Day 37: California Dreaming

July 16, 2014

We made it. Leo's last state. And although we still have a few hills to climb I feel like I'm pretty much home.

Still, it wasn't an easy day getting here. Neither one of us enjoyed the ride from Dayton to Carson City, what with the traffic and all, though we did get a chance to stop at the railway museum. We're both railroad buffs you know.

A French box car used during the both world wars. This one was given to the U.S. in gratitude for our help in said wars.

After the railway museum we moved west, and ran across a bunch of fire fighters!

A wild land fire had started the night before after a lightning strike. These firefighters were just starting to set up a command post. We got there just as the porta potties arrived.

The crews were up on the mountain fighting the fire.

From there we headed to Genoa and just happened to run across a brand new brush fire, just southwest of Carson City. It looked like they just started staging their camp at a local school and there were helicopters flying buckets of water over from a local pond/lake. But we moved on, not being able to help much with the fires...

Things were pretty much fine 'till we reached the border, and all hell broke loose again, rain/lightning wise. So we rode about a mile in the rain past the border and spotted a really nice farm near the side of the road. We headed that way and set out bikes down near the garage and I headed over to the house to see if anyone was home.

The farmer saw us roll in and came out to great us.

"Sure, you can stay here," he said with a smile. "In fact, I'll stay out here too," he said. And we sat on the front porch for the better part of 30 minutes talking to a cattle ranger.

"My great grandfather moved here in the mid-1800's," he said. "My family has been here ever since."

Of course having Leo, and that crazy accent of his, is always a conversation starter. And we were having such a nice time that it didn't seem like much time had passed before the rain had stopped, the sun was out, and we were ready to set off.

We rode 5-miles towards Carson Pass, which we will tackle in the morning, and are camped at a small forest service campground.

All in all it wasn't a bad day.

Today's ride: 58 miles (93 km)
Total: 2,253 miles (3,626 km)

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