The Loneliest Road

U.S. Highway 50
September 2020

The signpost marked the beginning of “the loneliest road in America”, a desolate 400-mile stretch of blue ridge mountains - enveloped in emptiness. With enough food and water to last a few days, I rode the entirety of Highway 50 by bicycle, everything secured together by fatigued bungees. Only a few miles outside the town of Ely, I stopped at the sight of a headless mule deer crucified by a barbed wire fence. The back hooves were tangled around the ankles so tightly that it must have died slowly from exhaustion, starvation, hope. This is an unforgiving place, I thought. Loneliness precedes only death. 

It came with warnings. The rotting cattle carcasses made me suspect drunken poachers, taking aim at the livestock that roamed this barren landscape. And the bounties confirmed it - $250,000 reward for their names. I did not want to set up camp here - to tempt them with a lonely speck off in the distance. There are towns along the way - eerie places with ghosts that still gamble, curse, and speak of the good days, when their home thrived from the mining boom almost a century ago. In the dead town of Austin, a woman dressed in colonial attire served me in an empty restaurant. She carried a pistol with a long barrel that ran the seam of her dress. There’s no law here, she said to me. I made sure to leave her a generous tip.

I spoke candidly to the lonely road as if it needed the company. Maybe it was only to keep my sanity. My words filled the emptiness, but I swore I was heard. Dust and debris from the raging California fires caked my lungs and clawed my eyes, a relentless force that tried to keep me here. One cloudless afternoon, the wind caught me by surprise and pushed me into a steep ditch. Speeding cars come so infrequently that no one would find me here had I been injured. Occasionally one would stop out of concern - to replenish my water bottles. A man from Reno drove 8-hours to the middle of nowhere in search of a missing paraglider. He was part of a volunteer rescue team, equipped with drones with thermal sensors and aerial footage. I camped with the team at the fairgrounds in Eureka. In the middle of the night, they received promising news - red splotches from the thermal imagery promised signs of life. But there was nothing to be found. It was Day 5 when we all parted, there was no hope left of finding the paraglider alive. 

Between each summit, I am reminded where I came from and how far I needed to go. Trapped in the valley for hours, I wanted to surrender. This is torture - not a single bend in the road to forget nor anticipate. When the road finally inclines, I am already spent and dismount from my bicycle. Hundred yards in front of me, a car pulls over. I was convinced it was for me - after all, I was Sisyphus, condemned to push my rock for eternity only to start over again. They waited awhile, and left before I could reach them. Maybe it wasn’t for me - all this attention the past few months made me too bold. I reached the top of the summit, and where the car had parked was an unopened bottle - the coldest beer I have ever had. I laughed until my chest hurt - they understood what this place does to people.

All my aches and pains were soothed a mile off the road. I followed the coordinates to a heart-shaped hot spring in the middle of nowhere. I made myself a cup of instant coffee, sipping from my own private pool while wild horses fled into a hazy horizon. In the distance, an isolated thunderstorm stemmed from a single cloud. I felt oddly unconcerned when the sudden rain passed before my eyes. It was not in pursuit of anything - certainly not me. This was the only road, but it chose to follow its own pavement.

My brother called me from a hospital in Denmark. He was bit by a venomous viper while out on a hike. He shared pictures of his swollen leg, purple from the waist down. A few days after, a snake crossed the road, and it was impossible for me to stop. As my tire crushed its body, I turned and watched its slender body curl in agony. The timing was ominous. My brother thanked me later for the unintentional retribution. 

I pulled up to a bar that served as a resting point since the Pony Express. It was the Wisconsin in me - I needed a drink. The owners spoke their minds. You pedaled all this way, for what? You crazy motherfucker. We all laughed and drank, exchanging our stories. I wrote a note on the back side of a photograph I carried with me. Before I left, they displayed the photograph of my hometown behind the bar. 

When I reached Carson City, I thought it was over. I reached civilization - chain restaurants, busy traffic, and noise. But I cannot help but wonder, was I ever truly lonely?