Day 2: Austin to Panaca via the Extraterrestrial Highway

No knows you’re crying when you’re in a helmet…

And alone, on a motorcycle, on a two lane blacktop, in the middle of nowhere, sliding through he landscape at 75 miles per hour.

After burning off the “getting started jitters” of yesterday, there was more space between my ears for thoughts. And thoughts there were. Lots of stuff surfaced on today’s ride. Lots of feels. Lots and lots and lots of feels.

I hit the road at 6:15am. I love that hour. There is a quality to the air that crisp, cool and quiet don’t adequately capture, but my brains too dizzy to come up with more. Leaving Austin wakes you up quickly as the Lincoln Highway climbs into the Toiyabe Forest and around Mt. Prometheus. My shuffle playlist must have recognized the need for a wake up call as it offered up Run DMC and Easy-E to kick things off.

On the other side of Mt. Prometheus, I descended into Big Smoky Valley and hung a right between two jagged lines of mountains. The contrast between mountain line and valley is stark and sudden. Turning into Big Smoky Valley is a newly paved, two-lane blacktop running straight down the valley for as far as I see. Finding myself here, in the middle of nowhere, on two-wheels alone felt crazy and ridiculous and audacious and awesome all at once. I giggled my way along for a bit and then reveled in the vastness of Nevada and the tininess of me zipping along this black ribbon in the valley.

At my morning coffee stop in Carvers, Nevada, a trickle of a cellular signal delivered a message from my husband. He is joining me on Monday for a few days of riding in Colorado. As some of you may have surmised from previous posts, I wasn’t in in California and on this road trip just for a vacation. I exited Massachusetts to escape my real world problems. My mother died last year, my midlife career change was stalled and my marriage was suffering. This reality break and trip was meant to be a reset.

As I pulled out of the gas station and back on to Highway 376, the gravity of our reunion after 9 weeks was suddenly overwhelming. I gushed with excitement and nervousness and then I gushed from my eyeballs.

The 100 miles of asphalt on Highway 376 saw my laughter, my awe and my tears. But now, the time of existential deep thinking was over and the time for extraterrestrial discovery was underfoot. By the way, I found myself pondering an awful lot about the highway crew that paints these far off roads. Double lines, broken lines, alternating lines all put in with a lot of thought for a roads that see only a few hundred vehicles a day.

I filled up at Tonopah, Nevada (which as I found out from an Austin local means ‘greasewood water’ in Shoshone). This is the last chance for gas along the Extraterrestrial Highway (Highway 375) for another 154 miles. As I was getting anywhere from 55 to 65 miles per gallon in my 2.96 gallon tank, I thought this might be the time I would tap into my spare tank. To be sure, I was going to keep myself to 69mph for the whole distance. Off to find little green men.

Over the entire 92 miles plus a stop at the Little Ale Inn (pronounced Little Alien), I found no aliens. Although, I did have a lovely BLT. There were cows, lots of cows. It’s open range here and there are cows. When I stopped to put on my cooling vest and a new bandana, a few might have mistaken me for an alien and started trotting my way. There were also Joshua Trees, lots and lots of Joshua Trees. Shout out to the History Chicks for keeping me company on this stretch with their Marie Curie Part I and Part II.

Not sure why aliens would have landed here, but it was worth the side trip anyway. I kept it at 60-65 mph and as I left Rachel, Nevada, my gas meter ticked down to the last dot with 40 miles to go. Part of me wanted to use the gas in that spare tank because I brought it so I could do something reckless like take off on a long stretch with no gas stations. The other part of me didn’t want to pull over and have to unload stuff to get to the tank.

In the end, I made it and managed an amazing 65 miles per gallon. Nice. At the Ash springs stop I met some fine travelers over ice cream. To Patrick, the Apache-Chippewa from New Mexico living in Vegas, if you are reading this, thank you for the new power adaptor. Your kindness warmed my heart as I headed off to Panaca.

This was a long day – 335 miles. I created new rituals around my gas stops and decided to make them longer. Take off the gloves and helmet, take off the backpack, grab a parking spot and take 20 minutes to walk around and stretch (toe touches, twists, ham stretch, wrist stretch). I also paid attention to posture and leg position. It paid off. My ass and lower back didn’t ache at the end of the day. I did leave my earplugs in a bathroom in Tonopah, so my brain is buzzy tonight. Another casualty – so far scoring one every day. Gotta stop that.

I felt good enough this evening to opt for an additional 25 miles to the dinner at the next town and a side trip to Cathedral Gorge State Park . Silver Cafe is a lovely little place, but I am ready for something other than gas station or diner food tomorrow night.

Now, off to bed with me. I am looking forward to this comfy bed at the Pine Tree BnB tonight.

Happy cooking and UFOing!