26

Monday, 6-30-08, Armory, Ely, Nevada
I didn't sleep too deeply all night because I wanted to wake myself up at 4:30 to get an early start on a long ride. At about 3:00 am, I noticed my sleeping bag was wet by my feet. I thought it had been raining and that water had leaked in, but discovered that a drinking bottle hadn't been closed properly and had tipped over and soaked the bottom of my bag, so I got up and went to the car and wrote in my journal. At 4:15, I woke up the others because light was in the sky and I wanted to start as early as possible. After packing some snacks and turning on the tail lights, we headed out around 5 am. We had four passes to cross. The first was steep with a ten-mile downhill coast - fun, 45 mph tops. There was a cross wind that developed as the morning progressed. Paul was going kind of slow, so I took his panniers. At about the middle of the second pass, Pancake Pass, I felt very tired and sleepy. We crept along very slowly. Finally, I stopped and made some powdered electrolyte drink. I think it worked. I managed to make it over the third pass. Close to the bottom, Gloria finally came from Eureka. She had finally packed up the camp site and met us about 48 miles after we started. We ate watermelon and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I also drank my usual vanilla Ensure and V-8 drinks. It was just past 10 am, but I needed a nap, so did Becky, so we stopped for about 2 hours and slept, at least Becky and I did. It was good that we did because it was getting hot anyway and riding was becoming oppressive. When we started riding again, I felt better, and knowing we only had one more summit to scale motivated us. Another plus was it was beginning to cloud up and would spit rain now and then to cool us off. The shade cloud made a big difference in the temperature, so for 10 miles we were cool. As we plodded up the summit, the wind increased against us. Going down the other side wasn't as much fun as usual because the headwind slowed us down a lot. As we approached Ely, we had to pedal pretty hard to keep our speed over 10 mph even though it was slightly downhill. We arrived in town at about 2:30 adn waited for the others to arrive: Becky, Willie, and Paul. While waiting, I inquired about the usual: campsites, fishing, and restaurants. After the other cyclists arrived, we went to the police station and asked about tenting sites. They directed us to the town armory, which was next to a baseball field and park with trees, picnic tables and soft green grass. After pitching the tent, we went to the store to buy food. It took a long time to and I was already getting tired by the time we got there. It seems like everything goes in slow motion after a hard ride because we are mentally and physically tired and don't have much energy to do much besides shuffle along in a daze. We may stand 10 minutes trying to decide whether to buy caramel chew or marshmellow filled cookies.
When we made it back to the camp, John and Sarah were excited about cooking again and made us some stir fry style pork strips with garlic, salt, and pepper. We also ate watermelon, yogurt, chips, and cottage cheese. Gloria and I were tired so we went to bed about 9:30, but Becky and Adriana wrote in their journals while the other kids went to the playground. All of the sudden, I woke up to a loud BAM. Gloria was saying something about kids throwing a rock at the tent. How did she know? (I found out later she was a light sleeper and jumped up as soon as she heard the noise and saw them running away). She wanted me to go outside and chase them, but I was still half asleep and thinking they wouldn't be there. But she went out anyway. I heard her talking to Becky about it and decided to get up. Right then the sheriff's car pulls up. It turns out that Becky and Adriana both had seen the likely suspects - teenagers walking by witb nothing better to do. After about 2 hours of talking about it, we went to sleep knowing we would be camping somewhere else tomorrow. 78 miles.