We rose early to get on the road ahead of traffic and the heat. It was too early to wake the grandkids, but Jason was up early, as usual, to help us get under way, and only too happy to warm up Shirlene's bike. Hillary, as you can see, was happy to get up to say goodbye. We haven't seen that look on her face since we had to wake her for school -- ahhhh, good times.

We beat the heat, for a couple of hours, but not the traffic. Highway 50 winding up the Sierras was a welcome relief from the Sacramento Valley. Our journey took us through a scenic and quaint Placerville, through the cool pines, past South Lake Tahoe, and up and down breathtaking curves. (the reason we ride!)

Carson City was the last of the "big" cities we would see today -- and the last of city traffic. We entered the part of Highway 50 named the "Loneliest Road in America." The highway follows part of the old Pony Express route, and looks like the old west. We don't understand why more people don't travel this highway. We love it! We asked several citizens of Fallon, NV, about the upcoming road. The most common response to our questions was, "Why would you want to go up there?" Our thought was, "Why would you want to stay down here in this infernal heat?!"

As we traveled through Austin and Eureka, working our way to Ely, we stopped to take a picture of the sand park for off road vehicles. (Perhaps we can entice Tom and Louise to join us on another journey)

We saw the strangest thing as we negotiated a mountain pass. There was a sign warning us of falling rock, and, sure enough, the road ahead was littered with small black rocks. The wind was really blowing, and the rocks seemed to be moving with the wind! As we looked closer at the rocks, we noticed they had legs, and wings... we had come upon a migration of huge black crickets! This is not all that unusual in this part of the country, and can cause accidents if there are enough on the road -- they leave a scrunchy slime as they are run over by cars, causing a very slick surface!

No trip through Nevada would be complete without a Basque dinner, and we lucked into a very good one at the Mexican Restaurant next to our motel... figure that one out! We're looking forward to following Highway 50 most of the way to our next destination -- Spanish Fork, Ut. We'll take a day off from travel to visit families and friends.

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