Cedar City --> Baker
Each night I slept in a hotel I always lingered far too long in the morning, and this morning was no different. I got out of Cedar City late after picking up a camera at the post office that Dad had mailed to me as a general delivery. Luckily a tailwind pushed me quickly out to Minersville. Surprisingly I had been riding for eleven days and hadn’t seen one other person touring until a few miles out of Cedar City where I ran into a Swedish couple rocking a tandem into the strong headwind. We stopped and shared stories for a bit. They had left from San Francisco about the time I had left Pueblo and were having a great time on their adventure together. They planned on renting a car in Cedar City and Driving down to the Grand Canyon and continuing their trek to Washington D.C. from there. They warned me about the vastness of Nevada and also told me they had been leapfrogging a disheartened young biker named Dave for days, which I ran into about thirty minutes later.
Dave had just dropped out of college in San Hose and was undertaking a cross country tour from San Francisco to Virginia Beach in order to “discover some things about himself”. It was pretty early in the day to be as dismayed as he was, but then again he was facing a nasty headwind and seeing me cruise up at 35 mph to his 8 could not have been encouraging. The cans of ravioli and jugs of Hawaiian Punch strapped randomly to the frame of his bike suggested that maybe Dave hadn’t thought out his trek as well as one would expect.
In talking to Dave I finally concluded that I was actually very well prepared for my undertaking. I had planned well and I was thoroughly equipped and traveled very lightly, but more than anything else I realized that I had an incredibly good disposition for such a venture. Although I struggled greatly at some moments, I never once questioned my goals, motives, or resolve. In our short conversation on the side of the road Dave revealed to me serious doubts and weaknesses multiple times. I appreciated his honesty, but I was concerned that his own acceptance of his shortcomings was setting him up for failure both on the bike and in his life. I only offer this insight into Dave because in a 10 minute conversation with the kid I had heard his life story and all of his hearts woes. Then again I have to give the kid credit for challenging himself like he did. My guess is that he is still riding even now in October…… hopefully he has dropped the canned goods for some lightweight ramen!
I stopped in Minersville for a corn dog and planned to leave quickly but the double lane highway 129 that lead me out of town spontaneously turned to gravel and dirt about 20 miles out. The construction and road closure was mentioned on a scrap of paper I later found in the envelope my maps had been mailed to me in…. (In my car in Pueblo). I was forced to take a detour through various farm access roads to make it to highway 21, which I could see from 129 because it was on a neighboring plateau. After roughly an hour of pot hole humping I made it to 21 and flew outa town on the smooth pavement.
On the way out of the next town, heading into a 90 mile stretch of nothing at 3pm, I ran into another bike tourist. Bryan had his head on much straighter than Dave. He was riding across Nevada and Utah on the same route I was taking. He warned me that there was absolutely nothing for a very long distance ahead, but agreed that I would have no problem camping in the bush off the road. He also warned of the climbing challenges to come.
Basin and Range is a geographic feature found throughout most of Nevada. Like the crests and troughs of waves traveling outward from a stone dropped in water, the ranges and basins of Nevada rippled out from Cedar City, Utah to the Sierras outlining the east border of California. This geography makes for incredibly steep accents and equally steep decents, but most trying of all was the deceptive nature of the basins.
I entered one particular valley between two ranges and saw a ranch, but considering I was in Utah it could also be called a compound, on the other side on the valley floor. As I rode through the heat on the incredibly straight highway that connected the two ranges, I prayed that when I reached the ranch a hoard of polygamist wives would be sent out by their husband to welcome me and bring me a motor for my bike, painkillers, and food! Rather than gifts from Mormon radicals, all I received from that valley was a worn out old soccer T-shirt I found on the side of the road which I am wearing as I write this entry. When I finally reached the ranch I realized that it was actually closer to the side of the valley I had originally started on. Perceptions are very warped when you can see 30 miles of road laid out in a straight line ahead of you.
As I rode the waves of western Utah the sun disappeared behind the clouds and then next behind the mountains and soon even their ambient light was gone and I was left in absolute darkness. I was 30 miles away from my goal of the little burg of Baker and there was only the light of the stars and my tiny led headlight to guide my way. Luckily the stars were magnificent.
When Amir and I were about 13 and 16 our parents took us up to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. One night staying at the Old Faithful Lodge in the park, the whole family walked out to the famed geyser to stargaze. Some stars were so large and bright that they appeared to burn holes in the dark fabric of the night, while others formed clouds out of theses points of light so dense and glowing that they seemed to warm the chill of the night. It was the first time I saw the Milky Way and also my first true shooting star, and since it has been the celestial standard of the Abtahi family. That night is so steeped in majesty for our family that each time we remember it together that stars become brighter and our awe expands. If that night years ago has an equal I had found it near the border of Utah and Nevada. The Milky Way was so clear and dense that I felt I was riding along its path. For the first time in my life I saw colors in the night sky, not just the rosy haze of a Mars or Jupiter, but a real array of colors clustered so closely that they made something indescribable together, to be enjoyed by something as small as myself in another time and certainly in another place.
After about of hour of riding in the dark in a land that inspired multiple episodes of The Twilight Zone, I finally crossed the border into Nevada. At that point I was only about 8 miles from Baker so I rode with the quickness into town. The first sign of civilization in Baker was a solitary gas pump standing alone in a lot with only the glow of a coke machine to attract customers to the pump. I had been out of water for quite a while so I scrambled to the machine and slid in a dollar and slammed the mountain dew button………nothing. I swore at the machine for a few minutes then decided to see what other luck Baker, a town about the size of a football field, had to offer me. But once again my incredible luck struck, I found a bar/ camping ground that was open. The bartender was a sweet old dude named Kelly,….go figure Mulloy, who assured me that he’d be open to about 4am tending to the drinking habits of his regulars. So I set up camp under a tree along a creek, and after 146 miles of riding I drank a few well deserved brews.
Day: 146.05 mi
Total: 1031.29 mi
Elev. Climbed: 4900 ft
Elev. Difference: -300 ft
Elev. Peak: 6500 ft
Cedar City --> Baker
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