Day11: Battle Mountain NV - Sonora CA

Mr Larrington:	Do I have to write up today now?
Omnes:	No. No, you do not. You may have a cup of tea and a stroopwaffel first!
Mr Larrington:	Fckles!

 Now read on...

I managed to spin out the lying-in-bed nonse until about hours 07:15 before doing the "breakfast" thing, the "packing" thing and the "saying goodbye to everyone who was available" thing, before heading off to the Maverik to restock the Blackstang with petril.  Not warm enough to put the lid down chiz.  Off down 305 towards Austin; encountered the Toronto gang disconsolately hunting for a team member's missing phone somewhere near catch and Alice and Mikey supervising the course take-down.  At the far end of 305 lies US-50 which, if you turn left, will take you to Ocean City MD.  Eventually.  I turned right and went a rather shorter distance to Middlegate before turning south on NV-361, where it had now become warm enow to travel open to the elephants.  Although the road is rougher than a bear's arse.

Middlegate and US-50 are somewhere down there...

Past Gabbs to Luning and right again onto US-95 to Hawthorne.  Keeping one eye on the estimated range available on the current tank of petril and another  on the distance to Sonora, well, they almost met, but the former obviously didn't know about the gert big mountains that needed to be crossed.  So I should have filled up in Hawthorne, because it's still in Nevada, where petril is cheaper than it is in California.  Natch, I did not, but instead turned south onto NV-359, which turns into CA-167 when it crosses the state line with neither care nor attention.  This takes you past Mono Lake, which you could see better if there wasn't a tree in the way, and up to the base of the lofty, though not SNO-capped Sierras.  By which time the temperature had dropped a fair bit and Mighty Rushing Wind had sprung up, so the roof went up again chiz.

Lofty peaks of the Sierras with SNO falling on them

Mono Lake is behind that bush

Turn back north on US-395 just north of Lee Vining and fill up in Bridgeport.  Motor-spirit is almost, but not quite, seven dollars a titchy USAnian gallon.  At the Maverik in Battle Mountain it was about $4.70.  Robdogs.  Continued north then turned west again on CA-108 and over Sonora Pass.  The lower reaches are rather scenic:

Little Walker River from CA-108 at the eastern end of Sonora Pass

The lofty heights are also scenic if you have the good fortune to cross them on a nice sunny day like wot I doned in 2008.  This time it started raining and by the top - almost 3000 metres Up, the rain had turned to wet SNO and it was 2 C outside.  You do not expect to see a near¹-replica of Janis Joplin's psychedelic Porsche 356 up there in those conditions, but there it was.  Sadly unable to get a photo of that, but here instead is some SNO, from inside the car because my jumper and coat were in The Luggage and staying there.

2 Celsius and SNO.  Welcome to sunny California!

Forty-odd miles downhill to Sonora and the Hotel Lumberjack, which is the cheap'n'cheerful annexe to the Historic Sonora Inn, and where it was cold.  And raining.  And where, indeed, it is still cold and raining.  I've got the flipping heating on!  Nobbut 150 miles back to SFO on the morrow and the Shiny Metal Birb doesn't leave until seven in the evening so I can take it easy tomorrow.  Here endeth the lesson.

1. Coupe rather than a convertible.