June 3: All the way to Reno
(click on the pictures for the high resolution version)
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June 3: All the way to Reno (click on the pictures for the high resolution version) |
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I left Moab and
my friends (who had to rush to get their plane in Grand Junction)
around 7pm, after having done the Porcupine Rim trail - and so
when I was checking out Arches National Park (15 miles out of
town), I didn't have the energy to do the hike which would allow me a
closer picture of Delicate Arch. |
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Left at 6.30am and headed towards Salt Lake City; riding first through arid wastelands, then a forested mountain area, leading me to Provo, at the base of the towering Wasatch Mountains. After a brief stop in Salt Lake City I took Highway 80 through the Salt Lake desert towards Nevada. The endless salt flats are quite amazing, nothing really like it; and then, in the middle of this white desert... |
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...'Metaphor, the Tree of Utah' a weird but interesting artefact erected by a Swede in 1986. |
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Whiteout! |
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The Bonneville salt flats, home of the land speed record. |
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Riding in the salt flats is highly entertaining... |
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And then: endless miles through Nevada, connecting a handful of towns (Wendover, Elko, Winnemuca, Lovelock), and a lot of nothing in between. Chatted briefly with a friendly Ducati-enthusiast in Elko (on of the bigger small towns), and kept going and going until, finally, around 9pm, I made it to Reno. Everything was hurting at this point so again I just collapsed in my hotel room (got a cheap but lousy room in a casino). Mileage: 5278, so today I did about 800 miles (adding two hundred more, I would have earned my Iron Butt certificate). |