Rocked Us Like A Hurricane

Because today was a shorter ride, we got a later start. We rolled out of Tonopah around 9:30 a.m. It was 44 degrees so we bundled up and kept those layers on for most of the day.

Traveling through the high desert in the morning is beautiful. The sagebrush smells sweet and the colors are intensified. Cathy saw several groups do wild horses but couldn’t get a good picture because she had unknowingly changed a setting on the camera with her heavy gloves. We did get a picture of free range cattle.

The road was long, straight and lonely. We barely saw another car.

We ran into a construction delay on Highway 375, the Extraterrestrial Highway. This was an extended delay so we got off our bikes and struck up a conversation with a couple riding Yamaha FJRs. They were from Brunswick, Ontario, Canada. Both retired, Cindy and Larry are traveling without a set plan until mid-October when they’ll return home to beat the winter weather. They said they had seen us in Lee Vining and we noticed their bikes at the hotel in Tonopah. Today they were going to St. George which is just shy of our destination of Hurricane.

The pilot car arrived and we thought we’d seen the last of them. Not so, we saw them three more times. Once at the Little A’Le’ Inn, Tom’s desired destination. Area 51. Tom met up with some old friends… whatever. The locals fully embrace the extraterrestrial theme.

We stopped in Caliente for a light lunch and hit the road again. It started to get really windy. The landscape changed slightly with cactus and what Tom thought were Yucca plants and what Cathy thought were Joshua trees. We were both right, Joshua trees are Yuccas.

We stopped at the junction to stretch and saw Cindy and Larry at the gas station. Cindy said she look up the weather and the wind gusts were as high as 45 mph. It sure felt like it and even pushed us into the other lane a couple of times.

We started to see more agriculture as we neared St. George. The scenery was really pretty.

We passed Cindy and Larry for the last time. They were pulled off on the side of the road checking their maps. As we climbed the last summit before arriving in Hurricane, the rock formations and the red rocks offered stunning views.

As we waited to check in at our hotel, Tom struck up a conversation with a man from Australia. He works in the oil industry and was on holiday before going to Papua New Guinea. He was wary because he said the natives walk around with machetes so he must live on a secured compound.