Gonna do this a day early since tomorrow I am resting. Booked a hotel for two nights because there were high chances of white death storms tomorrow, that’s since changed to just rain. But it’s bringing a massive cold front in, which I need to prepare a bit for. Another good week, with a couple days of surprise visitors and conversation.
Well here’s the rundown:
Day 155- Covered 25 miles from mile marker 25 in the Salt Flats in Utah to the Wendover Nugget Hotel and Casino in West Wendover, NV. Jon Gosset, who facilitated a lot of meals as I covered a 100 mile span with one gas station early on, came to the hotel to shoot an episode of his podcast (linked it on last weeks post). He also got the hotel to donate a big king suite to me, that I barely made any use of because of the podcast and a newspaper interview I did with the Tooele County Paper. The weather was great. I did comment that I starting to note that the journey is coming to a close and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it yet.
Day 156- Only covered 15 miles today, got up had to hit the post office, then the grocery store for some supplies. Then stopped at “Wendover Will” and took some pictures. Also met a wonderful lady, Debbie Cook who has a FB Page called “Wendover Rocks” that she and some other ladies run. They paint small rocks and you take them with you, leave them somewhere and tag them in the group so they can see how far their rocks go. I’ve grabbed 5 and one will finish the journey and go home with me.
Day 157- This was a relatively boring, easy day. Aside from an early climb of about 5/600 feet within the first few miles. I ended up camping at an exit right before Pequops Summit in Nevada. Also got the worst stomach pains I’ve had in a while about an hour after hitting the tent. I ended up putting on a gastrointestinal fireworks show under the desert sky. But it made me look up in awe at how amazing the desert sky is at night. Right before my innards became my outtards. Covered 20 miles today, the early climb smoked my legs pretty quick.
Day 158- 25 miles from my campsite at Pequops to the Motel 6 in Wells, NV. Started with another 6-700 feet of climb over 3 miles, then things got better. Along the way I took one of my rest breaks and a couple Union Pacific workers stopped and dropped off some water for me. This happened once before in Nebraska. We talked about the walk and the why, and they were stoked. A few miles later I saw a Saia truck going the same direction as me (only he’s on the correct side of the road lol) pull over and the driver cross four lanes of traffic and the median to come talk to me. His name was Chris and he was friends with “Dirty” Joe Romano, another trucker I met going into Coalville, UT a couple weeks ago. He honked at me the previous day and waved, I wish truckers understood how much that helps me. He dropped off a donation and went on his way. Super solid dude.
Day 159- The plan was to cover half the distance from Wells to Elko, but life had other plans. The dryer at the Motel 6 was broken. It wasn’t tumbling anything. So after two cycles of not realizing what was going on, I switched to the other dryer and got my clothes cleaned. Grabbed a Dunkin’ sandwich and a couple fritters for breakfast, a couple subway subs to hold me for lunch and dinner and hit the road. About halfway in I saw a car pull over and a gentleman get out. His name was Jon and he works selling compressed gas and whatnot to the mining operations and whatnot up here. His wife follows me, but he passed me the previous day, then saw me the current day and looked me up on Google. He said it took a little work on Google but he found me. We talked about our mental health struggles, the walk, and how it’s changed me. He gave me a brownie and I continued on. We also had a NHP officer drop off a bottle of water for me too. Darkness came quicker than I wanted due to the late start, but I still covered about 22 miles and set up camp about 20 feet off I-80. This led to someone calling in a car off the road (my stroller) and a visit from a Sheriff at 12:45am lol. It got cold this night too. So I’m going to have to upgrade my sleeping bag, and perhaps grab some wool socks and a hat for sleep.
Day 160- Covered 27 miles today from my campsite to Elko, NV and the Comfort Inn. The walk was fairly easy, but I could feel the energy drop from lack of calories. There was a sinclair about 15 miles in and I stopped in. They had a little cafe and I grabbed a burger and some fries and some other sundries to finish the walk for the day.
Tomorrow, day 161, I’m hoping to find a way over to the camping store in town to grab some more gear to try to survive the cold. There are lows into the teens coming up and it does worry me a little. About a month left in the journey though.
Thank you again for everyone that’s followed along, donated, cheered me on, all of that. It’s all helped more than you know.
Tomorrow night at 6 my time I’ll be going live from the Hall Across The Country Facebook page and doing a little impromptu Q/A type thing for an hour or so. So if you wanna show up, awesome!
Here’s to hanging 60 and the Hawkeyes!
Go Bucks!
-Joe
