Trip Day 4 – Thursday 18th August
370 miles across the Nevada desert to cover today, mainly on Highway 50 – The Loneliest Road in America. None of us have been here before, not even Chris, so we don't know quite what to expect. We leave Fallon with brimming fuel tanks and no idea where we’ll be filling them up next or more importantly to Paul, having breakfast!
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OK, so we have an idea of what is to come…
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Starting to look a bit salty? Bonneville is still 300+ miles away!
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The scenery has an ‘other worldly’ feel to it, and is far more beautiful than I expected.
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Wonder what creature made these footprints? What animals live out here?
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Ooh, a bend…Paul has to control his excitement........what’s round the corner?
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Answer = Not a lot!
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We see a lot of signs stating that this road follows the route of the Pony Express. Can’t imagine what it must have been like to travel by horse across this…where’s the water? Those little canteens that the cowboys carry in the westerns would never get a man & a horse across this in the 30+ degree temperatures we are experiencing!?
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We play the ‘Guess the mileage to the horizon’ game.
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We come across The Pony Express Cold Springs station....& if it’s a Pony Express stop, we must be able to get breakfast here!
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It's an interesting place, part diner, part bar, part shop and it also has a number of cabins out back that hunters come & stay in.... apparently we are in the middle of 'bow' season. The waitress tells us about all the baby antelope that come and play out the back early in the morning - hopefully not to be shot by the residents?
We are then treated to a visit by 'Babs' the ancient cleaner... God only know how old she is, but she looks about 103, she has her top on inside out, a fag permanently hanging out the side of her mouth and she's come to get a whiskey shot in her coffee mug, whilst cussing about the filthy habits of the residents! She then trundles of outside to 'Bab's Buggy' - a fully badged up golf buggy adorned with an array of brooms, buckets & dusters...
They stock a variety of unusual whiskies too!
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The modern day equivalent of the pony express?
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Fed & watered we travel on.
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And on and on.....
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The land starts to get greener and we see several groups of wild mustangs, so there must be water out there if you know where to look.
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A few hours later we eventually reach civilisation again, another town called Eureka which is a mixture of old derelict buildings and some that have been renovated.
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You need to keep hydrated in this heat – time to visit the 'Owl Club' for chocolate milk!
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Paul is quite taken with the condiments set...I start to wonder about the effect the heat is having on him?
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A little further on we stop at the larger town of Ely. I saw on TV that Guy Martin visited this casino when he came here to do the Nevada Open Road challenge – allegedly the fastest road race on the planet & given some of the roads we’ve just seen & ridden on, it’s easy to imagine how it’s done.
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We stop for a more conventional Adventure Biker ice cream at the Florists!
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At long last we get our first view of the famous salt flats in the distance.
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It’s still a fair way to Wendover though, and Bonneville is about 8 miles the other side.
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We arrive at our hotel around 5pm. Paul gets talking to some locals who assure him that all racing has finished for the day and it’s not worth going down to Bonneville. He’s well miffed later on when he finds out that other members of our group were down there running on the salt until around 7.30pm!
We have to visit the casino to console him with beer.... This is my first visit to a casino & not an experience I'm in any hurry to repeat.... I find it quite a sad reflection of life to see all these desperate people attached to a slot machine by their credit cards on lanyards round their neck, spending their life away in the hope of hitting it big... there certainly weren't any jubilant cries whilst we were there.