Eureka to Ely (Long Day)

We woke up for our earliest start. It was a 78 mile-day. We began our ride at 6am. We arrived at 7 pm. (13 hours).  We wanted to take advantage of the cool weather in the morning. We started the day by climbing the first 2 miles to the top of Pinto Summit.

We stopped after a decline and ate breakfast. We began climbing again another summit. The day was hot, and we kept stopping for quick breaks. It was actually kinda boring, so I began doing handstands. I was safe about it, even though I did them in the middle of the road, because I kept my helmet on.

 

When we got to some downhill we were greeted with headwind. That was unfortunate because we couldn't make good use of it. The long flat seemed to last forever and I began to think we'd fall short of our goal for the day.

We were sore, aching, and just tired.   It seemed like all morning we were battling hills and wind. We took a lunch break at the top of our third summit, i noticed a bite mark on my side, must've been some mad spider.

It didn't hurt but just to be safe i got out the first aid. It seemed like a long day, and it was but luckily on the descent of that summit we were greeted with some nice tailwind for the next 20 miles. Halfway through those 20 miles i began fighting the drowsiness from the first medicine i'd taken. I won. We reached yet another summit and then again more headwind.

Fires just seem to be everywhere. We've seen the smoke from a few that have been nearby. I just hope these get put under control real soon.
 
It was 18 mile downhill finish but the wind slowed us down. It felt so good to finally arrive at Ely. Checking into a motel was a good and rewarding ending to a hard day.