The day began early, 5:00am for me, and even earlier for my riding partner, Chris “The Captain” Weld. Evidently, The Captain was anxious about the trip, and had trouble sleeping. He was up by 4:00am. I had my bike loaded up and was ready to leave home in Alameda by 5:50am. The roads were traffic-free through Oakland and into Berkeley, but a misty fog rolled in off the bay and the visor got a bit damp in the process. Apart from that, it was smooth riding across the Carquinez Strait and to the Black Bear Diner in Vacaville, CA.
I was a little early, and so I went past the diner to top off my tank of gas, and hawkeye Chris spied me, and thinking I missed the restaurant by mistake, called me as I stopped for gas to give me directions. Thanks for the directions, Chris! Glad you made it even earlier than me!
I then rendezvoused with Mr. Weld, and we had a decent breakfast at Black Bear. Today was due to be a long one, over 550 miles (880 km) to Wells, Nevada all along Interstate 80. Not a great riding route by any stretch of the imagination, but a necessary one to put the miles down.
We departed Vacaville before 8:00am. Traffic through Sacramento was non-existent before 9:00am on a Saturday morning, and it wasn’t long before it was time for our riders’ union-mandated hourly smoke break. We had great views coming over the Sierra Nevada mountains, and before we knew it we were on our way down the other side and the scenery made a major change from the verdant windward side of the mountains to the dry desert leeward side into Nevada and Reno.
Another break in Sparks, just outside Reno just after 11:00am with gas and we were back onto the open road as we followed the Truckee River down into the open desert. We stopped in for lunch in Winnemucca at one of the casinos in town. Nice idea! We get nice air conditioning, an affordable meal and clean bathrooms all in one convenient stop. One of the wonders of Nevada!
As we continued, Chris, on account of having cruise control on his BMW R1200RT took the lead so he didn’t have to deal with my manual throttle modulations and I could follow his pace. Nevada DOT made sure to put out enough traffic control barrels to draw Chris’ ire.
As the afternoon drew on, the temperature climbed and climbed, eventually reaching 97ºF (36ºC) by the time we made it to Battle Mountain, NV for another break at Colt casino. Luckily at least it wasn’t humid (it is the desert, so no surprise there!).
Leaving Battle Mountain, we were Elko-bound. As we approached and decided to take another break, I noticed how much more built-up Elko was compared to the rest of the towns we’d been through since Reno. Chris took that as an opportunity to take us on a tour of the place and we cruised up and down the main drag looking for a good spot for a break. Chris found a nice bench across the street from a night club and next to a pawn shop in the very nice downtown area (it was legitimately a lot nicer than the businesses near the bench Chris happened to pick make it sound).
We were now less than 50 miles from our day’s destination in Wells and we made quick work of it as the clouds started thickening and we could see rain falling in the mountains that were all around us. The clouds and rain brought some welcome relief from the heat and made for very pretty skies to photograph as we rode.
As we pulled up to the outskirts of Wells, the rain finally started falling on us. We got pretty wet, despite spending less than 5 minutes in the stuff. We made it to out motel, The Sharon Motel, a nice independent, restored vintage motel on the main drag in Wells. Just as we walked into the office, the power got knocked out and we were pitched into darkness. Luckily our motellier was well-prepared and gave us flashlights to see by, towels to dry off our helmets and bikes and a dinner reccommendation! Great! We unpacked our gear from the bikes and waited for the rain to pass over before heading for dinner.
Dinner was an interesting experience as the restaurant also had no power, but they managed to put together a great beef chimichanga for Chris and a pretty good burger for me despite not having any electricity to cook by. We were able to find our way back to the motel in the totally blacked out town, as lightning flashed all around the town. We heard through the grapevine that the BLM had asked the power company to shut down this section of the grid due to fires that the lightning sparked. We’ll see what transpires overnight and there’ll be more to come tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s ride takes us to Thayne, Wyoming, close to Jackson and both Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Bits of 3 states in one day!
Very nice trip report, Mike, and great pics too. Much appreciated, take care of the Captain for us.