Watched the sun come up over Ebbetts Pass. Air quality sucked because of the fire in Yosemite. Couldn't even see the Dardenelle Mountain Range. Still a beautiful drive over the pass smoke or no smoke.
Dardenelle's from Inspiration Point (barley)
Mosquito Lake
First stop Alpine Chamber of Commerce. Picked up some work for the 2010 Death Ride (http://deathride.com/) and said hi to Amy and Chester the cat.
Next stop the GoPed (http://www.goped.com/default.asp) factory in Minden. Steve hooked me up with a battery powered scooter. Pretty cool concept. You pop a wheelie and hook your footplate of your wheelchair onto the base of the scooter. Then your manual chair becomes a motor driven chair. Pretty slick! Of course I had them take the governor off so now it goes like 27mph. No to bad. Pretty amusing and effective. Burton loves chasing it!
Costco and Trader Joe's to get some rations and fill up the gas tank. Then we were off for the big haul across Nevada. There are 5 passes to go over. Most of it is high desert. Super scenic mountain scapes. Hot temps. Thank God for AC.
Shadows from clouds on the mountains
Stopped at Sand Mountain to watch some dirt bikers and quad runners get some. In the middle of this vast dried up ocean bed there is a huge mountain made completely out of white sand. It's magnificent from a distance. Mysterious close up. Almost got the van stuck in the sand but Dave kept it moving and we made it to the packed sand. Opened the door and Burton flew out barking to run after the quads. A couple of hundred yards out and he realized he was in the middle of the desert and the sand was HOT! He stopped in his tracks and ran back to the van pretty fast to take shade under the van.
Pictures don't do it justice. It's huge!!!
A bit further down the road we found this The Shoe Tree. An truly original work of art. People have been throwing their shoes up in this tree for years. Thousands of shoes. Dave got out and added his flair with a pair or two.
This is the old covered wagon trail. Don't know how they did this trip on horseback. Only covered an average of 8 miles a day. They were tough back in the day! This is part of the Pony Express too.
Bank of America
Next stop Ely. Dave finally got tired of driving so we stopped of for a stretch and a beer. Decided to power thru to Evanston, WY and not stay overnight. Dave was missing his sweetie Allison. So we headed out again with me at the wheel. Burton wanted to stay at Club Rio.
About an hour into it I saw a cop car in the distance with the light going. We slowed down since it looked like he was in the highway. Ended up that a cow tried to cross the highway and met up with a big rig. Cut him right in half. Blood and guts everywhere. Gruesome site, made me slow down.... for a minute.
Arrived in Evanston about 4:30 am and passed the #$& out.
747 miles down... just a few more to go!
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