Day #92: Delta, Utah to Baker, Nevada (75 miles)

The day was going to be a long one... the ride was supposed to be 90 miles... I'll explain why I just logged 75 miles. Perhaps it's best to describe the day as occurring in three acts...

Act I: it was a little dark and a little chilly when I started and I quickly hit a very fast pace... I covered about 25 miles in the first two hours and was feeling great... I had a few sweet interections along the road... a dump truck driver was doing a tree-point turn after dropping a load of sand, and I leaned out his window to check that I had enough water. I asked him how many loads of sand he had to drop? and he pointed way down the road. I said: "the problem with the West is it's just so big :-)". He waved to me every time he went back and forth with a new load... I felt like I had a guardian angel on the path...

A little later, I was passed by a truck that looked like something from one of the Mad Max movies. The driver gave me a great honk. Half an hour later I came upon the same truck on the side of the road with a blown (and shredded) tire. A support car had arrived as well, and I had the sweetest conversation with the driver and three other guys, about no matter what we did we couldn't lose our guts... one guy said "it's like a cancer..." and I said "yeah, it's like a ride-along." I asked what their bucket list things were, and one guy said: just fixing this truck, another guy said, making a tree-house for his kids. Somehow we got on to the wonders of double-cheeseburgers :-)

Act II: Lots more riding over two fairly high mountain passes and then, as I game down from the secod pass, having ridden 75 miles, I got hit with 20-25 mile per hour headwinds. So strong that I changed shoes and just started pushing my bike into the wind. Eventually I flagged down a couple driving a pickup truck and towing a camper, and they gave me a ride for the last 15 miles of the trip. We strapped the bike to their spare tire and I sat in the camper and prayed that the ropes would keep the bike from bouncing off the camper.

Act III: The Casino at the End of the World... the Border-Inn Casino stradles the border between Utah and Nevada: the single story bunkrooms are on the Utah side, and the casino and restaurant are on the Nevada side. There's a poorly stocked convenience store, a bar, a landromat and not much else for 60 miles in any direction. I was checked in by a woman who had the unflustered air of "I've seen it all before." I went to my little room, turned on the air conditioner and started to cool down.

Later I went to check about dinner... I found a tall, thin man waiting, and could see no-one in the kitchen or behind the reservation desk. We waited long enough for me to explore behind the counter and open up the walk-in freezer just to make sure someone wasn't locked inside :-). After what may have been 15 minutes, the same woman strolled out from the back with no explanation. The thin man and his wife invited me to eat with them... it turned out he was a retired NASA engineer and devoutly religious. We had a lovely talk about engineering and raising kids and then he politely asked if he could make the case for Jesus Christ as my Savior. I said, sure, and he did, and after he was done I told him about being raised pretty profoundly a-religiously, but I believed in treating everyone with kindness. He brought up the issue of religious people being hypocrites and that giving religion a bad name. I thought of asking their opinion of Trump in this regard, but thought better of it. We split the bill, shook hands and thanked each other for a lovely conversation over dinner.

Then, I walked outside to take the picture below of the "Welcome to Nevada" sign, the 14th state on my trip. To my surprise, I heard a voice say "hello?"... I couldn't see who had spoken, but I asked "are you ok?" "No, I've got a pretty bad sunburn, and I only have these boxer shorts I found in the desert..." A person appeared from under a Sagebrush bush... I initially couldn't tell if man or woman, but I eventually figured out she was a woman, late 20's or early 30's. She had a dog on a homemade leash and had been spending nights out in the desert. Her name was Casey. I offered to rent a room for her. She mentioned some other problems she had... I said "I can't fix everything, but I can try to take care of tonight."

I asked at the front desk, but they knew her and had called the police on her for tresspassing, so they wouldn't let me rent a room for her. I got her a double cheeseburger and fries and a tequila sunrise mixed drink and brought them out to her. She mentioned that she had stayed with some guests, but I pretended not to hear. Later I brought her my hiking shorts, belt, and black jacket and gave her $60, saying I was sorry I couldn't do more.

When I set off riding the next morning, I saw Casey walking her dog and talking with the registration woman, who was also walking a littler dog... she had brought out water for Casey and her dog... Casey was wearing the clothing I'd given her. I waved as I rode by, and she wished me to have a safe trip.

We're all pretty vulnerable...

Stats: 75 miles, started at 6:30am, ended at 4:30pm, 9 hours of actual riding: