Roughly June 23-28, 2009:
I fitted Eli to ride on the Giant on a Monday evening. The next day we arranged supplies, mostly foraging through Flipside leftovers. By Wednesday we were ready to ride south on Highway 395, hugging the Eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range all the way to Yosemite.
It was Eli’s first significant bicycle trip. It was also, I assume, the first time Eli rode a bike more than 15 miles. He was fearless; partially because he didn’t know any better and partially because, well, he’s Eli.
Departing from my Dad’s house in Northwest Reno we made our way across the Truckee Meadows Valley and into Washoe Valley. The scenic detour around Bower’s Mansion was calm and void of traffic. We traveled light because we only had one trailer, and made incredible time all things considered. As we stopped to have a quick drink on the southern end of Washoe Valley, I snapped a quick photo of a forlorn street sign that would come to represent the trip in its entirety: “Lonesome Polecat Road.”
I have done the Carson Loop and the Washoe Valley loop more often than I can count, both with Brandyn and alone, but the route we took to bypass the craziness of Carson City was one I had never taken before. A small two-lane bikeway skirted along the foothills of the Sierras, overlooking Carson City and the Nevada legislature.
We stopped for dinner in Gardnerville or Minden; I don’t remember which it was. I honestly can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. After dinner, things started to unravel a bit. I took off too quickly through town and lost sight of Eli. When I ran into a gas station to use the bathroom for no more than a minute flat, he managed to ride past me and out of view. I came out, looked in front and in back of me, and couldn’t see him.
Figuring he was lost, I rode back through town looking for him. Mindenerville is little more than a bulge in the otherwise slim Highway 395, bringing it out on either side for the town limits but not really leading anywhere, so I figured he couldn’t have gone too far. He was nowhere to be found.
I asked people walking, and the restaurant employees, and anyone I could if they had seen a neon shirt ride by. No one had seen him since we took off together. My blood pressure began to creep up, until I finally had to text Sam; “I lost Eli.”
With a gravitas I had only seen previously in The Shawshank Redemption, a torrential rain suddenly poured down from the Heavens. Eli had absolutely no gear with him, and had just put his cell phone into my bag for safe keeping. He had his clothes, his Ipod, his bicycle, and a piecemeal knowledge of survival techniques gathered primarily from The Lord of the Rings. I grew more anxious with each passing moment.
I finally managed to wave down a construction worker who loaded my bicycle into the back and drove me up the hill that led South out of town. Finally, to my relief, I saw Eli on the side of the road walking his bike. Tired from the long day's haul, we pulled off and made camp just off the road.
The next morning we rode into Topaz and ate a hearty breakfast at the Topaz Lodge after being sternly warned not to scratch the tile floor with our shoes. After the regular 12 cups of coffee and huge portions, we were ready to ride on. Riding with a full stomach, a full water bottle, and a happy heart is the only way to bicycle tour.
The weather throughout the day varied as the topography of the Sierras to our right varied. When they reached high into the heavens, they allowed for clouds to build up and sprinkle rain onto us. When the range would again fall back towards the valley, the sky would lighten and warm our backs. All you really needed was a light waterproof jacket to zip or unzip.
About 30 miles north of Bridgeport, it began to rain harder. I stopped with Eli and told him it would be best to get his rainproof coat out of his bag, an article of clothing I had specifically listed on my packing list. He agreed and fished a long sleeved T-shirt out of his bag. I waited for a moment to grab his jacket, but he indicated that he was ready to continue riding. I waited for a moment to see if he would get out his jacket. It was then that I realized that the long sleeved shirt was his jacket, or at least what he had packed in case of bad weather.
I hoped for the best from the weather, knowing that the long sleeved shirt wouldn't do much if the rain picked up. The rain did pick up, and began pouring buckets as lightning splintered the sky all around us, followed almost immediately by deafening thunder. I was getting cold, and Eli looked frozen. He yelled at me through the hurricane that we would have to stop and make camp where we were, because he "WAS GOING TO CATCH PNEUMONIA!!"
The valley was steep on both sides of the road, and without supplies the camping would be miserable. I told him we'd have to keep moving to find a better place. With a look on his face like he wanted to rip me off my bike and pummel me for suggesting this trip, Eli turned up his IPod and trudged onward.
We arrived in Bridgeport frozen stiff. The first store we saw had a "Free Coffee" sign in the window, and we immediately took advantage of this. While in the store we asked about camping in the area, and a kind gentleman on a fishing trip gave us a ride up to his campground just north of town. The campground had warm showers and a community cabin where we played chess, ate our dinner, and were generally thankful to be out of the cold for a moment. That night we had a fire near our tent before sleeping soundly in a grassy field.
The next morning we stopped back in Bridgeport for coffee at the "Pony Espresso" and then continued on to Lee Vining, a small town on the eastern edge of Yosemite. We spent most of the afternoon people watching and resting at a gas station before ascending the first few miles of Tioga Pass to camp.
The next day, our last day of riding for the trip, was the soul-wrenching climb up Tioga Pass. Cars whizzed by on the skinny two-lane road that had been precariously dynamited into the side of the steep valley wall. Every few miles a huge boulder lay in the middle of the road as an ominous reminder that timing was everything on this climb, and that your helmet wouldn't do much good if one of these monoliths decided to pry itself loose as you rode by below at the wrong moment.
We reached Ellery Lake and spent the day at the Tioga Pass Resort, watching unhappy children who had been dragged on a sightseeing voyage by their parents and wealthy motorcycle tourists come and go. We narrated their stories to pass the time, talking amongst ourselves about what the downtrodden offspring must be thinking.
We desperately needed to bathe and make some effort to wash our acrid cycling jerseys that clung to us with residual sweat. As we tried to wash off in an icy creek that resulted from snow run off, I slipped and nearly lost every item of clothing I had brought with me. Luckily, Eli was able to collect the items as I howled and half rolled, half ran down the creek bed after my belongings.
The following day Laura arrived and the three of us drove into the Yosemite Valley to hike Half Dome. This is usually a day-long trek for people starting at 6 AM, and we were starting at around 11:30. I lead the Death March to the summit, and we arrived back at the car shortly after nightfall. Eli had his IPod in for the final three hours, and I was hesitant to shake him from his comatose state. Both Laura and Eli fell asleep almost immediately when we got back to the car, and I listened to a Neil Young Album alone as I watched the sun set for the second time that day: our drive out of the Valley allowed it to barely re-emerge before we got back to camp.
I was a little embarrassed to have Laura sleep in our tent, which three days earlier Eli had claimed “smelled like dog.” To say the tent smelled like dog is an insult to dogs, even very smelly ones. But we were all ready to sleep and promptly passed out after the long day. The next day I climbed with Laura for a while and Eli explored more of Tioga Pass.
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