July 26 Crossing America

Middlegate, NV – Fallon, NV distance 52 miles and I rode them all.
Total distance traveled through today 3,565, miles on my bike 3,002.

Our overnight toilet an Outhouse last night, had a great backdrop though

Someone lied to me as we had two more passes to climb today; Drumm Pass at 4,600’ and Sand Spring Pass at 4,644’.  Not big climbs and at much lower altitudes than other passes we’ve been climbing.  One thing not different is a good headwind as you get near the top.  Now days I just shrug and grunt out the miles.  After descending the second pass I expected the road to level out but there was a slight but distinct increase in elevation as I pedaled toward Fallon.   Thought I’d be cruising at 15-18 mph hour but barely managed to keep a 13.3 mph average.  A few miles before reaching Fallon there is an active Naval Air Base where some of the movie Top Gun was filmed.  I stopped for a few minutes to watch a couple fighter planes do some maneuvers and then land.  Lucky guys wish I were piloting one of those beasts.  A mile further up the road I swear was the bar that was in the movie, too.   Stopped later and had my picture taken under the fuselage of a fighter plane.

Navy A-7 Corsair fighter plane

I have a new challenge to completing this stage of my adventure, avoid getting run down by idiot motorists.  First there was a SUV pulling a trailer with two ATVs and a second trailer a camper on open road no traffic coming from the opposite direction.  Suddenly I hear the guy laying on his horn as he approached, looking into my rear view mirror I could see he was not moving over to pass me, so I moved the very edge of the road to give him extra room but as he barreled ever closer I decided it would be prudent to cross the rumble strip and hug the very edge of the far right shoulder leaving myself no room to wobble or I fall off this narrow sliver of asphalt onto soft gravel and a sure crash.  As the moron passed me his camper trailer passed within inches of my left shoulder.   I cursed and shouted at the asshole but he kept going, don’t know what I’d been able to do if he stopped.  It was the first time I wish I had brought my revolver as I would have put a couple holes in his camper for him.  Next incident with a motorist came about a mile out of Fallon the passenger in a car leaned out the window as the vehicle sped by and started screaming obscenities and banging on the side of the car, guess he thought he’d scare me off the road
or whatever.  Again I was on the far right side of the road with no oncoming traffic there was no reason for the idiot to act the way he did.  Third close call of the day, upon arriving in Fallon I met up with Ike and we decided to go to an ATM at a credit union about a mile away.   Fallon has nice wide bicycle lanes, maybe 4’ wide on most of their main roads which includes US Hwy. 50 we were riding.   We’re riding in the center of the bicycle lane well out of the motor vehicle lane when not one but two 18 wheel tractor/trailer rigs passed within a foot of us, they were both partially in the bicycle lane.  I held my breath as I thought for sure one of them was going to run over Ike, that’s how close they were.  Here in Fallon Hwy. 50 is four lanes wide, 2 in each direction.  There was absolutely no reason these two truckers needed to be in the bicycle lane.  It is beyond my comprehension to understand what the morons in these three incidents thought they were doing or the
consequence if they had hit me or Ike, do they really want to hurt or kill a bicyclist?  Please if you know any person who acts this way toward a bicyclist try to reason with him or her to change their thinking before a friend or family member of yours is hurt or killed due to this crazy behavior.

As the mountains give way to city traffic I’ll miss the solitude of “The Loneliest Road in America” and where most of the time all I heard was the whir of my tires on the  pavement.  It gave me the opportunity to reflect on life and how I want to live what time I have left.  This has been good exercise for mind, body and soul.

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