day 10

hawthorne to tonopah. we set off from our motel (monarch) to safeway to get some breakfast then battle the wind. today was a rough day. there will be tough days, there will be great days, we know this, it just takes you by surprise sometimes. it was a beautiful ride though. nevada looks a lot like southwestern idaho and i surly see the beauty in the desert landscapes and love the smell of sage after a rain. we rode through two "towns" before getting to tonopah; they were desolate. seriously scenes from a post-apocalyptic movie; i'm dead serious that one abandon town, not one of the two previously mentioned, is a place i'd love to film at. it's literally in the middle of nowhere, like 70 miles from the nearest town (sadly i didn't get a picture of it). let me say this, when you get into a rhythm biking, its hard to get off the bike. there are several times where i want to stop and take a picture but if i do that then i won't get too far. ok back to the day. it was a chilly day so we were layered and then the sun started peaking its head out. we rode through vast, vast desert areas fighting headwinds and loving tailwinds. we rode 107 miles today, a new record for us. 70 miles were in a tailwind where i hit 50 mph and then the other 30 miles was in a headwind where we averaged 5-9 mph, it sucked and it was cold. luckily we made it through it. while i was going down that hill at 50 mph, i noticed my back tire bouncing so i pumped my brakes and looked down and saw that it was going flat, then the tube came out of my tire and wrapped around my rear brake! it was a bit scary since semi's and other cars were behind me, screaming by me, pushing me around with their wind. luckily i came to a stop and evan whizzed right by me and i started the first bike repair on the side of the road (or adventure). took a couple minutes to take all my bags and gear off then replace my tube but was up and running. while i was piling up everything back on my bike, i noticed i lost my rear light somewhere, that was super frustrating! first off they are a little spendy, no places to get them around here, and just a hassle to not have one. we'll persevere. we kept riding and both evan and i were ran off the road several times by semi's passing other semi's and not really caring that they were heading right for us, so we pulled off through the drunk bumps to the gravel, then we started biking back into the wind. about 7 miles out of tonopah, we encountered a super long and gradual hill where it took us forever to get into town. we did get to watch a storm pass through town, that was pretty cool. evan's back tire got out of true so when we got to town we found a mexican place to eat at. when we sat down we were both george bushed. i think we ate 3 or 4 baskets of chips and salsa along with our big chimichangas. as usual, God blessed us; in the booth right next to us was the ex-mayor of tonopah, cindy and i believe her husband. she got us a room at the clown motel, which was super awesome since it was very cold out. once in our room, evan found out one of his spokes broke on the gear side of his back tire....ugh. the nearest bike shop is back in bishop, california 115 miles away. we went to bed a bit demoralized and sore.