the middle of the night far exceeds my hatred of riding in the hot midday sun.

After some conversation with Andy and Claudia, I told them good night at 5:00, since they were retiring early again, then I walked downtown and had an OK-but-expensive dinner at a cafe. Later the wind grew strong and I became uneasy in my unstaked tent, so I picked it up and moved it under the pavilion next the Andy and Claudia, the Night Riders.

Today's ride: 80 miles (129 km)
Total: 2,275 miles (3,661 km)

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