Next on the list was the Alien Research Center in Hiko NV. Typical tourist trap, but cute. Clean bathroom. Good local info, especially regarding gas station locations, and the local police situation so I bought a little Alien sticker.
This is the sign just prior to the Research Center. Just past the sign and prior to the Center was a sign that said NO Gas for 150 miles. Just behind me by ten miles is the last gas station. I'm sure glad I paid attention to the sign, because I returned back to Alamo and filled it up to the brim.
After leaving the Center, this is what I saw a lot of.
Yes, I got wet. What would a Rally be without some rain? But the wind was the worst part. After I left the Center the wind picked up and it was BAD the remainder of the day and into the night.
I finally reached the the Little ALEinn in Rachel NV, literally the middle of nowhere, where I grabbed this photo of a tow truck hauling off a spaceship. And yes, that is more rain ahead of me. I'm glad I had my heated gear because it was around 48 going through a lot of those passes ahead of me.
After Rachel, there was nothing other than Open Range land all the way to Hwy 6 when I went south to Tonopah. It was on this leg prior to reaching Hwy 6 that I had my second animal encounter. Bessie the cow decided it was time to go home and decided to cross my path from south to north. She saw me coming but didn't change her pace at all which forced me to slow way down to give her space. All the other cattle I had seen were anywhere from 50 feet to miles away from the road, yet she decided "her time, her space" and sauntered across just when I happened to show up.
That was the last of my bonuses. Because of the gas situation I had to go south to Tonopah to fill up. I had enough time to get gas and then backtrack, but I didn't have enough energy. I was already feeling the strain and knew that if I added on another few hours of back and forth I wasn't likely to make it further without stopping for some sleep. So I called it at that point and headed for home. I really need to update my GPS because it routed me THROUGH Las Vegas on a Saturday night instead of around it. Grrrr (but totally my fault). There were several bonuses available in and around Vegas but not enough to compensate for the 1300 points I missed by not getting the two northern bonuses and then the Combo bonus for those two plus Sunset Crater, so I just headed for the barn to check in and get scored.
When I arrived my two friends Marc and John were there finishing up their scoring. They had ridden together and claimed the same amount of points; over 3200 while I finished with 1050. They are both multiple Iron Butt Rally finishers, so proper routing is second nature to them. They both also run aux fuel tanks on their Wings which gives them about a 350-400 mile range on full tanks. If I had had an aux tank then I could have gotten the other two bonuses I needed, but oh well, live and learn.
This was only my third rally and I enjoyed it and learned a lot. I asked the Rally Master to consider adding a 12 hour rally to the agenda next year as I'm not enjoying riding at night because I don't think my night vision is all that great any more. When I have the ability to turn on all my lights I can turn night into day, but even in the middle of nowhere (Hwy 95 from Tonopah to Vegas) there's still too much oncoming traffic to use all the lights all the time.
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