America By Bicycle: Caliente, NV to somewhere on the side of the road, NV

We slept in until 7 this morning (I can't believe I'm calling that sleeping in), and started right away with a climb.

Oh, and for those of you who are worried about Alec's gross, infected looking cut from the last post, don't worry. We cleaned it well. We decided it probably should not be green.... So I scraped off the infected, scabbing, green part (much to his dismay) and it is looking much, much better.

Anyway, we started with a climb. About 1800 feet and 10 miles, not too bad. It took an hour and a half to get to the top. Basically, Nevada has mountain ranges, or lines of mountains, that run north-south. So it's basically, mountain, basin, mountain, basin, mountain, basin, a bunch of times. It's kind of a more barren Pennsylvania. We climbed three mountains of similar size today. Well actually, the second mountain we didn't even know was there until we saw a summit sign. But really, it was flat or downhill all the way to the "summit". Pretty funny...

All the signs for cattle in Nevada are pictures of bulls instead of cows, like the signs we've seen everywhere else. Apparently the cattle here have more brawn and toughness than cattle in other states. They have to eat rough, shrubby bushes instead of grass, so I believe it.

Also, notice that the sky is overcast. What. We are in the desert. Where is the sun?! It even sprinkled on us for a little bit. Crazy! It was dark, overcast, and cool. So much so that Alec thought it was 4 pm at noon. He lit up when I told him the actual time -- before I told him he was ready to call it a day and average 45 miles for the next three days. I vetoed that idea. Later he said he had had a case of Seasonal Affective Disorder! At 2 pm it was 75 (that's really not normal for the desert of Nevada). It was great. About an hour before we stopped riding the sun came out and the temperature went up 13 degrees to 89. Which is still pretty cool for the desert sun.

And we got on the Extraterrestrial Highway! There were also these trees that were probably 50 times taller than the rest of the cactus-trees that were all around. Confusing.

On our way up the third climb we saw a car pulled over up ahead and a guy on the side of the road. We thought for sure he was looking for aliens, but he was a geo-cacher. Apparently there are over 1500 caches on the Extraterrestrial Highway. So he would get out about every 20 feet, find one, get back in the car, drive 20 feet, get out, find one, and repeat 1498 more times..! He was a really nice guy and talked to us for a minute.

And we're headed into nowhere...

There was also a sign that said free range cattle next 110 miles. Where are we?!

And after another 1800 foot 10 mile climb we were at another summit.

This sign, and every single road sign we've passed lately, has had a ton of bullet holes in them. It must be a game to drive by and see if you can shoot the road sign. I don't blame them, there's not much else to do out here besides shoot guns at road signs, see how fast your car can go on the straight flat roads in the basins, and search for aliens.

And I took this panorama while moving, so it's a little odd.

And we called it a day and slept on the side of the road. We could have slept in the middle of the road though because there are almost no cars at all.