Nevada Counties - Day 3

At 6:00 a.m. and with a worried mind I pulled onto the Interstate heading for Fernley, NV, with faint hope the motorcycle shop there would be open on a Monday.  On the way I picked up three caches for Churchill County.  I pulled off the Interstate at Fernley into one of the typical commercial areas you see next to an Interstate exit.  The only thing that appeared to be open at that time of the morning was a big Walgreen store.  A man at the photo center who apparently was a motorcyclist too was very helpful.  He knew right off that the motorcycle shop was closed on Mondays.  However, he had a phone book for the Reno-Sparks area and the first shop with a big ad that I called was open.  It was a KTM shop but they had tires in stock that would fit my Triumph Street Triple R.  It was about 45 miles away but it would take me off my planned route.  At that point it was the least of my concerns.

I did make it to the shop and got my new tire paying only about twice as much as I would have if I had removed the wheel myself as I usually do and had one of the new ones sitting in my shop in town installed.  Hey, I’m not complaining though.  At that point the sun was shinning, I was safe and I was a happy cacher again.  I was feeling so good I called the motel in Tonopah and reinstated my reservation.

As mentioned earlier I was now off my route which had called for turning north at Wadsworth to see Pyramid Lake and get Washoe County.  It was a loop up to the lake and back down to Reno.  Since I was at approximately where the loop ended I decided to go in reverse but just do half the loop and double back to Reno where my planned route would take me south.  That way I would get to see the lake and also take care of Washoe County.  It would mean that I would miss four caches planned for Lyon County but I had two more chances later where my route would again cross into the county.  Due to time constraints it was a risk I felt I had to take.

I made the trip to Pyramid Lake and found a couple of caches and had one DNF.  The lake was beautiful and I had lunch there.  After lunch I retraced my route back to Reno and then headed to Carson City.

On the way to Carson City I went over the Geiger Summit in Storey County and got a couple of nice off road caches along the way.  Both caches required some hiking, one being a pretty good little climb.  One cache description noted that the cache was under something you don’t see much in Nevada – trees.  This was a good motorcycling road with lots of curves and beautiful views.

Carson City is the capital of Nevada and I encountered the most traffic by far to date.  As I was traveling through town in the far left lane of a four lane road I suddenly felt my rear wheel grab and bring me to a stop.  I immediately thought the wheel seal on the newly installed tire had broken and that I had a flat.  I tried to pull more to the side of the road but it wouldn’t budge.  I got off my bike and found that my bag had come off the back and had been sucked up between the wheel and frame.  A man behind me had seen the incident and stopped with his hazard lights blinking to block the traffic behind me.  He got out and helped me extract the bag and get it to the far right side of the road.  I don’t know why this happened unless part of some overpants or a shirt that I had bungeed to the bag may have gotten caught in the wheel and pulled the whole works down.  It had gotten so hot that I had taken those off.  Fortunately there was a little mall just across the street with a True Value Hardware store.  My bag was pretty severely damaged but the grommets that held the bungees in place were still in tact so I bought a package of bungees from the hardware store and was able to made repairs.

I continued picking up three more counties but I was concerned about Lyon County because I had only two chances to get a cache having missed the earlier opportunities due to the tire purchase detour.  To get the first one meant I would have to slightly reverse my direction and head to Yerington which was northeast.  First I had to get through the tourist town of Virginia City.  Of course there was lots of traffic there.  My route out of Virginia City was down highway 395 to highway 208 where I would turn left going up to Yerington.  However, just out of town there was a flashing sign saying the road was closed Mon-Thur from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was just after 2:00 and I was already way behind schedule.  I found a man nearby and he showed me the truck route which solved that problem.

There continued to be a lot of traffic and my GPSr seemed to be acting a little crazy in giving me directions to the cache in Yerington.  Finally I came to a sign that said “Mono County”.  There is no Mono County in Nevada.  I was entering California!  Well, it’s not quite as bad as it sounds.  I had missed the turn to Yerington just a few miles back and that had confused my GPSr somewhat.

Oh, did I fail to mention that the wind had picked up to almost gale force?  Well, at least for the 15 or 20 miles to Yerington it was mostly at my back and that was nice.  It was about 5:00 p.m. when I got to Yerington and the cache was a micro with a hint that wasn’t helpful.  I looked for a long time with no luck so there was nothing to do but give up and hope I could find the last one on my list.  It was about 20 miles down the road just inside the county line.  It required a hike up a hill of about .2 of a mile but it was nice to get off the bike for a while.  I was so grateful to find the “Horned Toad Hideout” that I left my only Travel Bug there.  It was a neat cache.

As I reached Walker Lake north of Hawthorn the wind was UNBELIEVABLE.  I stopped for gas at a lonely gas station and proceeded south still hoping to make Tonopah that night.  The wind was a gusty cross wind from the west and many times would knock me almost all the way over to the other lane.  I’ve never been more scared on a motorcycle.  After 4 or 5 miles it occurred to me that it was unlikely that my bag could stay on in that wind.  I reached back and, sure enough, it was gone.  I turned around and slowly made my way back to the gas station looking for the bag.  The wind was blowing so hard I figured the only thing that would stop the bag was a fence.  No luck, so I parked at the station behind an 18 wheeler for a little shelter.  I got off my bike and there the bag was hanging off the back.  You can’t believe how relieved I was.

After reattaching my bag and taking a rest in the convenience store I slowly preceded again.  I even got passed by a truck pulling a horse trailer.  Even though it was getting dark I made three stops along the lake shore to get the caches in Mineral County.  I knew at this point there was no way I was going to make Tonopah.

I did make Hawthorn at 9:00 p.m. and got a motel there.  I called the motel in Tonopah and explained my situation and they were very understanding and didn’t charge me.  I was bloodied but not beaten.  (To be continued)  M/W