Donner Dinner Party Ride

Donner Dinner Party Ride

August 13-16, 2020

 

The heat is brutal and with no rain, for months I’ve been looking forward to fall. That said, I realize that summer is quickly fading away, the days are getting shorter and I want to ride more. I started marking my calendar on which weekends I can get away and it is not enough!

I’m working on the Iron Butt Association’s National ParksTour, which is much harder living in the west because it takes a day to get through a state. In the east, you can get multiple states in a day. The National Parks Tour requires getting parks in 25 states, there are only 22 states west of the Mississippi River. I have a great job which gives me a four-day weekend every week, still, that’s a lot of miles to get to the twenty-five states.

Anyway, let’s go for a ride. Oh, I’m also working on the HOG Ride 365, which has seventy locations throughout the U.S. to pick up. So, here is the ride plan for this weekend. The Little A’Le’Inn, Devil’s Postpile National Monument, Emigrant State Park, Fort Churchill, and general milling about through Nevada and California, in all about an easy 1,200 miles for the weekend.

Our last trip, The Great Birthday Ride, was way too hot and we’re hoping for a little cooler riding with this trip. So, in light of that, we left at 0530 to get across the desert before we can bake cookies on the gas tank as we travel.

The first waypoint is the Little A’Le’Inn in downtown Racheal, NV. Rachel has a population of 54 and is the closest city to one of America’s most notorious air force bases, Area 51. It’s a small town, on Highway 375 the “Extraterrestrial Highway,” with a reputation in the UFO and aviation community, and the Little A’Le’Inn and Area 51 make quite the pair. Its alien decor—right down to the jerry-rigged UFO hanging from a crane – make this Inn an unmatched Nevada landmark, to say the least. It’s also a HOG Ride 360 location.

We stop in Tonopah, NV, at the Mizpah Hotel, better known as the "Jewel of the Desert". Beautifully renovated, built originally in 1907, it’s a fun historical place to get some breakfast.

The next waypoint is the Devil’s Postpile National Monument, just outside of Mammoth Lakes, CA. This is a spectacular ride to climb from the desert floor up into the Sierra Nevada mountains. One complaint I have and is a challenge for this IBA ride is getting the Passport Stamps at the locations we visit. I always check to see if the location is open, and then when we get there it’s all closed up. Each park must be under local control because it changes from park to park, even within the same state.

The Devil's Postpile is the smallest national monument we have been in I think. A short hike, less than a half-mile gets you to the basalt cliff of really cool rocks that are five-sided and almost 100 feet high. The ride is beautiful and best of all it’s great temperatures to ride in. We stay the night in Mammoth Lake. I will say, Utah is much more open than California, with this COVID crap. But we survived.

We start the day on Hwy 395 to Hwy 89 and stop in one of our favorite little towns, Markleeville, CA. Not much there and that’s what makes it nice. We didn’t even have cell service. We had breakfast at the Alps Haus Café and enjoyed the small-town chatter of the locals and a few tourists. After wasting time, not really, more like enjoying the time we head for the Lake Tahoe area. All around the area of the lake it was a madhouse of traffic. We stopped at one viewpoint and were able to find a parking stop by sheer luck.

The next waypoint is the Emigrant Trail Museum, which is surprisingly pretty much open. This is also the site of the infamous Donner Party disaster, where a pioneer group trying to take a shortcut none of the party had ever been on, got stranded by a heavy snowstorm. From the web page, it reads: “a great stone pedestal commemorating the Donner Party, the legendary pioneers who fell victim to the harsh Sierra Nevada winter of 1846 to 1847. The party (originally consisting of nearly 90 emigrants) was en route to California when their wagon train encountered a severe snowstorm. Only half of the pioneers survived (many resorting to cannibalism). The stone marker near the Emigrant Trail Museum stands 22 feet tall, marking the immense amount of snowfall from that winter.” Thus, the title of this ride.

We headed off to see Virginia City and our end destination for the day, downtown Sparks, Nevada. After a quick stop at the local Harley Store, we made it to our hotel, just missing a thunder and a rainstorm. I’d love some rain, even to ride in, it’s been that long.

In the morning we headed southwest toward Las Vegas. We stopped at Fort Churchill, just south of Silver Springs, NV. Fort Churchill was built-in 1861 to provide protection for early settlers and guard Pony Express mail runs. From the web, “Nevada’s first, largest and most elaborate military outpost was active from its establishment in July 1860, through an era rife with local and national conflict, and up to its abandonment in the fall of 1869. During this tumultuous yet significant decade in the history of Nevada and the American West, Fort Churchill helped to bring about a semblance of Federal control over a quickly developing and resource-rich area that lacked effective government control.  The troops stationed at Fort Churchill protected California-bound emigrants, safeguarded the Pony Express and telegraph lines, fought battles and skirmishes with local Native Americans, protected area settlements, intervened in miners’ disputes, and quelled any uprisings brought about by the Civil War.”

Riding through the desert area of Nevada has its own unique beauty, part of that is its remoteness and starkness. Even with an early start, by early afternoon the temps were becoming uncomfortable. We fueled up in Hawthorne and the temps were around 103-106 degrees. We stopped in Tonopah again for lunch at the A&W. It was nice to be able to sit inside with the AC and get cooled down with a frosty root beer. By the time we hit North Las Vegas, the temps were in the painful range of 114-116 degrees. I wear fingerless gloves and the tips of my fingers were burning in the hot air moving over the bike. I have been wearing padded nylon ADV style pants lately, however, I have found their weakness, heat from the motor. My lower right leg gets so hot I thought the nylon would melt; leather chaps handle this heat much better.

We headed out for some dinner at about eight-thirty and it was still 108 degrees and felt like we were inside an oven with all the building and cement around us. All of our motels on this trip were around $100 and this one was well worth it, the others were all well overpriced.

The next morning, we hit three Harley stores, for the HOG Ride 365 and then out and around Lake Mead National Recreational Area, I even got a Passport Stamp at the pay station (it was the only place open). It’s really sad to see all of the recreation areas, boat ramps, and camping areas in such disrepair. The water level of Lake Mead has dropped over 100 feet, that is a huge lake and I don’t think it will ever recover with the demand for water in the west. On this ride, we listened to a book about Mormon pioneers that settled in the area north of Las Vegas and south of Mesquite, NV. So, it was fun to then ride through that area and get a real feel of the area and the struggles that took place trying to settle the area and create the settlements and towns, many of which do not exist today.

We made it home by early afternoon, ready to enjoy the AC and relax for the rest of the day. It's now time to plan the next ride, next weekend, and the one after. Hwy 12 in Utah is always a favorite and we have family in downtown Torrey, UT where it is almost always cool, and then I’d like to visit the north rim of the Grand Canyon. The adage, plan your ride, and ride your plan, is coming together this year.