June 17th Day 10 Father's Day

We woke @ 4am, had a quick breakfast in our hotel room and were on the road by 5am. We left Eureka as the sun was just beginning to come up. We had front and back lights, there was no traffic, and it was nice and cool out. We rode almost 80 miles today (elapsed time of 10 hrs.) and arrived in Ely, NV @2:45pm. We climbed 4 mountain summits and on the top of each pass we each said one thing about Mattiio that we loved. It was the Four Pass Father's Day Ride. It wasn't as hot as yesterday and for once we had plenty of water. It was still a tough day, 78 miles hauling gear. We met the sweetest kid from Switzerland. His name is Simon. He rode from Geneva to the ship that brought him to the E. Coast and now he is riding the reverse route as us and then after SF cont. on to Canada. He is all of 18 yrs. old, just about to start university and wanted to "make a big trip" and was "very curious about America". He was so cute and innocent, yet so mature and adventurous. If I was about 25 yrs. younger I would have just scooped him up and put him in my pocket. As it was I just had this overwhelming urge to feed him. I gave him Sharon and Mark's # so he can call when he passes through Davis and get a hot meal and a shower. We camped in a KOA just on the further outskirts of Ely. Hot showers, grassy camp spot (Matt and I usually sleep out under the stars, the stars are amazing!!!). Give Solomon 10 min. somewhere and he will make a friend. He was off playing basketball with Tyler and Matthew within min. of dismounting the bike. These KOA's must be funded by some government faith based initiative thing because they have everything; movies under the stars, basketball, tetherball, green lush grass, laundry, hot showers, snack shop, jungle gym that unlike everywhere else isn't made of some heat conducting metal that gets so hot any child that even got close would suffer severe burns, white haired retirees that volunteer to staff the place and sit around bar-b-queing and whining about the government's new Green laws, and all the Rush Limbaugh you can eat. We camped next to some Motorcycle guys on their way to the Motorcycle Jamboree. They were very interested in our trip and kept coming over to ask us questions but when Matt, bless his little heart, showed them our petition...they were not interested in signing it. Guess they don't want better gas milage..or maybe they don't like all them trees. We finally started seeing some wildflowers; Indian Paintbrush, blue Flax, Penstamen, etc.