Nevada!!!

We are finally out of California. It is a beautiful state, but very agressive drivers. Jose thinks that the bottom part of California is not very nice. But she is thinking of the Mojave desert and the winds.... We finally got fed up with the traffic and decided to take another route. We rode a state highway 88 East to Nevada. It took us through more of the fruit, wine and orange country. Since Jose does not drink wine and I was on a bike, it was not worth the time to take to see a vineyard. We like the views instead. We started going into mountainous areas. We started through a series of national forests, the first one being Eldorado. To me, it was God’s way of somehow making up for the fact that we did not go to Yosemite. The roads were easy but curvy. Not the trying drop off the face of the earth type of roads, but scenic and wide. Most of the properties were closed until the summer season. I now understand the words “boarded up for the winter.” We actually saw buildings that had the windows boarded up. We saw far more snow than we anticipated. It started getting colder and the altitude higher. We finally reached the apex at slightly higher than 8500 feet. Yes, the air is thin there. Baby does not like it at all. She coughs terribly. This would not have been as much an issue except we kept seeing signs warning of avalanches. Having a loud motorcycle backfiring constantly is a bit disconcerting at that point. Fortunately, we were going downhill and I was able to hold in the clutch and simply coast. But yes, there was sufficient snow above us to still be concerned. They issue permits in that area for snowmobiles until the 30th of May. We took several pictures, including one of a frozen lake. There were several more pictures that we could have taken, but the sun was setting and we did not want to be on the mountain at dark. Plus, it was freezing. We almost went Lake Tahoe, but did not want to continue north. We stopped tonight in Carson City. Tomorrow will be an easy day. I want to get a clean out kit for my air filter (and if James is following this – kind of scary, but I have actually figured out how to clean the K&N filter…. Shampoo works for a while, but we really need a degreaser.) Jose needs a bulb and we need to get a few supplies from Wally world. So, we are going to ride just to Elko, which will put us back on the original map. Still looking to find the time to upload the pictures, but have not been able to do so.