Overwhelmed with "magic"...

Day 235
10-28-2006
Started: Fallon, NV
Finished: Silver Springs, NV
Today's Miles: 25.4
Total Miles: 3716.8

We always seem to get a slow start when we wake up and find ourselves tucked in to the warm blankets of a king size bed. We've been trying to put a bit of a push on the last few days because we have seen an extended weather forecast that seems to have some wet and stormy, possibly snowy weather racing us to the high elevations of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Today we didn't quite get the miles in we were aiming for, but can you really blame us for enjoying the warm bed, hot shower, and tasty cinnamon rolls from the free breakfast bar at the nice hotel Maw and Pop Propster hooked us up with? After a very enjoyable and slow moving morning we eventually packed up and headed out of Fallon. We hit a grocery store to pick up a couple of days worth of food supplies and continued west observing the reverse effect in population density that we had seen coming in to town yesterday. Fallon is a very spread out town, but almost all of the services are within the dense two mile stretch in the center, and as you work your way out of either side the houses with small yards slowly spread out and eventually become ranches with big yards and then the desert takes back over, the forty mile desert as a matter of fact, and that's a desert that can really take over. Many early pioneers found this stretch of desert to be their demise. Once we were a good distance out of town we enjoyed seeing that the old Lincoln Highway ran alongside busy highway 50, so we decided to walk along the gravel bed and not have cars flying by us all day. The west side of Nevada is definitely not as lonely as the center of the state. Traffic has picked up a lot on highway 50 and there are a lot more small communities and gas stations along the roadside. The exposure we have had to more people has actually been a lot of fun. We do love the seclusion of the wilderness and the wide open spaces of the desert, but when everyone seems to be cheering you on you really don't mind seeing a lot of people. Ever since our T.V. time on ABC affiliated KOLO Channel 8 in the extremely popular segment know as John Tyson's Journal we have been honked at, and waved at, and cars have passed us and then turned around to come back and say hello. We've had our picture taken and posed with friendly supporters so they could have their picture taken with us, and we even had one nice lady ask for our autographs. We have been loving every second of the support from all the friendly Nevada folks and have enjoyed the "trail magic" that they have dropped on us in the form of bottles of water and energy drinks and invites to dinner and local phone numbers in case we need "anything at anytime", as one supportive lady said. We found ourselves hiking along with cheesy grins stuck on our faces because we were so overjoyed with all the local support. The end of our day today will certainly rank pretty high on the list of great "trail magic" moments. Bob Weise and his wife Cathy tracked us down just as we were passing Lahontan Reservoir. They were coming to pick up our water cart so that they could mail it back east for us, but they decided to take things a step further. When they pulled in to a boat launch area next to the reservoir the sun was getting low in the sky and the clear still water was like a sheet of glass. They hopped out of their truck and in their hands they were carrying a veggie supreme pizza and a bottle of red wine. How amazing is it to have dinner and wine brought to you trailside! Bob uncorked the wine and dropped the tailgate on his truck so that we could sit down and enjoy our tasty pizza. We toasted to an incredible Journey and sipped on our wine while sharing some of our trail stories with Bob and Cathy. They are both wonderful and kind people who most definitely earned the title of "Trail Angel". They helped us load the cart into the truck, hung around while we loaded up our packs and made sure to ask if there was anything else they could do to be of help to us. It truly feels unbelievably comforting to be so far from home and still feel a level of support that reassures us we are not all alone out here. We can't thank Bob and Cathy enough for being so wonderful to us and we will always cherish our evening together at the Lahontan! Even though darkness had set in on us as we were saying goodnight to Bob and Cathy we thought we should try to make up for our lazy morning by putting in a few after sunset miles. Sheri's not the biggest fan of night hiking, but we did have the gravel and dirt road of the old Lincoln Highway to ourselves and with the fantastic Nevada sky overhead it was a perfect night hiking opportunity. We used our headlamps to keep from twisting an ankle on the random loose rock and enjoyed star gazing whenever we felt like the terrain was smooth enough to put our eyes to the sky. We hiked until a little after nine o'clock and then found a somewhat hidden campsite tucked in the sagebrush on the east edge of Silver Springs. As we retire for the night, tucked in our tent out in the darkness of the desert, we can see the many bright lights that illuminate throughout the town of Silver Springs. We have the mixed feelings of being so close and yet so far away from the action in town. We enjoy being out here together and alone, but love the fact that the reality is that we are so far away and yet so close when it comes to having a support system to keep us feeling safe. Whether it's the support of Nevada locals or the love that comes long distance from our families back east we certainly take comfort in knowing we really aren't alone.

Your Friends on the ADT,
Randy and Sheri
Follow our Journey at www.treckusa.com