Day 6: Lake Tahoe (Truckee, CA to Carson City, NV - 53 miles)

Our original plan was to spend the day exploring Lake Tahoe and then ride into Reno. However, early in the morning as Pat was sleeping, Dan was strategically mapping our route and thought it would be better if we went to Carson City instead of Reno. Sue made as a great breakfast and even drove us down to the center of Truckee so we didn't haven to re-ride the five mile road to Sue's house. Thanks again Sue!

We rode down route 89 for 13 miles into Tahoe City. Route 89 ran next to the Truckee River which was very nice although there was such a nasty headwind that it was even difficult riding downhill. 

After a short morning ride we finally reached the destination we climbed 7000 feet to see, Lake Tahoe. We were both amazed at how massive it is. The lake, which sits over a mile above sea level, is completely surrounded by mountains. It was weird seeing people sunbathing on the beaches with the snow capped mountains in the background.

We rode for about 25 miles all along the north shore of the lake. It was definitely the most scenic 25 miles of the trip so far. We stopped every few miles just because the views were so spectacular. 

The "Welcome to Nevada" sign took us by surprise. The state line runs right through the center of the lake. Here is Pat in an interesting pose at the state line. The building behind him is the first of many casinos we passed.

Next we climbed up to 7146 feet to Spooner Summit which is in the Tahoe Forest. We then begun the most massive decent of our trip so far. Here is the view from the top.

For almost 30 minutes we whizzed down the steep 12 mile road, pumping our brakes the entire way, into Carson City. We dropped altitude so quickly my ears popped. 

Tonight we are staying with Flynn, who we found on Warm Showers. He said in the past 2 years he has had over 100 people stay at his place from the website! He made us a great sausage, onion, and pepper dinner. 

Tomorrow we plan to begin tackling Nevada on Route 50, the loneliest road in the US. There is a 112 mile stretch from Fallon to Austin with nothing in between but a small convenience store in Middlegate. The goal for tomorrow is to ride 109 miles to the convenience store and camp behind it, which we already got permission to do. We probably won't have Internet tomorrow to blog but we plan to be in Austin on Thursday.