Aug 22 Day 02 - The Old Spanish Trail - Winnemucca, NV

Last night I hit the sack early thinking today would be a long mileage day. Ha! No so Grasshopper. Breakfast was good and plentiful but no oat meal, nothing but sausage & eggs & yogurt. 

No oatmeal? Ohhh, are we going to have a bad day?

Outside of Klamath Falls you encounter some really nice farm lands, it's harvesting time for hay crops and alfalfa like this makes some of the best. The smell is divine. Have I ever mentioned I like the smell of barnyards & silage? 

If I were a bovine I'd insist on nothing less than alfalfa. 

Cat Tails love the damp ditches along the road

The twisty road I followed leads to Beatty, one of my favorite little places to prowl around in. Most of the homes and buildings are about done in but folks live there and it's probably peaceful.  

They've got a wrecking yard where a lot of old trucks go to die.

Hey! Take me home with you. Please?

Side road leading into Beatty. I was the traffic today.

I wonder what the people who ran this place thought about when they built it?

 Miles on down the line way out in the country you encounter places like this, the Drews Valley Ranch. It seems to go on forever and it's so pristine it's almost surreal. I glad it's being preserved so outsiders like myself can look at it. 

 I've driven by it many times but today was the first time I noticed the little wayside sign telling about it.

The ride along Drews Valley Ranch continues

Gas consumption was going to be a serious problem for the run from Lake View to Winnemucca. In the past you could count on refueling at Denio Junction which is located around 75 miles before Winnemucca. Those folks no longer sell fuel so today I gassed up in Lake View and then stopped at the small hamlet of Adel, a mere 31 miles further. I needed less than a gallon at that point but it added 31 miles on the other end of the day.

Adel seen from the pass leading into its valley

 This is the place, I've been there several times and there's always lots of ranchers and cowboys - the real ones - visiting over lunch or having a quiet beer.

Some of the mementos, especially the saddles are really old. All of them elicit memories.

zzzzz......zzzzz......zzzzzzzzz.......zzzzzzzzzzz

My gas purchase for today, almost a gallon

Climbing up out of the Oregon high desert always calls for brief stops to appreciate the vistas. I've never been able to capture the grandeur on my tiny camera but I still stop and try every time. It's always a little spooky parking a bike on a sloped gravel pull-out that borders the cliff.
I try not to stagger off it...

Here's Nevada! 70 mph basic speed limits, yaaaay! Not today though, had to take it easy to conserve fuel. I ran into one poor gal waiting for her hubby to bring back gas from Adel. I'd have loaned them what little I had but he'd already gone so it wouldn't help.

The smoke from all the forest fires continues to blot out the sun in many areas. I talked to a guy from Texas who drove 800 miles yesterday to get out of the thick smoke around Denver. He said what we had here was nothing compared to it. Maybe it will be gone by the time I reach that part of the ride. Cough cough hack....

Right about here I passed a roll-over SUV wreck that had just happened. The guy was unhurt and gave me thumbs up but from the looks of his rig he'll be driving something else soon. There was one trooper on the scene so I didn't want to risk stopping for a photo.

It's a big country out there, plenty of room for a roll-over

 I'd heard the Denio Junction place had closed down but they're still operating the old restaurant and a motel around back. No gas though and there probably won't be any for a long time. New operators are running the restaurant and the hamburgers are huge.

I met the old guy who owns this vintage Jeep pickup. He's the 2nd owner, bought it in '74 when it was 3 years old. I liked the heck out of it and he thought that was really funny.

He has a huge winch that slides into those two tubes but said he can't lift it anymore. I think I know how he feels.

I had a great time yakking with the jeep guy and the new restaurant operator. Then it was time to get on down the road to Winnemucca so off I went, really enjoying the sunshine in spite of the smoke. That's when disaster happened, I looked down and the GPS was frozen with the display locked and noting would coax it back to operating mode. It wouldn't shut off, it didn't want to reboot, nothing, nada.

I was pretty sure I was going to make it to the next gas station as it was only 77 miles or so. The Bonnie had been getting better mileage than what I'd expected so I figured even if I ran dry I still had the two 1.5 liter bottles of gas to use. I held the speed down to 60 mph and just as the reserve light began to flicker the station came into view and I was home free.

At that point I figured it was probably time to pick up a new GPS so I headed for the only game in town (gambling excepted!), the local Wally World aka Walmart. Let me tell you, trying to explain the differences between a GPS designed for use on a motorcycle as opposed to those for automobiles to the Walmart people is challenging. I gave up on it and finally bit the bullet and bought a new one exactly like the one we have in our RV. I figured at least I know how it works and I could jury-rig a mount for it.

I checked into the nearest motel, a Super-8 and unloaded all my gear thinking I'd tend to the new GPS first thing. But before opening my new prize I decided it might pay to do a bit of research on the old one's problem and sure enough, I found the answer on one of the Garmin forums. I was able to reboot it and it came back to life with no loss of data, ready to roll. That means tomorrow first thing I get to try out Walmart's pleasant return policy, right?

That's it for today, not much mileage - 221 or so - but certainly an interesting day.

LL