I left Baker, NV and had to go back through Garrison, UT where I’d been yesterday to resume the trail. Not too far south of Garrison, I turned off the main road onto a gravel road. I was headed south, parallel to the boundary of the National Park across the plains in front of the mountains. The plains looked perfectly flat at a distance, but when you were riding them they were full of ups and down that slowed my progress. At one point, six deer or antelope or something came flying past me, I guess I scared them, but I’m not sure why they chose to start behind me and run in front of me. After going south, I turned and went west around the south end of the park. The plains gave way to hills that had a terrible road that was not properly engineered with storm water control devices, so large parts of the road were washed out. Sometimes across the road, and sometimes down the road. It was slow trying to head down the road without falling into the two feet deep gullies, but I finally made it….to a small canyon. The ‘road’ went through the bottom of the canyon, along the stream bed that was filled with fine gravel and silt and which made the bike go every which way but straight. Somehow I never laid it over, finally got out of there and climbed back up to a normal road. I headed through some more hills and plains and an OHV trail before ending up in Lund, NV. This was a tiny town as well, with no stoplight, one gas pump and one store (besides a curiously large tractor dealership). I got gas and lunch at the store. While there, an old RV with at least 20 Hispanic people pulled up and they all ordered before me, which was wonderful. It was mostly kids, and everyone was dressed kind of formally, like they were Hispanic Quakers or something. Maybe they were a traveling family band, who knows. After my late lunch, I kept going, heading on a National Forest road that wound through some mountains. Somehow, on a gravel road in the middle of the forest, I got a three inch nail in my back tire. So, I had to completely unload my bike to get my tools and spare tube. I also had a terrible feeling that I had to take a dump right then, so I marched off into the woods leaving my bike on the side of the road. On the eastern part of the trail, I had packed a roll of TP and never used it, but it got all nasty because I hadn’t put it in a plastic bag. So, in an effort to save weight and knowing I was in 2-3 towns a day, I didn’t pack any for the western trip. Big mistake. I ended up having to use a sock instead. I buried my business in a cat hole and went back to my bike. I found a stick to prop the side up so the wheel would spin and got everything changed out. By the time I finally got everything fixed and loaded back up, it was getting late in the afternoon and I still had 60 miles to go to the next town. I pressed on, hoping that after each hill/mountain, a flat plain would open up that would allow me to go fast, but it just kept being more hills. The sun was starting to come down, which made it hard to see since I was generally riding into the sunset. A couple of times I hit some big, jarring rocks that I didn’t see. Also, it started to sprinkle a little bit which worried me. I really didn’t want to camp out in this forest in the rain. The sun was now past the mountains and it was dusk when I crossed a major gravel road. I looked at my map and realized that I could turn on this road and intersect the main road I was going to hit about 15 miles up anyways, but this road would allow me to move a lot faster than the trail. So I took this bypass and flew until I finally got the Eureka, NV at almost dark. I pulled into Sloppy Joe’s Diner and had some supper, then went to Gold Country Inn. I didn’t feel like finding a place to camp after dark, and after today’s day I felt like I deserved a good bed.
nice dump story!