Back Road to Reno

In the eyes of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department the seat of power in the digital world resides in Redmond, Washington, the home of Microsoft.

On the Microsoft “campus” hoards of digital futurists are busy at work designing software to make obsolete all of the software you bought this morning. Given the widely publicized contraction in the dot com world, you would think there would be a surplus of wizards working in Redmond.

That was my hope to recover all of the wonderful blog entries and photographs stored on my Treo cellphone.

Remember, as I reported earlier, the phone ended up under four inches of water in my tankbag when I was forced to take cover from a thunderous sleet and rain storm at Atigun Pass on the Dalton Highway. I was encouraged when I was able to get some signs of life from the phone while visiting my sister Mary and her husband Ken Owens in Redmond. Surely I could get the data recovered in Redmond if any place in the country.

Unfortunately, the Verizon office in Redmond didn’t have any digital wizards. The service department did tell me that it could sell me an upgrade for my Treo or another phone at retail cost, but couldn’t make my phone work. I wondered what good the upgrade would have been when the phone wasn’t working.

I didn’t want to lose the phone, but of more immediate concern was the stored data. The Redmond Verizon technician said he couldn’t help with data recovery because west coast Verizon technicians “aren’t allowed to open these east coast phones.” Who knew? Who believed?

I’ve been told Cingular has a much broader cell and data coverage area. Had I been able to connect with the Verizon network at the times I had text and photos to send, I wouldn’t have been carrying stored data with me. Obviously that guy in the Verizon television commercials who is walking around asking, “Can you hear me now?” hasn’t been near my route.

I’ve just been told by a Verizon technical support person that the phone did “a hard reset on its own,” so my data is lost. But, enough about my former cellphone carrier.

As the title to this piece indicates, our destination is Reno. I was headed to Reno to catch U.S. Higway 50 which is billed as the “Loneliest Highway in America.” A claim like that had to be investigated. That claim is at least as solid as my claim that I was going to Reno to catch Highway 50 and not because of the gambling and drinking that are available in Reno.

After a tasty breakfast of pumpkin pancakes with Mary and Ken, niece Michelle and her son Kyle at a restaurant where my nephew Chris is the chef, I was southbound on I-5.

There are no doubt a lot of interesting sights to see and places to visit in Washington and Oregon, but since I was anxious to prove my oft-stated contention that Seattle is only half way to Alaska, my goal was to ride from Seattle to Columbia in five days. Since I missed my goal of riding from Key West to Prudhoe Bay in 10 days by ten percent, I could have justified another one-half day for sightseeing and still proven my point. But, amortizing that one-half day over the 12 states I would be passing through on my way home, I would have had just an hour per state. What are you going to see in an hour anyway? Five days it was to be.

That pace meant that the only sights to be seen were the ones that could be seen from the seat of a motorcycle between showers while contending with I-95 style bumper-to-bumper 18-wheelers and RVs.

There were some very impressive snow-capped mountains on the route. All of them are volcanoes.

You may have heard of Mt. St. Helens. You couldn’t see that one because of the clouds, but the route to it was clearly marked along with signs suggesting that one get local reports on volcano conditions before setting out for the place. “The forecast for Mt. St. Helens today intermittent clouds of sulphur, variable ash and occasional showers of hot rocks.”

The most impressive mountain on the route is Mt. Ranier just southeast of Tacoma. At 14,410 feet you will notice Ranier when you see it. Some people in Seattle swear they have lived there their whole lives without seeing that mountain because of the clouds. Even though I was in spotty showers during the day, I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of that imposing lump. Back in 1992 my friend Glenn Tucker and I climbed Ranier. When we got to the top a woman pulled out her cellphone to call her mother. We asked, “Who would carry one of those things?”

Another impressive mountain is the one you’ve probably seen on the Shasta cola cans and bottles over the years. It is big, tall (more than 14,000 feet) has lots of snow and is just off the back road to Reno. You can’t miss it. Nice looking mountain. If we had one of those in South Carolina it would take up a big chunk of real estate. If you put it in Florence, you could probably ski to Myrtle Beach.

Most of the back road to Reno is through National Forest land with the Lassen Volcanic National Park thrown in for good measure. The road always seems to be running between a rock and a hard place. Signs warn of free-range cattle on the roads. Not the sign you would expect to see in a National Forest.

I had been spoiled by riding around in Canada and Alaska because it doesn’t get dark. Down in California it got dark. Late, but it got dark.

I have enough lights on the bike to guide a 747 in for a landing, but I haven’t been able to get them aimed well enough to allow me to ride comfortably in poor light through areas where there are deer, elk, caribou and free-range cattle. After catching sight of my third or fourth deer standing in trees at the side of the road I decided to call it a night even though I was about 80 miles short of Reno. Besides, if I stayed in California I wouldn’t have to ask myself if I wanted to go down to a casino to try my luck.

I stopped at Susanville in honor of my good friend and neighbor Susan Crewe. Susan is from California, and as far as I know not from Susanville, but the coincidence was sufficient to justify stopping for the night. Had I thought they were taking bets on rain in Reno I’d have been there.

In response to my question about what people in Susanville did for a living the motel desk clerk replied, “They work at the prison.” I was expecting to hear logging, hunting guide, mountain climbing guide, snowmobile mechanic or miner. I hadn’t expected prison guard.

All sorts of surprises on the back road to Reno.