Thursday 5th November – Friday 6th November
Delta, UT to UT/NV Border
Unable to face another freezing cold day on the trail, we decided to stay another night in Delta and kit ourselves out with some warm gear. We found some good winter gloves in Ace hardware, picked up a puncture repair kit so Ed could fix his flat and patch up the other tube, just in case, then went round the thrift stores. We both managed to find some warm jackets to go over our bike gear, and Ed decided to make some hand muffs out of duck tape and chicken wire.
A girl had made some for her sidecar outfit when we went to the Elephant winter motorcycle rally in Germany, and we both thought that it was a brilliant idea. While he was busy doing that I decided to make a granny blanket to go over my legs, out of a blanket, a shower curtain and some duck tape, but after an hour of trying to work out the best way to do it to stop the cold air getting in, I lost interest and retreated back in to our toasty room, making it easier to accept the fact that I was just going to have to put up with cold legs.
We left the following morning after a hearty breakfast. It was cold with a wintery bright blue sky, and after a quick stop to top up Ed’s tyre, which thankfully hadn’t gone flat, the paved road soon turned to endless straight miles of gravel.
The trail hadn’t been that straight since Oklahoma, and just went on, and on, and on. There was a brutal headwind, and not only did I have a greater surface area for it to hit with my extra jacket and big fat wheels, but I’d also developed horrendous clutch slip. I’d noticed it only slightly over the last few days, suspecting the oil we’d got from the bikers in Moab, but with straight flat roads and a mental headwind, it was suddenly incredibly noticeable, and I really struggled to do a decent pace.
The trail took us through the hills, winding round and out where we were greeted with a fantastic view of an enormous basin.
It looked like there was snow or salt on the ground, but as we made our way down we discovered that it was in fact a mix of gravel, dirt and sand. It was such an incredible landscape.
The long gravel roads continued, surrounded by sage green grasslands, and undulating hills. I love the way the shadows on the undulations move as the sun makes its way down, continually changing the landscape as we rode.
It got really cold as the sun set, but the beautiful sky took my mind of the falling temperature. Every colour of the spectrum was presented in soft dark pastel hues that blended so perfectly together that you couldn’t see where one colour ended, and the other began. The longer I looked at it the more shades appeared, but I had to tear myself away as the cold and the lure of a warm motel room got too much.
We finally reached a casino and motel combo on the border of Utah and Nevada, cold to the core. We were a little annoyed at just how expensive the room was, but with no competition for miles and the idea of camping well out of the window, we had little choice. We both hoped that dinner would make up for it, but after being given a bowl of washing up water masquerading as chorizo soup, I wasn’t so sure.
The second course of gammon and potato hit the spot though, and thankful for full bellies and a roof over our heads, we hit the sack with another day on the TAT firmly under our belts.
