Eureka, NV to Ely, NV

Today, we woke up at 6 and had the similar morning. Packed up, breakfast, bike maintenance, and got ready to leave. I’m starting to lose track of the days, I had no idea it was Tuesday or even that it was June. I think that’s a good thing.

We started to head out, past the first summit with little ease. I was feeling real good about today. I got to say, I’m getting a little sick of the Nevada scenery, it literally never changes for miles. With that in mind, I have a ton of time to think, usually about nothing. Soon, I was 40 miles deep, past the second and third summit, piece of cake (it was actually called “the pancake summit” ironically). We were told that we weren’t far from lunch, so I stopped snacking on clif bars…I bad idea. Lunch was on top of the fourth summit. I end up bonking and struggled to get to the top of the last summit. For those non-cyclists out there, bonking is term for when the body stops feeding off of carbs for energy and starts feeding off a fat. This sounds good, but it actually really bad. Energy from carbs burn faster, and thus, give you more energy quicker. Thus, when you bonk, you feel really sluggish. After 20 minutes of bonking, we finally made it up the last summit. Then, we stopped for lunch, my Achilles heel. I tried not to eat a big lunch, but I was starving and couldn’t help myself. Luckily, the rest of the ride wasn’t too bad, it was actually downhill for the most part. We arrived at lodging, which was at a high school gym (White Pine High). Ely was actually a nice town. It was pretty small, about the same size of Fallon. It didn’t have much, but it did have a Meijer-esq grocery store and a mcdonalds, so not exact the biggest destination by any means.

After we showered up, we got ready for dinner. Dinner today was an empathy dinner with the student council of the high school. Basicallly, an empathy dinner is when part the table simulates people with disabilities and the other part helps those. Thus, someone simulated blindness, while someone simulated being mute, etc. I was the “helper” but it was a pretty cool experience. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it was pretty impactful of an exercise.

After dinner, we just hung out at the gym, playing a little b-ball and volleyball. A few of us made a run for the Laundromat and Micky D’s. A pretty uneventful evening, which is a good thing, cause I’m pretty tired, 80 miles does a toll on ya. Until tomorrow…