Vegas: Trip-Report Part 6: The Long Ride Home
For not having an alarm clock, I woke up surprisingly early on Sunday morning. Right around 5:30am, about 3 hours of quality sleep. I had done a bit of packing the night before, so I wouldn't have to roam around the house picking up stuff and shoving it my backpack.
I was out of the door by 6am, and actually didn't feel too exhausted from the lack of sleep. Under normal circumstances, if I don't have at least 7 hours of sleep, I'm a walking zombie the next day. I only had 12 hours of sleep over the three nights I was in Vegas, and I felt fine. To be completely honest though, I was a bit sick, and hopped up on Airborne about 23 hours a day.
I bungee-corded the backpack onto my bike, and only had to carry the camera, which felt 100x better on the drive than lugging the backpack along. I planned on driving out by Red Rocks Canyon on the way back up to Tahoe, but I got a few nice shots along Rainbow Blvd, so I just decided to make a bee-line for Tahoe.
I stormed through Indian Springs and Beatty, then stopped for lunch back in good ol' Tonopah. But, it was only 10am, and they didn't serve lunch until 11am, so I settled for some hashbrowns and eggs--which were yummy. Spent about 45 minutes there eating, relaxing and reading the newspaper before I rode on. I snapped a picture of the "Weird Beer Here" sign that I saw on the way down to Vegas. On one side weird is spelled correctly, then on this side it is spelled differently. Weird.
Between Tonopah and Hawthorne, I had been sort of buddied up with an SUV averaging about 85mph. I did that numerous times on the trip, and I like to have someone relatively close, just in case something goes wrong. Anyways, we were driving along a remarkably straight stretch of road when we come across an army convoy. The convoy had to be at least 25 trucks long, and we passed all of them in one go. It was crazy! I was in the oncoming traffic lane for a good two minutes, riding at about 85-90mph, zipping past humvee after humvee.
Hawthorne is located at the southern edge of Walker Lake, which on google maps is almost as large as Lake Tahoe. Not quite, but it is a pretty decent-sized lake:
At about this point is where Vegas finally started to catch up to me. I hit a wall about 15 minutes outside of Tonopah, and I felt like I could have just laid down in the grass and fallen asleep. I looked for a little cafe or library in any of the towns I went through, but didn't have any luck. The one library I stopped at was closed on Sundays. I was pretty dead, but when I got closer to Tahoe, and got to ride through the canyon to get back into Carson Valley, I was re-energized.
From now on, I hope to not ride more than 100, maybe 200 miles in any given day on the bike, but for this trip, it was definitely worth it :)
I was out of the door by 6am, and actually didn't feel too exhausted from the lack of sleep. Under normal circumstances, if I don't have at least 7 hours of sleep, I'm a walking zombie the next day. I only had 12 hours of sleep over the three nights I was in Vegas, and I felt fine. To be completely honest though, I was a bit sick, and hopped up on Airborne about 23 hours a day.
I bungee-corded the backpack onto my bike, and only had to carry the camera, which felt 100x better on the drive than lugging the backpack along. I planned on driving out by Red Rocks Canyon on the way back up to Tahoe, but I got a few nice shots along Rainbow Blvd, so I just decided to make a bee-line for Tahoe.
I stormed through Indian Springs and Beatty, then stopped for lunch back in good ol' Tonopah. But, it was only 10am, and they didn't serve lunch until 11am, so I settled for some hashbrowns and eggs--which were yummy. Spent about 45 minutes there eating, relaxing and reading the newspaper before I rode on. I snapped a picture of the "Weird Beer Here" sign that I saw on the way down to Vegas. On one side weird is spelled correctly, then on this side it is spelled differently. Weird.
Between Tonopah and Hawthorne, I had been sort of buddied up with an SUV averaging about 85mph. I did that numerous times on the trip, and I like to have someone relatively close, just in case something goes wrong. Anyways, we were driving along a remarkably straight stretch of road when we come across an army convoy. The convoy had to be at least 25 trucks long, and we passed all of them in one go. It was crazy! I was in the oncoming traffic lane for a good two minutes, riding at about 85-90mph, zipping past humvee after humvee.
Hawthorne is located at the southern edge of Walker Lake, which on google maps is almost as large as Lake Tahoe. Not quite, but it is a pretty decent-sized lake:
At about this point is where Vegas finally started to catch up to me. I hit a wall about 15 minutes outside of Tonopah, and I felt like I could have just laid down in the grass and fallen asleep. I looked for a little cafe or library in any of the towns I went through, but didn't have any luck. The one library I stopped at was closed on Sundays. I was pretty dead, but when I got closer to Tahoe, and got to ride through the canyon to get back into Carson Valley, I was re-energized.
From now on, I hope to not ride more than 100, maybe 200 miles in any given day on the bike, but for this trip, it was definitely worth it :)
Labels: motorcycle, Pictures, Vegas
posted by MHG at
6/12/2007 11:44:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home