Day 08 - Fallon to Middlegate Station

                                        Wednesday May 31, 2017

This morning we had a leisurely start as we only had about 50 miles to ride today. However, it was suggested that we be packed up and off the grounds by 10am, as that's when they were going to start flooding the campground. Fallon's way of watering the grass and trees.

After breakfast in town, we continued east on US50, again pushed by a nice tailwind. Though the road surface was OK, back came the dreaded rumble strips. We were back to riding the white line.

The first area of interest today was a large playa (without a name?), which will be the lowest elevation we see in Nevada at about 3920 ft. There was a lot of rock art along the road over the playa, mostly people spelling their name with dark volcanic rocks on the white muddy evaporites (sorry no photos of these). Near the end of the dry lake was a decent sized dune field, called Sand Mountain. The ride all day was very scenic. We ended up with 50 miles at a wind aided 15.3 mph. We had about a 1000 of climbing today.

We reached Middlegate Station by about 2pm. This is a very interesting place where locals, motorcyclists, bicyclists and the stray tourist stops for food and sometimes to spend the night. It has the only campsites with water for 110 miles between Fallon and Austin. The camping is reasonable (free), showers are $3, domestic beers are $2 and the food is good. Inside the ceiling is plastered with paper currency, mostly US $1 notes that people have written their names and other things on. One wall is covered with patches from various organizations, like the California Highway Patrol, NASA, etc.

Camping out back here tonight are Ian and I, the young couple Nick and Kristen (did I mention that they were riding with guitars on their bikes), plus two Swiss male riders on fat tire MTBs who rode in late. They are just into a 2 month ride from San Francisco to Seattle, via Durango and Moab, on asphalt and dirt. They are obviously in great shape, probably in their 30's and are travelling lighter than us. They left SF two days after us last Friday and caught us with a 110 mile ride today from Carson City. They did get here via a slightly different route, up through Lake Tahoe.

Tomorrow will be interesting, as all 3 pairs of us cyclists will ride the 65 miles to the next town to the east, Austin.

Also staying at the campground tonight, and using it as a basecamp, are 3 geologists (2 students and a prof) from Angelo State Univ. back in Texas. They are doing some detailed mapping nearby. Ian and I had a nice talk with them.

Mike