2024-09-21: Ely to Bay Area

Breakfast at the Bristlecone Motel in Ely was pretty slim pickings, with not much aside from cereal and packaged pastries, but I grabbed some coffee and made the best of things. Just after 7:00, the Harley guys were hitting the road, and I wasn’t too far behind them being ready to go by 7:20.

Just as I started to get gas around the corner, I realized I didn’t have my riding camera with me. Dang it! I must have forgotten it in my motel room, so back I went to re-search the room. Luckily I’d only gone about a quarter mile to get gas before I noticed! Back at the motel, I searched the room, and didn’t find anything… uh oh I had all my riding photos from the past few days on that thing. Then I remembered, I’d put it in my backpack last night to not look like some kind of documenting space man when I checked into the motel. Ugh, what a senior moment to start the day.

Back out onto the road, it was US-50 west the whole way across Nevada. Once again, with the elevation in Ely, the day started out pretty chilly, though not cold enough for the bike to give me ice warnings on the dash. Once again, I wanted to knock out as many miles early in the day as I could. That was pretty necessary in Eastern/Central Nevada, since there was nearly no place to stop on the “loneliest road in America”. For anyone that hasn’t been on US-50 to cross Nevada, it’s actually a pretty nice route, with it climbing up mountain passes to about 7000′ (2100 m), then descending down into huge valley areas, usually with straight-as-an-arrow lengths across these valleys that were often 20 miles (30 km) across. There are All the while, traveling across desolate, empty desert scrub the whole time. There were nine or ten of these to making the way across Nevada.

I went through the town of Eureka, Nevada first about 80 miles (130 km) up the road, but didn’t stop, since I was still feeling pretty fresh, being the first stint of the day. I decided to press on the 70 miles (110 km) to Austin, Nevada, since I recalled the place being pretty built up and figured I’d be able to find a place to get a good cup of coffee.

By the time I made it to Austin, I had about 150 miles on the clock for the day and it was only about 10:00am. I jumped off the bike right downtown along the old-timey wooden sidewalk arcade storefronts. As I started walking around though, I noticed that all the stores were closed, and not closed like not open yet, like closed forever, despite most of the businesses having new-looking signs hanging out front. This seemed odd, so I found a local and asked her if there was anywhere in town where I could find a cup of coffee. She explained that everything in town was owned by the same old gambler and that they were closed, since most of the young people in town were either too lazy or too caught up in drug addictions to work. Yikes. She even went on to explain that the Austin pass that I’d come over just east of town would likely not be cleared of snow this coming winter since they couldn’t find anyone to run a plowing operation. We’ll see this winter. After some back-and-forth about how politicians were somehow ruining young people, it was nearly 11:00am so we said our goodbyes and I went to the only open thing in town, the gas station for gas, coffee and a snack.

Back on the road once again, there was more up-and-down and up-and-down and up-and-down the mountain passes and desert valleys as I made my way to Fallon and into the outskirts of Carson City. By now I was over 300 miles (480 km) in for the day, in need of gas and lunch. I stopped at a big suburban gas station to fill up the bike and decided that I’d try to make my way downtown to find a spot to eat. I made my way down to Carson St. in front of the Nevada State Capitol. I wanted to get a photo, but it turns out the Capitol Building in Carson City is surrounded by a pretty dense set of trees that blocks the view of the building. In any case, there were lots of restaurants around, so I parked up and took a walk around to find a spot to eat. I spied The Fox Brewery and Pub and decided to poke my head in to grab a brew and a sandwich.

After lunch was done, it was nearly 2:30pm and it was time to get back on the road, into California and over the Sierra Nevada mountains. I headed south on US-395 out of Carson City toward Minden, Nevada and then onto NV-88, across the California state line onto CA-88. Finally back into my start/finish state of the trip!

CA-88 climbed up the Sierras, past pretty lakes and the Kirkwood ski area. Near the Kit Carson pass, I got in behind a white Honda Civic whose driver was tossing trash out of their car. Arrgh! How someone could think that the Sierras are their personal garbage receptacle, I have no idea. Seeing me following about a car-length behind, the guy (I’m assuming it was a guy and not a woman, since I didn’t try to get a good look) brake-checked me aggressively! Welcome back to California, I guess. I gave the guy a wide berth at that point and didn’t try to get close again until we eventually got to a passing lane.

Now past the Civic, I made some good progress down the windward side of the Sierras until I came upon a crash where a box truck had rolled over into a ditch. There were a few people stopped, and it looked like folks might have been hurt, so I pulled over to see if I could help. The lady I chatted with mentioned that police and emergency services had already been called and were on the way. That was good, at least. While we chatted, my aggressive-driving friend in the Civic went by, without stopping, unsurprisingly.

I jumped back on the road, being careful to not catch up and cause drama with the Civic. By the time I got down the hill to Pine Grove, California, my butt was dying for a break again at the Pine Grove Market. I’ll have to remember that place, as they had a pretty awesome-looking deli and full-on grocery store. I missed these great small-town markets that are so common in California! I grabbed a cold drink and a snack while taking some time off the bike.

Back onto the road afterward, it was down and out of the Sierras and into the Central Valley traffic picked up and got denser and denser as I descended. Even ttaying off of the freeways to cross kept me out of the major cities, most of the roads were still pretty full of enough traffic that passing on two-lane roads wasn’t going to happen. I skirted between Sacramento and Stockton. I made my way over to Antioch via CA-12 and CA-160 via the Antioch bridge (being one of the only non-freeway roads to get over the delta and into the Bay Area). It was largely city streets and the fun Kirkner Pass Road to make it from Antioch to Concord. By now the sun was starting to set and I didn’t want to have to traverse the back roads of the Oakland Hills to continue avoiding freeways, so I jumped on CA-4 to take the Caldecott Tunnel through the hills from Orinda to Oakland, California. I jumped off of CA-4 before it merged with Interstate 980 or 580 through downtown Oakland to keep my no-Interstate streak alive and took the surface streets the rest of the way home to make it in by about 7:30pm.

I unpacked the bike, lugged all my gear up to my apartment and immediately went for a shower and crash on my couch that I hadn’t been on in five weeks. Ahh. I was finally home again! Unpacking would need to wait until at least tomorrow.

That was it! My trip from the Pacific to the Great Lakes and back again was done. It was a heck of a trip, and so different going with a riding partner on the way out than it was doing the return trip solo. I hope to do a write up covering the trip overall and sharing my thoughts on long distance motorcycle touring. But that, as they say, is another story to write!