We cross the Nevada state line

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You know you are in Nevada when you have to stop at a casino for a coffee!! Today we rode into Nevada after staying the night in Twin Falls, Idaho. The lack of any previous bike trips this summer finally caught up with us yesterday and we ended up going to sleep at an ungodly early hour. We both obviously needed the sleep and feel much better today. The sun finally appeared yesterday afternoon and it heated up quite a bit as we crossed Idaho but it has been mainly cloudy so far on the trip.

The trip down through the Great Basin of Eastern Nevada along Route 93 was quite spectacular with high snow-capped mountains on one side for the first part of the trip. Most of the highway is at an elevation of almost 6000 feet and the sun rarely made an appearance all morning. We got off to an early start to beat the heat but it never materialized, shattering my myths of scorching hot Nevada. Because of our early start, we had to wait for our morning coffee. The only cafe we could find as we crossed into Nevada was in a small casino so we had to wade through the slot machines to get to the restaurant! At 7:00 on Sunday morning there were already a few hard-cores tossing in the quarters. We tried our luck with the bit of change we had in our pocket as we walked out but did not become instant millionaires.

Tonight we are staying at the KOA in Ely, about four hours directly north of Las Vegas. It is a beautiful spot, located on the outskirts of town. Ely has a mining history and there are still remnants of some of the older towns and buildings around. We took a ride today on the historic Northern Nevada railroad and got a bit of a spiel about the history of the town. As in every Nevada location, there are countless casinos visible and several legal brothels in this small town.

The sun finally came out this afternoon but I guess we have become acclimatized to heat over the last few months since it still doesn't seem that hot to us. The owner here was telling us how humid it was today but we didn't notice any moisture at all in the air compared to what we have come from!!

Tomorrow we should hit the real heat as we go into Las Vegas. It will definitely be an early wake-up in the morning so we can get most of the riding done before noon.

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