Ely--> Border Inn (65 mi.)
As some of you surely noticed on our GPS tracker, today it appears as though we struck the border of Utah and promptly collapsed on the ground. It's not an incorrect summary. I won't bore you with the usual story: wind makes me sangry (Sean's coinage: sad + angry)...there isn't water in the desert...mountains are cool, but not if they're dry and you have to climb them repeatedly all to end up at the same exact elevation you started at...
Infinitely more interesting than the play-by-play of our cycling is our destination, the Border Inn. Not only is it located on the border, but it's a perfect symbiotic (see? I know Science, too) relationship between the states of Nevada and Utah. On the Nevada side: casino and liquor. On the Utah side: cheap gas prices and the hotel. The switch between Mountain Time and Pacific Time, which occurs on the border, made the exchanges even more fun--it took us a few minutes to figure out where our cell phones were set to, what time to wake up, what time the breakfast place openede, and what time we would actually be on the road in Utah. I excuse myself from the mathematical discussions in hopes of a later wake up time.
Such a peculiar location yielded a few unique specimens. Among them was a man who we had heard about back in Middlegate. He started bicycling in Europe and headed East, traveling as much of the world by bike as possible. While we think ourselves to be somewhat adventurous, we all agreed there is a line and that trip is far, far past it. We saw him in the gas station at the border--he was a little haggard and seemed like he did not want to talk, so we obliged his demeanor. In better news, we saw our merry friend Dave on the road again. He had planted a few signs along the road that we had missed, but we were happy to see him again and have another good conversation. He's cutting his usual long trip down to a premature ending in Delta, but we remain impressed all the same.
Very punny,
Nate
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