Lonliest, Longest, Straightest Highway in America

The midnight ride of Coast to Coast began at 1:23 a.m. Saturday morning, much later than that of paul Revere. Strapped with headlights, reflective bands, and bike lights, the team rolled out of the Best Western and down Route 50 towards Austin following pseudo members of the taliban ie US Navy in costume. There were approximately 10 cars that passed us before sunrise, costing Russ to lose a pivotal bet to Dan. The road was straight, long, and dark, but luckily there was a full moon to additionally light our way. We passed through the salt flats, which felt like old snow to walk on: crusty on top, but easy to sink through.

Around dawn we sailed down a long downhill into a huge valley- ie the Centroid Naval Base. Centroid is clearly a name established from the 1970s when the first computer came to Nevada. By this time, we had ridden approximately 5 hours and still had miles to go. As the sun rose, so did the temperature. We cruised through the only other two dots on the map- historic Middlegate, which had been recommended for its food, and Cold Springs, which we don't recommend. At Cold Springs, we still had 50 miles to go, and it was 10 a.m. Sarah was dilligently counting down the miles until we hit 25, so we could enjoy our PB & J. We hunched under the one shrub in the entire state for shade, and quickly gobbled down our meal, in order to hit the road again. The heat was exhausting. Our last 25 miles were a downhill with some nice cloud coverage(like you care), but then the windstorm began. We had cross winds, which blew us across the lanes and required us to focus hard to stay on task, about as hard as Dan Morris rides his uphills, which for those not in the know is extremely hard. The final climb into Austin was not our steepest to date, but felt that way after 118 miles ni 15 hours. it was approximately 3 miles and a serious mountain town as most are in Nevada because of its prolific mining. We spent our night at the local Baptist church (sans proselytising) and enjoyed the music from a lovely family reunion just across the street. this morning we rolled out of austin and up and over the pass to reach Eureka. Todays ride was perfect. We had 60 miles of flats with a nice tail wind and clouds over head. We are camping at the local park and enjoying the amenities of the swimming pool and we will attempt our first barbaque of the trip. 2 long days, we're tired, bedtime................