"That has to be the top...shit it isn't"

So we were a little rushed at the end of the last post and were not able to finish up with everything we wanted to say, but now we have time to get you all up to date on everything that has happened since entering into Nevada. On our first real night off in Carson City we decided to celebrate by going out to eat at a real classy establishment with grade A meat. We chose a combination of Wendy's and Taco Bell and it was delicious. After filling our faces with the very healthy food, we then walked back down to our hotel room to watch tv and relax, after a quick stop at the super market for a case of St. Pauli's Girl. We got back to our room, and all jumped onto the beds to relax and sip on some beers. I(Brian) mistakenly thought that we were there that night to sleep and recuperate, naturally falling asleep after 3 sips of my first beer (ya I am a light weight). It seems however that I was enjoying my sleep a little too much as my snoring was drowning out the sound of the tv, and I was made fun of and tormented for the rest of the night. PS Kara ate an entire octopus at a Chinese Buffet for $6 that she has yet to receive.... ya gross.

Anyways, back to the biking, the next day we rode from Carson City to Dayton, where we stayed at a camp ground. That night we made a fire, and cooked hotdogs. I dropped my first one in the fire, but don't worry we took it out and threw it in the campsite a few places over from us so that the bears and mountain lions would eat them instead of us. This night also marked the first night that Kara, J and I spent in our new tent, a very water tight tent, that we had just bought (sorry mom and dad if this breaks up our family).

We woke up the next morning at 6, and after fixing a flat tire on my bike, we headed towards Fallon, the site of the new Top Gun school. While riding past the school, yes be jealous G because pre-Scientology Tom Cruise zoomed by us in a leather jacket and aviators and gave us a nod, we were able to see a bunch of fighter jets flying around practicing. In just 3 hours, with a great tailwind, we were able to ride over 47 miles into Fallon. The ride was a great success and we even were able to cross another thing off of our bucket list.... getting pulled over by a cop on a bicycle. We were riding down the side of the road minding our own business, thinking that we were being very careful and safe, when a cop car zooms by us going the opposite direction. We were unfazed and continued to ride until Danny turns to us all and says, "Guys I think we are getting pulled over." We all turn around and the cop car that had just passed us was now behind us with its lights on. We all stopped and waited to see what was going on. A woman officer stepped out of the car with a big smile on her face and walked towards us. As she approached us she said, "yeah I know it is a first for me too." Apparently she had gotten a call from someone that was worried we were going to get hit and wanted her to pull us over to tell us to be careful. So she told us to be careful and talked to us for a few minutes about our trip and then sent us on our way. Once in Fallon, we took the afternoon off and relaxed in a park to get out of the heat. Then at around 6:30 we started riding again and rode until around 10:30 where we came upon the lovely town of Middlegate. And by town I mean a Bar/Motel/General Store surrounded by a collection of mobile homes and trailers housing 12 people, all being run by a very loud diesel generator because they don't have real power. They are "off the grid" as they put it. We got to the bar/motel/store and saw that all of the lights were off even though there was a collection of people that we could see in the bar. Seeing that there was nowhere else to go, Danny and I walked into the bar to pitch our story about our bike trip and see if they could accommodate us for the night. As we walked in and took in the scene, consisting of 5 old men and one older woman sitting around the dark bar listening to one man singing and playing the guitar, they all stopped and turned towards us. The one man behind the bar turned and said, "Are you guys from Mars" (we were still in our biking attire) and they all laughed....we just kind of stood there all awkward-like. After telling them what we were doing the man who owned the bar, Russ, took us to the side of the bar and showed us a place where we could stay. He then told us that after we finished putting up our tents that we should come back in and have a few drinks with them. We felt obligated to for him helping us out and all. So we put up our tents and then headed back into the bar not knowing what to expect. It ended up being one of the greatest nights so far. We spent the next 3-4 hours drinking and hanging out with the guys, who were 10x more drunk than could be imagined and heard all of their. Much of the entertainment came from a man named Greg, and just so you can get the picture, this is a very tall, lanky, man with a huge beard, very tight jeans on, and a cowboy hat who was having trouble standing up on his own at this point. But he was once a marine biologist, who spent 3 years in the Peace Corps, who now was a bartender in Middlegate doing god knows what. Well I guess getting drunk on Wednesday nights. But he told us about his time in the P.C. and other interesting stories like the time he hit a pig with his truck in Honduras or when his wife stabbed him in the back with a Ginsu Knife. Ya we thought he was joking too, but his now ex-wife legitimately stabbed him in the back with a knife, and he had the scar and the wrench used to pull the knife out to validate the story. What an odd night that was.

Before going on let me just fill you in on Nevada. It sucks! Our entire ride across Nevada was on Route 50, called the loneliest road in America, and for good reason, no one in their right mind would ever want to create an abode in that awful, dusty, windy, mountainous, terrible place. From Dayton here were the ONLY towns that were along Route 50. First, Austin (a 52 mile ride from Dayton). Then Eureka (64 miles from Austin). Ely (77 miles from Eureka), Baker (68 miles from Ely), and finally Millford (84 miles and across the Utah border). So these were the only places that we could stop for the past week to refill waters and food. All of these towns were extremely small, under 500 people mostly, and really had nothing to do in them except to eat or sleep, which was fine with us because we were all very tired. The ride across Nevada was very simple. Up a mountain into elevations between 6500 ft to 8000 ft, then down over 1000ft into a valley, across a basin, and then up a mountain again. This would be hard enough, but to top it off, every way we turned it seemed like the wind was blowing directly in our faces. Now we know why no one does the Western Express....it's hard.

Another cool story was our stay in Baker. Here we had heard that there was a restaurant that let bikers stay for free. So we went to the deli and asked the owner if we could stay behind his store. He said it was free as long as we ate at his place, which worked out very well for us. After cooking pesto chicken pasta for us, Terry(the owner) told us that it was movie night as well and he pulled down a huge projector screen on one of the walls and hooked up his projector screen that was mounted on the ceiling. We watched a French film, named La Vie en Rose, which was very good and made us feel very cultured and then we hit the sack after another long and hard day.

Also, in Millford, we again got attacked by sprinklers in the middle of night, while we were sleeping in a park. Our tent held up very well, and we did not get wet at all, we didn't even move our tent because we were too lazy to get up. Danny on the other hand, had a little more trouble dealing with the sneaky sprinklers and got pretty wet, and also could not fall asleep until the sprinklers went off at 4:30am.... that grass was really nice and fluffy though.

From Millford we rode another 56 miles to Cedar City, the first major city we have seen in over a week and decided to take a day off. Last night we sat around our hotel room and watched tv and relaxed, I wasn't the first one asleep this time because I was still scarred from my last attempt at trying to get a good nights sleep in a hotel. Just kidding, just kidding, well not about the falling asleep part, I really wasn't the first asleep, I swear, I meant about the being scarred for life thing and never...ever again being able to fall asleep and feel comfortable...thats only partially true. Today, we got lunch at Dairy Queen and had some delicious blizzard ice creams and then went to see The Happening, a little disappointed M. Night, and got mine and J's bikes tuned up. Tonights agenda consists of more sitting around, a visit to Little Caesar's, yeah that place really still exists, and then more sitting around and hanging out. Tomorrow we climb our first giant of a mountain at over 10,000 ft and we are all a little nervous. But the good news is we are 60% through the Western Express and still are feeling confident that we will be able to get to Long Beach Island by the first week in August.

More Lessons to be learned....
1. towns of less than 300 people do not have movie theaters (Danny got made fun of by a waitress for asking)
2. small towns have very interesting people that frequent them during the week (like Greg)
3. Still be weary of green and fluffy grass....those damn sprinklers are always hiding somewhere
4. Wind is the devil...just watch The Happening
5. The desert SUCKS... never, EVER, EVER come to live or visit, or stay for period of time longer than 12 seconds
6. Your butt may or not still hurt after 2 weeks of riding (perhaps even bleed... no names, but its a girl)
7. Southern Utah University in Cedar City does not have fun people (apparently they do NOTHING for fun, except for a Shakespeare festival held once every leap year)
8. Eating burgers, fries, and oreo milk shakes 6 times a day will result in extremely painful and hilarious amounts of bodily functions

Love,
Bruce Wayne (Me), Bruce Banner (J), Clark Kent (Danny), and Lois Lane (Kara)
-Don't feel too special dad that your name is on here twice...you are not that cool.