Reno NV to Beaver UT
Wednesday August 9, 2017
(~512 miles)

We had a longer day ahead of us today, albeit on straighter faster roads. Checked the tire and it hadn’t lost even a pound of air – plug was holding up well!

We awoke and set off before breakfast in order to: avoid commuter traffic in Reno, make time across the desert during the cooler morning hours, and to try to make it to our destination hotel at a reasonable hour for the first time this week. It was a beautiful sunrise, but it required a lot of squinting heading east on I-80 until the sun was higher in the sky.

In Fernley, we made our first of many gas stops, since I wasn’t sure how frequently we would be able to fuel up while traveling US 50 in Nevada, aka “The loneliest road in America”. I usually research that kind of thing in advance, but had been a bit preoccupied with bike issues and rally prep.

Grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich at the Pilot station. Fernley is also the home of a giant tortoise made from boulders, which is a specific location for the Americana tour. We then headed Southeast on Alt Highway 50 for a few miles to join US 50 proper.

Passing through Fallon, we saw a motorcycle shop for the Americana tour. Civilization dropped away rapidly after that town as we crossed through the high desert.

The old silver mining town of Austin (pop. 300) with its wide empty main street, is situated at the northern end of the Toiyabe mountain range and presented our next opportunity for fuel and a stretch break. We saw several adventure rider types also gassing up and parked outside the local cafe for a late breakfast. Some of the buildings look like they’ve been there from the 1800s and are still in use by local businesses.

I stopped in the town hall to grab a free Highway 50 sticker (part of a “loneliest road” passport program apparently), and we continued on out of town, around a few curves up the ridge for a look back down at Austin. A few oversized trailer trucks were coming through and required the entire roadway to make some of the curves!

After passing through Austin, there was just nothing for a long while, so I pulled over to get a few shots of the emptiness, with us just standing in the road without a care about traffic.

The speed limit out here is a pretty uniform 70 mph and despite the desolation, I was generally keeping to about 7 or 8 over, conscious of being in Nevada which hadn’t been too kind to me on my push westward last week. Of course right at the rare moment I drifted a bit higher than that, we passed a state employee traveling in the opposite direction who felt the need to interrupt our progress in the middle of nowhere on “America’s loneliest highway”. I was freaking out in inwardly due to the similar conversation I’d had just last week crossing this state (and which I had already paid for online). I think being 2-up this time must have caused some sympathy, as we got off with a verbal warning only.

Eureka was another desert frontier town with character – a couple small casinos and an old opera house on the Main Street. We passed a colorful mural whose shapes I recognized as the charcoal ovens we’d be visiting later today.

Getting hungry. we pulled into a large modern-looking supermarket/hardware store that had “Deli Open” signs out front. I’m not sure how long those nice girls have been serving deli sandwiches at this store, but they had no system and were perhaps the slowest sandwiches I’ve ever seen made in my life. Maybe 30 minutes later we finally pulled out with our simple deli sandwiches in the saddlebag, for when we found an opportune place to stop and eat.

After another 60 to 70 miles, we arrived in Ely, a very nice little town with a shady park complete with inviting pavilions and picnic tables right by the road. It was a no-brainer to pull over to eat our sandwiches and cool off in the shade. While eating, Char looked up and noticed a school directly across the street, how convenient!

After a good 20 minute break, we fueled up and continued on us 50 out of Ely for a few miles, passing a cool dust devil at a roadside ranch, and then pretty Comins Lake (which explained all the boat trailers we’d been seeing in  the middle of the desert).

We reached the pull out for the Ward Charcoal Ovens State Park and headed west on about nine miles of well-packed gravel road across an open plain towards some distant mountains, which is where the ovens turned out to be. There was actually a sign for a T intersection, lending a sense of normalcy to having a network of dirt roads rather than pavement to get from place to place around here.

We arrived at the site of the charcoal ovens in fairly short order and walked among them, reading the interpretive signs and absorbing a bit of history. I hadn’t even considered how charcoal was made or what it was used for in yesteryear. Seems like quite a wasteful process.

Ironically, it was nice and cool inside the ovens, a break from the blazing sun. They provided the only shade around however, and we still had miles to do including getting back out to the highway over the dirt road so we kept our stay short.

Although it was hard to appreciate at the time, being tired and hot and worn out by the long stretches of desolated countryside, we did see some lovely scenery on the last leg of our journey through Nevada and in to Utah, where we stopped for the night in the town of Beaver.

 

Our final break was at this wayside historical marker for the mining ghost town of Frisco UT, for a bit of shade and a drink.