day 14

(this is a small section of the valley we were crossing in headwinds)

we awoke early, thanks to joe v, and had some cereal! yes, cereal; we bought some milk that doesn't need to be refrigerated and brought some cereal with us. it was so so good! off to a great start, up early to get miles under us, sunshine, cereal in bellies. so jen and joe drove up to tonopah to check out jim butler days and we set off towards rachel. if yesterday was a bad day, today was the worst day of the trip thus far. many times we wanted to just quit but we stuck it out. can i say it again, nevada winds suck! we were facing headwinds the whole day and were only going 4-7mph instead of our normal which is 16-20mph. after much riding with grimacing pains in our knees, wind burn, sun burn, and frustration we went through the vast valley and up and over the mountain pass to get to a long downhill! woohoo...no. no woohoo folks. the wind was still so bad that even on a 5 mile downhill grade we still had to fight that wind. then it was another 5 miles to rachel, that seemed to never come. we only went 30-40 miles i think in almost 7 hrs. a rough day that would get better.

we went in to the ale-inn and got a "burger" and down tons of waters until joe and jen showed up. we then met agent 51 who told us about all his abductions and how he moved to rachel because an indian shamolin told him too. some wild stories but nice to get out of the desert for a bit. the bar/restaurant/town hangout was covered with alien evidence and souvenirs. we then rode across the street to a run down mining structure with bunches of cars and a huge raven's nest. we decided to take some group pictures. some of evan and jen on the jeep, evan and i, jen and us, joe and us, then some soviet style portraits. we had a good time and tons of laughs. joe made some amazing goulash for us and we sat around showing pictures of our bike trip and of their trip through zion and nevada. right before bed joe and i ripped into the mandolin and harmonicas for some classic songs! evan and jen provided percussion and some singing. it was epic, nothing the desert has ever heard and will never hear again. thankful for joe and jen to bring some laughter and joy to a frustrating day.

(soviet style)