Day 44 - "A Whole Lotta Nothing That Way"

I'll definitely be coming back to Utah both with Deb in a car and hopefully someday again on a motorcycle -- another bucket list item. But today it was time to move on. I was up early and readied the bike while chatting with another Goldwing rider who had stayed at the same motel.

I had plotted a route over a nearby 10,600 "Brian's Head" peak (the local ski resort) to the town of Parawon and got started at my usual 8-ish. I was well underway on the route when I checked the temperature. It was only 30 degrees and I still had 3000 or more feet of ascent to the summit. Not certain if the roadway would have ice, I debated with myself about returning to motel until later in the morning -- but chose, instead, to just slow my pace and continue the ascent. It made for a less fun ride (the "pucker factor" was pretty intense as it was impossible to determine whether the many tar snakes might have a frozen surface). However, in short order I noticed a lakeside country store and decided to kill about an hour there with a cup of coffee to allow time for the sun to warm the roadway.

Some of you may enjoy comparing this photo that I took just before stopping at the country store with the Google "Street View" of the same spot that you can see my clicking here. In fact, you can actually take a virtual "ride" of the entire route (and lots of other routes I've been on) using the "Street View." But like most things -- pictures may tell 1000 words but there is nothing like the personal experience.

Near the summit, I took this photo from one of the overlooks -- definitely not a Kansas "overlook."
After exiting the town of Parawon, the landscape changed dramatically to a very flat farming valley as I proceeded on State Hwy 21. I searched the first town I came to, Minersville, for a meal stop but found nothing and almost bypassed the only restaurant in the second town, Milford, because the parking lot was empty (it obviously didn't meet my "trucks" standard). But I was hungry and needed a restroom, so I pulled in. It turned out it was a lucky break to have stopped because the breakfast was delicious and the staff friendly. As I was the leaving, a cashier with smiling eyes cautioned me, when I explained my direction of travel, that "there's a whole lotta nothing that way." Indeed she was right, immediately upon leaving the restaurant I saw a sign that said "next services, 83 miles" and I was back onto Texas-like straight roads as I headed to Route 50, the so-called "Loneliest Road in America."

About 90 miles later, there was a Visitor's Center for the Great Basin National Park located where State Highway 21 meets Route 50. I briefly stopped there and enjoyed some interesting conversations with other visitors. I haven't decided whether it the fact that I'm traveling by motorcycle or just the fact that I'm alone that people seemed more willing to engage in conversation. Perhaps a little of both. I decided to forgo the one hour detour it would take to travel to the actual park and continued on the "Loneliest Road."

The "Loneliest Road" is rightfully named as there virtually no traffic and, but for a very few towns, nearly no houses or structures of any kind in sight. Just miles and miles a straight roads on desert landscape. Now I must explain that the road was NOT uninteresting nor lacking in beauty -- as it felt like I was traveling through a continuous series of large craters. But the straight riding does get monotonous regardless of the beauty of the scenery. By the time I had gone 225 miles through this "whole lotta nothing," I was in a small, run-down town of Eureka, Nevada where I found an acceptable motel for the night.