Today was one of the longest days of riding I’ve done in a long time. I started early (for me) in Jackson Hole, WY, heading over the Tetons for Twin Falls, ID. The weather was beautifully cool, the road was good, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful the scenery was. The road up to the summit was steep – trucks were limited in GWV, and passing lanes were both necessary and welcome. Once over the summit, I was in a series of intermontane valleys – Teton Valley and Swan Valley, among others. This portion of southern Idaho has a series of labs and manufacturing sites that seem to be associated with the production of nuclear energy, weapons, or other somewhat questionable processes. Most have names that are acronyms – INL (Idaho National Laboratory), for instance.
I got stopped for road construction in several places. I watched a “road eating machine” grind up existing pavement, turning it into material to be recycled into new roadway. I had plenty of time to observe different parts of the process, as only one lane of traffic was allowed through at a time – with a pilot car leading a string of vehicles. The wait was almost half an hour. It seems that there is a lot of federal money available for road construction right now – at least if projects were ready to go. Plus the season is short for construction.
I stopped off at Craters of the Moon National Monument – a gigantic area of lava fields, spatter cones, and cinder cones. I drove the loop drive – but after a short while, lava more or less looks alike. I didn’t hike to some of the more specialized formations – the lava tubes, for instance – because I was wearing my mc gear and boots. I still managed to see quite a bit, though. One of the more interesting features was the way in which some forms of vegetation were isolated from the surrounding biomes by the lava fields. An hour was about enough time for the monument, and I was on my way south to Wells, NV.
Getting across Nevada usually involves settling down and doing some long distance, relatively fast driving. I stayed on I-80 from Wells to Reno. Despite being an interstate highway, the landscape is actually quite beautiful. Crossing the basin and range area produces an almost meditative calm. It helps to have some good music to listen to. It also helps to have good weather – it was cool and cloudy, and, after Winnemucca, it began to rain – eventually becoming a downpour. I continued riding, after putting on some of my raingear – but not enough of it. I should have put on my rain pants as well as my jacket liner, and also used my glove covers. My upper body remained warm, but the rest of me became colder and colder. Finally, it got dark, and a strong crosswind began to blow. I reduced speed down to 55 and pressed on. Finally, around 10:30, I’d had enough. In Fernley, 30 miles before Reno, I got off the interstate and looked for a motel. The first few were full, but I was referred to the Lazy Inn on the north end of town (the end away from I-80). The owner was exceptionally nice – I even got to park my bike out of the rain under the office portico. I hit the bed and almost immediately conked out for the night.
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