Fallon, NV to Austin, NV

Today, I finished my first century ride, over a 100 miles, 110 to be exact. The same old usual morning. Woke up at 6 am, this time at an elementary library. Got ready and had the usual breakfast except we each had one poptart. Being in such a small town, it was pretty cool to see a few of the towns members we met yesterday wish us off.
We headed off and darted to Austin. My paceline consisted of Jon (RIT), Trent (U of Nebraska), and Brad (UNC), and man, we were rolling. I guess we all were pretty similar, as we all started cycling within the past year, but all of us were distant runners. We started the day as the second to last paceline but not much later, we became the second paceline. Before we knew it, we were done with 20 miles, then 40, then 60, and then 80 and had to stop for lunch. This is when things got considerably harder. Since we were ahead of most people, we had to wait for them to arrive at the lunch spot, thus my muscles tensed up a lot. After serving lunch, which was basically leftover meat from the day before, we headed out. The major problem was, that I destroyed that lunch. I probably ate in under 10 minutes. And when you eat so much right before cycling, it’s a guaranteed cramp. So I still had 30 miles to go, and man was it a struggle. After much delay we finally arrived at Austin.
So let me paint you a picture of how the scenery was today. For majority of the day, it was southwest desert. Plain mucky sand with random shrubs. Civilization ceased to exist here. After 30 may 40 miles later, we passed a phone booth, dubbed the loneliest phone booth in the world. Another 20 miles or so, we passed a Shoe Tree. Now, money trees may not exist, but I have pictures that an actual shoe tree exists. Basically, it was a random giant tree in the middle of nowhere when hundreds upon thousands of shoes. Besides that, there was nothing much in Nevada. It was so plain that I could see cars miles away…the road was ridiculously flat for majority of the ride. To entertain ourselves, we played a little golf during the crew stops. Once we arrived at Austin, we saw why no one really lives there. It was basically a ghost town. I would imagine there were a total of 100 people living there, but there was so many abandoned wooden shops, kind of like a western, or a shut down Connor Prairie. Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty school to see this side of America, but man, was it empty.
After we arrived, we went straight to lodging. Today, we stayed at town hall, which kind of gives an idea of how small this town was. Once we arrived, we had to take a van to the public pool to take a shower.
For dinner, we were taken to a picnic area. We were presented with a home cooked meal from a Lady rotary club. I didn’t really understand who they were, but they donated a meal from the goodness of their hearts, which was really nice. The food was delicious. It was a lot like thanksgiving as there was turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and mash potatoes. They also made strawberry shortcake. After dinner we were surprised by a stop at a ice cream parlor. The project manager, Drayton Perkins, keep the JOH tradition alive by giving all of us milkshakes because of our accomplishment for our first century ride. We returned back to town hall for a good nights sleep.
Before I end this entry, I wanted to wish my Dad a happy Father’s day. There’s no way I would be going to my dream school if he didn’t push me, and there no way I would be doing Journey of Hope if he didn’t give his encouragement every step of the way. Thanks Dad (and also Mom too).