Fire Hoses, a Weight Loss Program, and a Flintstones Background

Day: 50 (Ely, NV to Eureka, NV)

Average Speed: 10.1 MPH

Miles Cycled Today: 78.9

Miles Cycled Total: 3, 366

Mood: Strong 

Street Art

The Hotel Ely

There is nothing funnier than a town park’s sprinkler system opening fire on unsuspecting stealth-campers at the wee hours who have chosen to sleep in the tunnels of a children’s playground… unless you happen to be that stealth-camper who is sleeping in said tunnel of said playground. 

In which case it is Not. Funny. At. All. 

While typing my blog late last night at The Prospector Casino, I got a frantic text message from Jamie. I have a screen shot, but I have determined that the language is far too vulgar to publish. Let’s just say there were a lot of all-caps. 

We thought we were clever. 

“Let’s sleep in the tunnels in the playground,” I’d said earlier. “There’s no reason sprinklers will be aimed there!”

Sprinklers Soak the Hotel Ely

And the local pre-pubescent teens who were hanging out under a nearby pavilion agreed. They bragged that they hung out at this park every night. They’d never seen the sprinklers go off. And I trusted them. My ten years experience as a middle school teacher casually tossed out the window. 

To be clear, what happens every night in Ely, Nevada at the town park is fire hoses come out of the ground at two-foot intervals and soak every square inch of the land at full force. It’s truly a sight to behold (pic doesn't even come close to showing reality).

Four of these hoses- hard to call them sprinklers- were aimed at our grassless-unnecessary-to-water playground haven. Two shot directly into the tunnels where we’d set up camp. 

Jamie was dead-eyed. Humorless. Defeated. Soaked.

I had only just arrived, and was chipper as could be since Jamie had kindly moved my stuff with his. I admired the arch and unpredictability of each Herculean stream of water shooting from the earth. He only said “I hate Nevada.”

We waited on the street for an hour before the hoses sunk back into the earth. 

I dried my tunnel with a ShamWow and offered to dry his, but he wasn’t having it. 

“It’s just going to go off again. I’m sure of it,” he said, bleary-eyed. 

Curled Up in the Hotel Ely

I questioned his spirit of adventure and curled up in my tunnel. He found the few square feet of park that hadn’t been affected. 

He is smarter than I. 

When they opened fire again, I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and dealt with it. 

Sprinklers suck. 

This wouldn’t be too big a deal were it not for the 78 miles of service-less desert stretch with four summits to cross the next morning. 

But damn, when those playground tunnels are dry… it’s like a free stay in the Bellagio. So comfortable.

Five stars on Yelp! from me. Great price. Free shower. 

 A Terrible Sign

And perhaps it put me in the mood to climb today, because none of the mountains had me particularly daunted. Except for maybe the super-freshly paved one where I was high on tar fumes and my tires were a super-gluey-gooey-mess. 

Also, I got this bizarrely motivating text message from a student of mine in my first year of teaching (she’s now all grown up and house-sitting for me this summer with another former student). 

She stitched together two pics: one from when I started, and one from just recently. Her all-caps message was "LOOK HOW MUCH WEIGHT YOU LOST!!"

Virginia Vs. Utah

This was legitimately shocking to see.

Jamie stared at the photo and said “You were quite a porker!” 

I had a feeling I’d lost a pound or two, but I had no idea I’d lost that much belly and body. 

And I eat more than ever. 

So if you ever want to scarf down as much ice cream as you want and munch on fries and burgers until you're sick of both, just do it while cycling to Nevada. 

While today’s difficult ride didn’t feel too challenging, the unexpected monotony had a toll.  

Here’s what happens in the Sierras:

1) Go up a mountain. 

2) Go down a mountain. 

3) Cross a 12 mile stretch of flat land (that deceptively looks like 2 miles and is incredibly windy), clearly seeing the mountain ahead. 

4) Go up a mountain. 

5) Go down a mountain. 

You get the idea…

Not only that, but the road takes the same exact path each time: bend right, bend left, cross summit, repeat. 

Four Summits Crossed Today

I've Seen This Before...

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Remember those old animations? Like The Flintstones? Where the same background repeated over and over again whenever the characters were driving somewhere? It’s like that. 

But one thing that’s always different is the people you meet. 

Tonight, I went to type my blog at the local watering hole and couldn’t. A firefighter named Doug- here to squelch wildfires- was far too interesting. As was Patrick, our fellow camper on a motorcycle currently sharing our pavilion. 

You can’t run and hide from cool people. You just have to wait it out. Those conversations are too valuable to miss.

Instead, I prefer to type really late into the night. It's totally worth it.

From what I hear, the sprinklers in Eureka are due to go off at 8 AM. I'll get my six hours in.

P.S.

I stopped counting the bullet holes in this sign after 25.

What did they think would happen??