I'm a horrible writer so I brought Elisa along to write everything down. Yay. You are saved, you're welcome.

The next day we awoke in our comfy bed and reluctantly got ready for a new daunting stage of the trip - the Great Basin.... We knew that this section had the potential to be truly miserable depending on the winds but we were optimistic. We packed up and ate some breakfast foods, securing our chocolate chip cookie dough bites into our snack bags, ensuring we would have yummy fuel for later. Pushing off, we headed north out of town and biked along a noisy and ugly highway for a while. After a large hill, we pulled off to the left and truly entered the Great Basin. Almost immediately there was nothing. Nothing to look at for miles on either side and as far as the eye could see straight ahead. We bopped along the road and saw only one car but many cows. The sheer nothingness was hard to look at sometimes.

We rode side by side because we couldn’t see any traffic for miles out and I began to hear something funny coming from Ziven’s wheel. Trying to pinpoint the sound, we rode another mile or so before he stopped and we looked at his rear tire. It has strange bulges that cause it to hit and rub against the frame. These blisters were funky and neither of us knew what to do. Luckily we had a bit of service and I was able to google the symptoms of this particular tire, finding it semi common. I also located several remedies and Ziven bravely took a knife to his tire while we sat in the middle of the road with nothing around for 20 miles on one side and 80 miles in on the other. He successfully “burped” the little blisters and we continued on throughout the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Nothing noteworthy happened until we turned off route for a quick jaunt to a reservoir that our various sources had identified as one of two reliable water sources in the basin. Not wanting to skip on refilling our water bladders, we took the road and passed some cows to a small reservoir where a lone man was fishing the small, clear, lake. We filtered water and admired the tiny fish that loitered about in the shallows. We backtracked to rejoin our official route and tromped up and down some rolling hills until it came time to start looking for campsites. We rode fairly late into the evening and came across a small stream that was not on our list of water sources and also boasted a nice flat grassy area. We decided this spot was ideal and started setting up the tent in the evening sun. The figure of a hiker that we had passed earlier cropped up again and we exchanged greetings while she filtered water and headed north into the sunset.

After clearing our area of old dried cow patties and securing our tent, we set about making dinner until we were interrupted by the appearance of a biker named Dom. He was so enthusiastic about the fantastic weather and lack of wind that he was going to bike into the darkness but he was so happy to see other folks out and about and we chatted for a while before he continued on. We finished our dinner and settled into the night, comforted by the gentle sound of running water and the absence of any wind.

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