Day 4 – Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Ely, NV to Oakhurst, CA – 412 miles
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The map above was not the original route I had planned for this day. We were supposed to ride the official Loneliest Road in America, the section of US 50 between Ely and Carson City. Plans changed. We got up at the usual time and I Skyped with my daughter first thing in the morning. She was busy playing, so she didn’t pay me much attention. But, it helped having Grandpa jump around in the background.
I then took a picture out the window; it looked a little cool out there.
After that I went downstairs and loaded up my stuff. I turned my key in the ignition to unlock the bars and when did my display went crazy on the engine temp side. Uh-oh. I turned it off and then back on again and it did nothing. Hit the starter key and nothing. The temps were in the 40s, so I thought it may have just been the cold. We were on a slight downhill, so I had Brett and Dad push me down the road. I bump started it and it fired. I tried to ride it around the block but I could barely give it any gas and the display was giving me a transponder error. I sputtered around the block and parked it on the side of the hotel. I tried to just let it run but it quickly died.
My Connie was hurt and so was I. How did I handle it, probably not so good. LOL! I got a tad snippy with Dad and Brett, but eventually pulled it together. I went inside to ask if there was an auto parts store in town. There was and they gave me directions. I got on dad’s bike and rode to the Parts Plus. They had a battery that fit my bike, the only problem was it needed to be filled and charged, which they said would take 12 hours. The battery that didn’t need charging was out of stock, but there was a smaller battery available. I asked the lady if there was another auto parts store in town and she said, “you’re in the middle of nowhere, you’re lucky we’re here.” But then she did say there was a NAPA right up the road. I told them I may or may not be back, depending on what I found at NAPA. The guy at NAPA was really helpful, but they didn’t have anything for me in stock. So I headed back to the Parts Plus and ended up buying the smaller battery that was ready to go. I was going to take my chances with it. $78.54 Later I was headed back to the hotel.
The whole time this was going on it was getting colder outside. I got back, pulled out my tools and started working on swapping the batteries out. As I was doing this, two guys on Harleys took off and headed down US 50 the way we planned on going. 10-15 minutes later they came back to the hotel. They were freezing and said they ran into a big snow storm right up the road. Holy smokes! They were headed to Yosemite as well and pulled out their map. They decided to wait a little while and take a more southerly route. As I was still working on the battery swap, it started snowing at the hotel. (Photo courtesy of Dad)
My old battery had a ton of corrosion on the positive terminal which couldn’t have helped it. I got everything connected and she fired right up with the smaller battery. Nice, I was able to shave a couple pounds off my load. All it would need to do is get me home and I could replace it at a later date. As I buttoned the bike back up, we decided to wait out the weather and then take the southern route that the Harley guys had discussed earlier, which was US 6, to Yosemite.
We went back upstairs and I took another picture from our room. It looks a bit different than earlier.
As we waited out the storm, we went back to the restaurant downstairs and ate breakfast. The food was good and the hot chocolate hit the spot.
My dead battery may have been a blessing. We probably would have been caught in the snow storm, and knowing us, we most likely wouldn’t have turned around. We ended up leaving town at 11:30 Pacific time. We filled up first and talked to a BMW guy who had just rode through US 50 the way we had originally wanted to go. He said it wasn’t that bad, but he also had heated grips and liners. Me on the other hand, I had left my liners at home (on accident) so I was working with full mesh gear. I did put my rain suit on to hopefully break the wind chill. We headed Southwest on US 6, taking the shortest route to Yosemite since we were getting a late start. It didn't take us long to realize that no one lives in Nevada. We took a short break here in the middle of nowhere.
I had planned on taking some pictures of us like the ones below on US 50, but US 6 was a good alternative.
And courtesy of Brett and the Yashica.
We measured from where we took the pictures above to the end of the road we could see was 15 miles. 15 Straight miles. US 6 consisted of going over a mountain range and then 15-20 straight miles between the next range. We did this for hours. The dust devils did give us something esle to look at. Each valley seemed to have anywhere between 5 and 10 of them running about. One specific one I was narrowly able to avoid, Brett got hit by a little of it, and Dad got blasted by it.
Today was still windy, but the crosswind was out of the North instead of the South, like yesterday. For some reason being blown to the left didn’t bother me as much as the right. Dad felt the opposite way. It was really bothering him today. With the wind I was once again getting horrible gas mileage, sometimes in the low 20s. On the first leg of today I thought there was a good chance of me running out. My low fuel warning like was flashing for about 15 miles as we pulled into Tonopah. We filled up and took a break, making sure the GPS was taking us the shortest way to our reserved hotel room.
US 6 was more of the same on the other side of Tonopah. Mountain pass, 15 straight miles, mountain pass, repeat. The road finally started to change a bit once we got close to the California border.
A couple miles up the road was the California sign. Dad wanted to stop and get a picture of his bike with it. What a bute of a sign.
After crossing into California we turned onto CA 120. The road and scenery immediately changed. It doesn’t look like much on the map, but it had some good curves and also a section that had humps in it like a rollercoaster. Many times I had to slow way down going over a hump because I had no idea what may have been on the other side. We’re cruising over the humps and then run into this guy.
He said it was going to about a 15 minute wait until the “follow me” truck arrived. So, the above scene turned into this (Photo courtesy of Brett):
The guy was actually really cool to talk to. He had some good stories to tell and kept us entertained during the wait.
When the truck finally came we followed it for a mile or two, but the next 10 miles was under construction with grated pavement. Once we cleared that we got on the gas as the road surface turned into a race track. The ride downhill with the view of Mono Lake was nice. We continued on CA 120 as it joined US 395 and stopped to get gas at the station on the start Tioga Pass Road. The price of premium was $5.29 a gallon. Youch! You could still see Mono Lake from the station. I guess there was a premium for the view.
It was getting later in the day and the sun was at the top of the mountains. I told the guys I didn’t plan on stopping anywhere in the park, we were going to ride straight through. After all, we’d be riding it the opposite way tomorrow and spending the whole day in the park. We were only riding through it today to get to the hotel as this was not the planned route.
As we climbed up Tioga Pass Road going west I was immediately in awe. For a moment there it felt like we were in Colorado riding the Million Dollar Highway. We were up in the mountains with nothing but a drop-off past the edge of the road. We got to the entry gate, which is just short of 10,000 feet of elevation, and paid our fee. The good thing was it would be good for 7 days, no need to repay tomorrow. On the east side of the park there was quite a bit of snow, apparently it had rolled through Yosemite that morning too. Brett had been to Yosemite a few years ago, but he didn’t see the eastern side. We didn’t run into much traffic, probably because of the time of day, but it was slow going through the park. First of all, it’s huge! Even riding straight through takes a while. On top of that, I was trying to soak it all in.
As we were going through an open area in the park I spotted a coyote running towards the road. I originally thought it was a wolf, but when I looked it up at home it turns out that wolves have never been a part of Yosemite’s wildlife. The funny thing was, once I looked back towards the road I saw a guy running with some serious camera gear trying to get a capture of the coyote. I wonder if he was successful.
I ignored what I said at the gas station and stopped at the view below. I needed a break and I couldn’t help myself with a few pictures.
We rode into the bottom of the valley and then began climbing back up in elevation. As we were climbing the sun was going down, we were still in the middle of the park with some miles to go. I must say, riding along in Yosemite National Park, it was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen in my life. The colors were incredible. It was a little too late, but I made the guys stop one last time to try to grab a picture of the colors. I’m sure they weren’t happy, but I had to do it.
It was completely dark as we exited the park and headed south on CA 41. We followed a couple cars, I was hoping they’d run over any animals that appeared instead of me. We were twisting and turning down the mountains and dad said all the lights in front of him were messing with his head. It was a great sight when we could finally see the lights from Oakhurst.
When we pulled into the Best Western, I don’t even know what time it was. I checked us in, we got into our room, and we headed down to the hotel’s restaurant before it closed. Luckily we weren’t the only people in there. At this point in the day we were delirious and laughed hysterically about an incident that had happened first thing in the morning. At some point, what happens during Trippin’ Connies has to stay there, and this is one of those times.
When we got back to the room we devised a plan of action for the next day. We decided we were all going to split up tomorrow. Dad had a low battery in his FOB, so he wanted to find a replacement battery in the morning. Also, he knew Brett and I wanted to spend more time taking pictures than he did. We figured we’d all meet up the next night at the hotel and try to stay in touch throughout the day. It was now really late and we all passed out.
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I need to get back there. I saw it all in the 70's, it's been too long.
