Day 101 - Thursday, September 9
I left the rig at 3:10am after waking at 1:53am. We have not been in a town for 4 days and coming into Ely was strange at 3:30 in the morning. The town itself was a boom/bust mining town carved into a canyon. It has spread out over the years and as I came in it was dark until I hit Main Street right down in the canyon where there was a strip of casinos and then at the outskirts, a number of brothels before I was alone in the canyon for miles before giving way to a climb up to Robinson Pass.
Once out of town, I was back on long, lonely Highway 50 with 81 miles to the next waypoint of Eureka, NV. I ran along a small stream that was the culprit in carving out the canyons and splitting the mountain range in two.
After I sumitted Robinson Pass, I had a long steady downhill that lead me to another desert floor. In the distance I saw what looked like a road workers hat. As I approached though, a woman came jumping and screaming towards me. Mind you I am on Highway 50 and in the middle of nowhere. Turns out that Erin and her husband Chris are walking across America with 2 strollers that carries all their gear. They have been out for six months after both quitting their jobs, training for a year and setting out from Delaware to San Francisco. What are the odds?!?
A car pulled over to us and I asked if they knew the person. The answer was no as a man ran up to us with 3 bottles of ice cold water. Oscar was the road angel and turns out he biked across America 16 years ago and he ended up staying in New Orleans. Today he was driving back to San Francisco to move back and he happened to come upon us. What are the odds now?!? The four of us hung out on the desert floor and talked about our journeys. You can see more on the video I took.
We have been super lucky with weather on this trip. When it was raining we were off to the side. And now, cold weather is coming upon us and we are just ahead of it. Where the desert temperature was 100+ degrees a few days ago, today was 90’s and tomorrow it will be 80’s with 30’s at night. I think we will beat the real freeze…
On weather, the Caldor fire in California which is squarely on my route is now 50% contained - moving in the right direction. I think this is the biggest issue in making it to Muir Beach.
Erin & Chris just joined us for a few beers in the RV - awesome couple! They also met the tandem bike couple we met in Jeffrey City, WY a few weeks ago. It is truly amazing how in such a vast country, our orbits cross with like minded folks.
Schedule is beginning to get - Carson City on 9/18 then Carmichael CA on 9/21 and Mill Valley on 9/25 - Monica’s birthday. We will then make the final trip on 9/26 to Muir Beach.
All for today - thank you for your ongoing support.
Cheers,
David.
A 100 square mile area that has its own court system and population of 500
Ely in 1908.
In 1878, Vermont resident J. W. Long came to White Pine County and soon set up a camp known as "Ely", after discovering gold. The name "Ely" has been credited to several possible origins: Long's hometown of Ely, Vermont; a New York Congressman with the surname Ely, who sent Long as a representative according to local historians; Smith Ely, a Vermont native who financed one of the city's early mineral operations; and John Ely, an Illinois native who came to Nevada for mining.
Ely was founded as a stagecoach station along the Pony Express and Central Overland Rout. Ely's mining boom came later than the other towns along US50, with the discovery of copper in 1906. This made Ely a mining town, suffering through the boom-and-bust cycles so common in the West. Originally, Ely was home to a number of copper mining companies, Kennecott Utah Copper being the most famous. With a crash in the copper market in the mid-1970s, Kennecott shut down and copper mining disappeared (temporarily).
With the advent of cyanide heap leaching - a method of extracting gold from what was previously considered very low-grade ore—the next boom was on. Many companies processed the massive piles of "overburden" that had been removed from copper mines, or expanded the existing open-pit mines to extract the gold ore. Gold mines as widespread as the Robinson project near Ruth,, and AmSelco's Alligator Ridge mine 65 miles (105 km) from Ely, kept the town alive during the 1980s and 1990s, until the recent revival of copper mining.
As Kennecott's smelter was demolished, copper concentrate from the mine is now shipped by rail to Seattle, where it is transported to Japan for smelting. The dramatic increase in demand for copper in 2005 has once again made Ely a copper boom town.
The Strip in Ely
At 3:30am there are folks out
At the outskirts of town on the way out I go through the red light district which is open for business
The long descent after Robinson Pass
How true…
Erin & Chris with all their belongings. They sleep in a tent each night
The long road across the desert floor
Oscar, Chris, Erin and I on US 50