Dan: It’s 7 am on Wednesday. The internet connection here is
so good that I’m blogging again this morning. We woke up at 6, but it doesn’t
get light until 7:15 and the icy roads are too treacherous to run before dawn.
Speaking of running, it’s 21 degrees right now and a “feels like” 9 degrees. I
decided last night, as I froze on the 3 block walk to the restaurant, that I
wasn’t going to run this morning. But Alan wants the experience, because it will
be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to run at this elevation (12,000
feet, which is twice the elevation of mile high Denver.) I did walk outside and
confirmed my decision – a run at this altitude would definitely knock me on my
Dumas – but the dawn breaking over the distant mountains was spectacular. The annual
Leadville 100 mile trail run is one of the reasons this town is famous. We’ll
tour the town, stop at a grocery store, then head for Grand Junction, CO and on
to Ely, Nevada. That will take all day. At Ely we’ll need to make 2 route
decisions: 1) do we continue on Rt. 50 which even the Nevada Tourism Department
calls “the loneliest road in America” or we do we take Rt. 80 which apparently
is still pretty desolate but has a few more towns and gas stations. I’m concerned that Diablo’s
10 gallon fuel tank could let us down on Rt. 50, so we’ll get advice once we’re
in Ely; And 2) we may not even have to make that routing choice because
Thursday’s destination, Reno, is forecast to get a foot of snow tomorrow. We
might have to drastically reroute and avoid Reno altogether. Again, we’ll get
advice once we’re in Ely.
