Virginia City, NV 43.5 km

Here we are back in Virginia City for the second consecutive year. If you check last year's blog our visit was truncated by a flat tire thus we felt a bit cheated and decided to return to "finish the job".

The weather continues to be gorgeous - cloudless skies- as we wound our way up the mountain from Reno. I had to tear Norma away because she hit a jackpot last night! For once she was up over $600!

Virginia City is, of course, a historic mining town from the 1800s, with a lot of restored buildings, etc. A little more commercialized than our Ft. Steele, but the same idea so we got a lot of walking in today.


We spent a bit of time in the restored catholic church, complete with museum and the "mad monk's room".

The town itself is interesting to walk through with many shops, some of period design. The was the candy shop - these are barrels of some of the old favorites from our childhood - and the Christmas shop - take a ride on an antique Rudolph! The lady offered to take a picture of Doug on him but we knew Doug was a little too big).

 

As we were walking around we did see a sign indicating an ecologically sensitive area. Not sure what it was referring to, the old Dodge truck front or the trees behind!

Tonight we had a very good Mexican dinner at the same restaurant our hosts took us to last year and as a thank you we gave them a jar of huckleberry jam we had managed to bring safely from home.


Reno, NV 359 km

A beautiful riding day though the high Nevada desert.

Prior to leaving  Winnemucca Doug chatted with a couple from Nashville who were in the process of completing their tour of all 48 states (just CA, OR, WA and ID left to do). He asked if they were going to include Alaska but they told him they were too old - they looked to be in their late 40's -so what does that make us? We were in our 60's when we did it!

Nashville couple packing up

By the way, Winnemucca was named after a Paiute chief who was only wearing one moccasin when some traders met him. They called him "one a-much-a" after the native word for moccasin. He liked the name so he kept it. So there you have some local history (whether you wanted it or not). No luck in the gambling department for either of us last night.

On our way from Winnemucca to Reno we stopped at the home of Ian and Juanita who helped us out last year when we were stuck in the desert with a flat tire (see last year's blog entry of  June 13). Unfortunately they were not home (although the dogs were in their run so they could not have been too far) so we left a card, some BC wine and a jar of Norma's huckleberry jam. We really appreciated their hospitality and have thought about their generosity many times. Too bad we didn't get to speak with them again.

We were both pretty warm when we arrived in Reno at the Peppermill Resort. Once again the valet parking guys wouldn't deal with Raindancer (we like to tease them about that). When we arrived at the room, the key cards were not functioning (always a nuisance) and upon gaining entry we were met with a snack tray with warning signs on it.



 

Needless to say we were not about to work around this electronic trap, so told them to do something about it. Which they did:

We plan to try out the casino after dinner - wish us luck!

Winnemucca, NV - 421 km

Woke to a very rainy morning. Decided to wait it out and that was worth it as the skies cleared and large areas of blue sky appeared. We did end up putting on the rain gear for a short while but it worked to chase the rain away. Experienced some gusty crosswinds at times today as well - not surprising in this sagebrush desert.

Rain gear finally OFF!

There certainly has been ample evidence of the wet weather this area has been having. The precipitation appears to have been of the solid form at higher elevations!

Fresh snow.

Stopped and looked at all the different flowers blooming in this area after the rain they have had. Amazing opportunistic plants that flower quickly after the rains then shrivel up to await the next watering.


Desert opportunist

Ontario, OR 537 km

Today was cool, cloudy and showery necessitating rain gear most of the day - well off and on and off and on again as the day progressed. In spite of that this morning's ride along Idaho's Salmon River was very enjoyable as always (Hwy 95 between Grangeville and Riggins is on our top 10 motorcycling roads list).

The river is VERY busy with fishermen this time of the year. It seemed like every fishable stretch had 2 or 3 boats on it! There are even port-a-potties lining the bank.

This is a very nice part of the world. Even the rest stops provide free doggie water dishes- or so Doug thinks! Actually some poor puppy is going to be waterless at the next stop.

Our stop for the night is in Ontario, OR. We seem to have lost an hour in the process of today's travel so after getting settled in a motel we set out in search of a restaurant to save time (instead of preparing our own). Lo and behold, just down the street is the "Number 1 China Buffet - All You Can Eat". With such a tantalizing name, how could we resist (even though we were worried that our motorcycling attire may have been inappropriate at such a high class epicurean establishment)?

Here is Norma to tell you what we found: What a feast. The young girl (said she was 15 - still growing and astonished at Doug's height) told us there were 46 hot dishes and numerous more cold dishes. She was right. We were very impressed and left not having sampled half of what was available and for a mere $9.80 each. We soon realized why it was so busy on a non-descript Tuesday evening!

Worley, ID 310 km

We decided to take advantage of the sunshine and leave in the early afternoon right after Doug's root canal. Besides, riding a motorcycle is a good way to distract one from dental postoperative effects. In addition any persistent drool immediately dries up in the wind!

It was a cool riding afternoon with a short shower in Ymir and many other rain squalls just missing us along the way. The traffic was surprisingly light given that today is the US Memorial Day. Perhaps the weather kept the long weekenders at home.

So tonight we find ourselves at the Coeur D'Alene Casino as the rain is now coming down  purposefully. Hopefully tomorrow will not be a repeat of last year's ride as we only made it to Grangeville the second day.