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.

predicting the future?

this is a special post to our faithful follower, tom bom. we were walking late at night through fallon to get a blizzard at DQ, when we were stopped in our tracks just lollzing. low and behold, tom's trailer park. we had to get a picture for tom, i think there might have been a gamestop store next to it too, i'm not sure. its a pretty cozy place and i think you'll like it tom. fallon, nevada it's a nice little town, right up your alley.

newspaper articles

just got published in the Idaho Press Tribune and the Saline Heritage. i also just sent off my 500 word article to the Boise Weekly, i'll post it when they print it. check out the articles here.....(click the titles, they are links)

Idaho Press Tribune - Biking Across America - How two men plan to honor their mothers

Saline Hertiage - Hackett, Cheney going on cross-country bike ride to benefit American Cancer Society

need a new sign

at kathy's, we left our bike's outside and a dog she keeps in the back tore up my "san francisco to boston" sign. i am sign-less, need to find more cardboard.

day 9

yes we skipped 8 cause that was a rest day and i wrote a little blurb about it. today we packed up our stuff and left our wonderful host, kathy, to head down highway 95 as an alternative route to get to cedar city, utah. we grabbed some breakfast from cock n bull casino/restaurant, reminded me of windbreak back home in alaska. we got waffles topped with whipped cream and fruits and a huge piece of ham, seriously it was as big as evan's face. after chatting with the cook and waitress about our trip, we sunscreened up, layered, and got on our way. biked out of town with semi's flying past us as we kept a consistent speed even though we had a head wind a good amount of the time. saw some wonderful desert mountains, went through an indian reservation, and biked along a lake. it was a chilly ride, but a good one. when we stopped at the indian reservation, we saw their "fair", which was literally one ride and three game booths. i think we saw a guy selling tickets (but not really selling tickets), 2 guys sitting on the ride (but not ridding it), and 3 people talking (not playing) by the game booths. we were tempted to go, but it was $15 a ticket, we stopped at their store where we met an guy who claimed to be an artist and we just chitchated for a bit. got our pictures taken by a lady who couldn't believe what we were doing and we kept biking. we biked 73 miles to hawthorne, nevada; we stopped at their safeway, got some chocolate milk, and found out where the local hotspots were located. we made our way to maggies, to get all you can eat soup and salad with a polish hotdog thingy. we did enjoy the free wifi there. after checking the weather and talking about our next move we rode around town looking for places to camp/stay warm/out of the rain/etc. so after going up and down streets we were headed out of town and saw a motel and we went in and got a room since it might snow tonight and tomorrow. did our laundry in the sink, showered, and updated the blog; going to catch up on lost and finish uploading all the pictures to their blog posts and read. evan is going to go wander the town.

pictures to come

updated the last 3 days but we are at a library and the pictures seem to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r to upload so i'll try to figure something else out. we decided to take a rest day here in Fallon since there isn't much of anything past here for awhile. enjoyed a great breakfast with kathy at a casino and am spending the day in the library reading, updating the blog, sending e-mails, and checking out a possible alternate route.

as i said, pictures to come. there are some gooooood ones.

peace & patience.

day 7

we awoke thinking we might stay an extra day in tahoe since it was really nice out but after a wonderful breakfast of eggs, toast, and fruits we saw that some bad weather was heading this way, so we packed up our bikes to head to carson city. evan lost a screw at sandy & mike's place in placervile that went to one of his panniers, but luckily after a little bit of tinkering, evan and ann's husband, made it work. we said our goodbyes and rode along the coast to hwy 50. there was a sweet spot we stopped at to take pictures of the lake before we went through a little tunnel. evan and i both promised we'd return to spend more time in this great place. after talking to some guys fishing, we decided to keep trekking. it was just a picture-perfect day out, not a cloud in the sky; we were blessed for some wonderful weather since we got rained on the day before. there was a nice gradual climb a thousand or so feet from the lake to the top of the pass where we stopped to take some more pictures and to soak it all in. once at the top, we bombed it down another long downgrade to carson city. i know we both hit 45 mph! we were booking it. it warmed up 10 to 15 degrees down in carson city after dropping some good elevation. you could definitely tell you were in nevada, more desert and some beautiful mountains in the background. stopped once again at a Raleys for some grub and to sunscreen up. we weaved through the city, getting detoured once trying to get onto 50, but we found our way. we decided to keep biking and felt like we get get all the way to fallon, 50+ miles away. it was a great ride from carson city to fallon! hit 45 mph again and stayed at a consistent 20+ mph for long stretches. the landscape reminded me a lot of southwest idaho, it felt nice. not much for traffic once you get farther out of carson city and not much to see; there was a nice dam and lake that we joked was lake lowell. at this point in the trip we were farther apart cause evan's knee was giving him grief so we were jamming out to music and riding. when we were a ways back from fallon, i called up my friend ron, rodney to others, to see if he could set us up with a place to stay in fallon and he hooked it all up so we could stay with a family friend of him and his family, kathy. once we got to fallon, evan and i were so hungry we stopped in at Jerry's to get unlimited pancakes, some eggs, bacon, and sausage; it was so tasty. we then found our way to kathy's home; she opened up her house even though her pipes burst not too long ago and flooded her guestroom and she's in the middle of getting it all fixed. she took us in like we were her own and had a mattress for us to sleep on, on the floor which was super comfortable. we chatted with her for a bit before heading to bed. 93 miles that day, a new record for us. tired and sore legs and the next leg of the route is extremely desolate and mountainous.

today's ride, was really wonderful for myself and a time to thank God for the blessings and beauty He has bestowed upon us recently. yes tough times are ahead but we need to take it day by day and soak up the surroundings and stay hydrated/warm. sorry for the long gap of not updating, but it will probably be the same for the next couple of days since we'll be in the middle of nowhere! thanks for all the prayers.