To Ely

We woke up in Baker and cleared out of the antiques room/icehouse so hopefully some sales could be made. It was only a few steps over to the Electrolux Cafe where a fair number of us took part in the french toast and homemade cinnamon syrup. Excellent. The community was having a festival and fundraiser to mobilize a fight for local water rights. Apparently Las Vegas desires to have more fountains. There was some talk about our inclusion in a parade but we decided that we really needed to start riding for the day. We had slept in after yesterday's maniacal push so it seemed like forward progress was the thing. Had about a block of it before we met another touring cyclist, an Englishman who was riding across the whole world. The United States is the last leg of his trip and he's heading East before a plane trip to London I believe. You'd never know it just by looking, he was sort of an unassuming guy – mid 40's, could've been mistaken for a software engineer. But... he was tough as nails. Chatted a few minutes longer and then really did start making progress.

Nevada, here we come – straight into stiff, unwavering wind. We had some uneventful riding before another never-ending basin and the gradual climb that seems to go with getting out of one. We arrived – Nate, Jeremy, Jordan, and myself – at a place called Majors Junction, just a couple of drops as we pulled in. There was a bar there with a crusty old guy for an owner. He made some noise about our bikes taking up all of his front porch, but nobody was there. Nobody visits because he charges too much for soda and gets all tough about being on the porch. It was raining at this point but his bar was stupid and the guy was an idiot and we didn't think the weather would pass anytime soon so we began climbing a pass anyway.

The rain was fair coming down at the bar but it really became respectable once we gave up any shelter. Took us about 45 minutes of slow grinding before we crested the hill. It was at this point that the weather cleared. We went down the other side with no rain but did see some storm activity off in the distance. We arrived in Ely and made our first stop at Sportsworld, a combination bike/hunting/camping/all things sports store. I got a wireless connection and fed Jeremy the phone numbers of churches in the area. We had a long string of no answers or plain rejections before we were accepted for the evening at the Grace Foursquare church, the last one on the list. We rode back up a hill to stock up on some groceries while Nate visited the Arby's and inquired about what the staff planned to do with their leftover turnover desserts. Then we cruised over to the church and met the pastor who unlocked the building, shook our hands, and was gone within a matter of minutes. We had the run of the place and cooked our dinners and laid out our belongings and really stunk up the room with a series of obscene farts. Nate rode back to the Arby's near closing time and successfully secured us a bag of unsold turnovers. Well done.

Electrolux Cafe.

Taste of the city out in the sticks.

Fueled, ready for action.

Considering participation in the parade.

Nevada.