Miles Covered: 18
Total Miles: 743.75
Money Found: $0.07
Total Found: $20.49

Miles Covered: 20
Total Miles: 725.75
Money Found: $0.05
Total Found: $20.42

Okey-dokey…we are in Utah, the state of mystery to me. I was in St. George, UT in 1979 for about an hour. That’s the extent of my Utah experience – until now. We left Nevada on Friday the 16th and walked three days in the most desolate real estate I’ve ever seen. I saw a few lizards and one jack rabbit that looked like he would give Big Brown a run for his money. The scenery has definitely changed since we crossed over…it’s drier and the plant life is more sparse. We did run into a grove of scrub pine trees and camped there for one night, but trees are a scarce commodity in these parts.

Miles Covered: 20
Total Miles: 705.75
Money Found: $0.81
Total Found: $20.37

Rick as he stands at the Nevada-Utah border

At about 4:00 PM Nevada time today, l crossed into Utah. I immediately lost an hour, so I went back into Nevada and am staying at a campground that straddles the border. I have no idea what time it is. Tomorrow though, I set out and will be on Mountain Time for the next several weeks.

Miles Covered: 16.75
Total Miles: 687.75
Money Found: $0.01
Total Found: $19.56

I got up feeling a little out of sorts, started the day climbing and then had to deal with an “in your face” head wind for most of the morning and all the rest of the day. We finally made it to the top of Sacramento Summit, but it was an exhausting!

Miles Covered: 18.5

Total Miles: 671

Money Found: $0.03

Total Found: $19.55

I guess the wind must be just right because we are miles from Ely and more miles from anywhere else and I still got the broadband signal, although very weak. Valda and I moved a bit closer to Utah today and should be there on Thursday. I must have miss-calculated somewhere because I thought we would be there tomorrow, but it is still about 32 miles or so away.

Rick Hammersley with Vincent Yu of Taiwan.

We met a new friend today, Vincent Yu of Taiwan. He rode his bicycle by me today and we chatted for about a quarter mile. He is riding around the world 😮  I thought was doing something extreme! Anyway, it was good meeting Vincent and our good wishes to him for a safe trip.

After Vincent left, I resumed walking and came upon a small intersection where I immediately spied a couple of pennies. After looking around for a minute or two, I had picked up 12 of the elusive critters. So I called Valda and asked her to come up and check out the intersection. I had walking to do. When I last looked back, she was bent over picking up something and she caught up with me she told me she had found 21 of them. So, in a few minutes, we picked up 33 pennies in an area where I hadn’t seen hardly any coins in two weeks. Oh yeah, I later found a quarter! So all you people out there who have been thinking about matching my “money found” fund, stop thinking about it and get your name on the list! You can set a limit if you want, we don’t care. Just do it and help us help Gateway for Cancer Research. It’s a great cause.

The mountain picture (with Vincent Yu) is what we are looking at out our window tonight. Some view huh?

Miles Covered: 20.5
Total Miles: 652.5
Money Found: $0.58
Total Found: $19.52

As we drove through Ely this morning on the way to the drop-off spot, Valda noticed a sign at a bank that said the temperature was forty degrees. Well, that might have been generous. All I know is that it was cloudy, windy and cold…and that was the best part of the day. It was just miserable weather, but when it’s cold, I must walk faster. By noon l had over 10 miles and ended the day at 19.5. I would have done more, but the wind and cold got the best of me and Valda had made me some hot tea…and I had a new coffee mug to try out.

We are about 11 miles or so Southeast of Ely on Hwy 6, 50 & 93. They all run together for a short while before splitting off. The Utah border is about 40 miles away and hopefully we will take a picture of the welcome sign in a couple of days.

Our day off was great and just what the old dogs needed. We had a couple of good meals in real restaurants and even got a cup of McDonald’s coffee (a rarity in these parts). We are still surrounded by mountains and have a fierce looking group of them directly in front of us. Guess tomorrow I’ll see first hand how fierce they are.

Miles Covered: 19.5
Total Miles: 632
Money Found: $0.10
Total Found: $18.94

Here we sit in Ely, NV – an oasis of sorts in a sea of sand. We pulled into Ely on Saturday afternoon and decided we both needed a day off. This morning we went to the Hotel Nevada and had a great breakfast. The hotel was built in 1929 and has hosted a number of celebrities including LBJ when he was President. It’s a neat place and if you are ever there you have to go into the cafe and take a look at the 24′ Anaconda snake skin hanging on the wall. I asked the waitress if it was a locally caught snake and she could have ended my walk right there and then if she had wanted to 😮

Rick & The Duke

Ely was just glorious to see and we had a great Saturday evening and Sunday. Tomorrow we start out for the Utah border. It is about four days away and hopefully Utah will be as good to us as Nevada has been.

Miles Covered: 15.75
Total Miles: 612.5
Money Found: $0.05
Total Found: $18.84