Yesterday was a wind addled drive from Kingman, AZ to Beatty, NV. Desert driving: straight long stretches of empty well paved highway. Creosote bushes and Joshua trees for vegetation but mostly bare rock exposed. 231 miles.
Route went thru Boulder City, home of Bootleg canyon trails and All Mountain cycles bike shop where Jimmy, a wrench, maybe working there and might be there. I met Jimmy when he was working at the Hub in Brevard years ago, He was present. We visited briefly. I shopped Albertson for preferred oatmeal and beer. No oatmeal and the beer choices were almost midwest in number of choices. Walked out empty handed. Grocery stores I have been in lately have traffic control aisle directions. Can’t say what percentage of shoppers practice spacing, what stands out are the ones going against traffic and not wearing face protection.
I passed an entry to Lake Mead which was packed bumper t bumper traffic backed up from the entrance booth to the highway and maybe 1/4 mile in the turn lane. How will people practice social distancing?
Stopped at Pahrump Smith’s grocery store seeing almost the same beer choices. Overwhelming shelf space occupied by macro beers.
Stopping spot was Beatty, NV and the Spicer ranch. Real official sign on the shoulder of the highway and more directed me way back thru deposits of broken down stuff to arrive at dead end. Parking lot. Drove some more following signs to restrooms and showers. Patch of large trees casting shade on a group of camper trailers and people. Guy separated himself from crowd appearing in charge. He filled that roll. Sure you can stay over in the lot for as long as you want. Cool. Ranch is private property abutting BLM land which has a myriad of trails. Still very hot, parked van to cast an afternoon shower. Mid afternoon I was able to sit outside in the shade cast by the van.
BLM land is home of protected wild burros.
Way beyond the front of the van there are several fingers of lush green cattle feed fed by springs. The cattle are fenced where the grass does not grow ( rocks, no organic) The fences keep out the local burro population. Not really amazing what interloper man can do once he/she steals the water.
House flies are nuances.
Temp dropped to pleasant 1 layer down blanket night.
Today was to get an early start. I made my scratch pancakes and cleaning up and getting ready to ride by 8:30. Last night I studied the TrailForks ride data and planned a route that would give me the big periphery of the trail system. Shortly after starting on first trail, Canteen, I encountered several grazing burros which ran a short distance away.
The trail intersections are signed and along the way there might be a direction arrow to keep you found as in places there are numerous braide burro trails. Tread is mostly hard packed loose what(?) not dirt?
For a distance Petticoat drop trail was routed up Beatty Wash which was loose gravel which was wheel sucking slow. My tires are 2.5 WT which sort of kept me upright. To stall was to be real hard to get started again as the tires would be sunk in the gravel.
Made top of Ridge finally then home run down Dominatrix which is pretty much straight line descending.
Ride dropped back down to ranch. 18.2 miles gaining 1371′ pedaling for 2 hrs 17 mins under full sun exposure.
Hung at van afterwards. I have an inside temperature measuring device which displayed 102 degrees inside the van.
Night time, 8:46 PM, outside temp is 78 and inside it is 87 and no wind. Will be pleasant sleeping.
Plan tomorrow is make Reno and ride there then move on further north. Going thru Tonopah.
Architect has asked for my house revisions to what she has. I am still searching for an open place to print off, markup plan, then scan and send to her. Libraries are closed where I usually go. Maybe package shipping store