{"id":1053,"date":"2010-05-18T15:40:41","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T19:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2010-05-18T15:43:33","modified_gmt":"2010-05-18T19:43:33","slug":"americas-loneliest-windiest-highway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/americas-loneliest-windiest-highway\/","title":{"rendered":"America’s Loneliest (windiest) Highway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sign in hotel window<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tried to be on the road by 6:30, but got delayed when fueling resulted in a declined credit card and I had to get on the phone to tell them that I am indeed traveling and they should release my card. I do appreciate them looking out for me, but I’m curious that after a week of being on the road and using the card in several different states they suddenly decided there was a problem on Monday. Bottom line to this story is call your credit card company prior to travel to avoid this problem — something I will do in the future.<\/p>\n

“Loneliest Road” certainly lived up to its name all day. <\/em>It was almost hard to believe that there could be a road with that little traffic and that few towns and services.\u00a0I admire their marketing of the Loneliest Road and I hope it generates some income for people who do live on the route. The bright side of this is the people at the stops were incredibly friendly and helpful. This is what I was told to expect in Newfoundland last summer and didn’t. On the Loneliest Road any question asked met with warmth and friendliness. It made my stops very nice.<\/p>\n

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View from Loneliest Road<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was on the road by 7:00 and the wind didn’t get bad until around 10:00. The weather forecast said the wind would be very strong out of the west which would mean more or less a tail wind. To my great disappointment the forecast was wrong — the wind was straight out of the south and, of course, I was headed east.\u00a0The ride alternated between valleys with gusting side winds and mountain passes where there was no predicting what direction the wind would gust from.<\/p>\n

When I stopped for fuel in Austin, NV I asked about the road ahead and the people proudly enumerated how many passes they had on Route 50 that were higher than Donner Pass — there are six of them and everyone there could name all six. They also bragged that Nevada roads are in much better condition than California roads.<\/p>\n

While there is virtually nothing along the way except great scenery and since 50 is a US highway the pavement was incredibly good condition. The only issue was the non-stop wind.<\/p>\n

After a lunch stop in Ely, NV (and a wrong turn that cost me some time) I headed to Great Basin National Park. First thing I checked was the weather forecast which included a lot of rain the next 24 hours and possible snow. Scratch camping. Most of the park roads were still closed because of snow.<\/p>\n

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Lehman Caves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I did the tour of Lehman Caves and while smaller, had formations that equal Carlsbad. I would definitely recommend it if you’re in the area.<\/p>\n

Best comment of the day: I walk out of the caves chatting with a lady. She holds up her tiny digital camera, looks at my DSLR and says “You remembered your camera, but forgot your vehicle. What’s up with that?” She went on to tell me how hard the wind had been for driving her car all day. They had even seen a flipped vehicle with camper –not what I wanted to hear.<\/p>\n

It was 4:30 and I was pretty worn out from no sleep and fighting the wind all day and wanted to find a place to stay. Since I suspected I would want to sit out the next day due to the Pacific front headed my way I was kind of hoping for a semi-decent place. The two motels in tiny Baker, NV outside the park looked like hovels. The motel at the Utah border didn’t look much better.<\/p>\n

I decided to make a run for interstate 15 that was maybe 140 miles away — still fighting the wind. I got to Filmore, UT — the first place to have decent looking lodging — only to find out there was a movie crew in town and all three motels were at full capacity. \u00a0The next available lodging was an hour away.<\/p>\n

So I ended up riding in the dark to get to Beaver, UT a little after 9:00 pretty exhausted and starved. Would you believe the wind never let up even after dark?<\/p>\n

But in Beaver I found a virtually new Super 8 for $44 a night and have a very nice room — internet service so I can catch up with what going on and laundry facilities to I can wash some clothes. \u00a0Also — a couple restaurants across the street. I<\/p>\n

And while typing this I had it confirmed that stopping a day was a great decision — it’s been raining all day and \u00a0just hailed like hell here. So sorry I missed that while riding.<\/p>\n

The forecast looks good for the next few days so I’m heading to Mesa Verde National Park with a stop at Arches National Park on the way. I will be happy if my routes are a little more heavily traveled — I think I’ve experienced enough of being all by myself in the middle of nowhere for a while… I definitely thanked my motorcycle for doing such a great job as I unpacked her last night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tried to be on the road by 6:30, but got delayed when fueling resulted in a declined credit card and I had to get on the phone to tell them that I am indeed traveling and they should release my card. I do appreciate them looking out for me, but I’m curious that after a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip_reporting","tag-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1063,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorcycle-journeys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}