Wednesday, August 7th, 2024
Fallon, NV → Fallon, NV
0 mi, 0 ft
This morning, I woke up on a diamond-shaped couch in the Fallon Youth Club. The building has some of the coolest architecture we’d seen on this trip. Think Stata Center meets hip, New York City nightclub (take this with a grain of salt. I spent most of my NYC summer on the frisbee field rather than the dance floor). There are few right angles, many bright colors, and a mix of different materials and textures. Most of the team slept in the teen room, which had a pool table, foosball, and ping pong table. And the club had a beautiful industrial kitchen, which we happily took advantage of for a killer breakfast. We made breakfast sandwiches with all the fix-ins on toasted sourdough English muffins and parfaits dotted with berries, banana slices, and granola.
Setting up for the learning festival is easy when travel time is 0 minutes. Since we had some extra time, JD and I went outside to hang out with a few of the students. We finally broke out my frisbee that I’d been carrying this whole time and threw a little, inviting the students to join us. Unfortunately, they were uninterested and ignored us, going back to the game they were playing. JD and I gave up on my disc and asked if we could join. They were playing catch and run, which is like a mini version of football. One team throws the football to the other team to initiate the point. The receiving team then passes the football back and forth to get the ball to the other endzone. If there’s a turn, the teams reset and the other team receives the football.
The students obliged. “You get the girl” they shouted. Welp. I’m not one to argue, so JD and I split off towards opposite sides of the court. My team was receiving. I cut to open space, sprinting and changing direction sharply when needed. One thing about me is I’ve always thought of myself as more of a power athlete than an endurance one. Fast acceleration and quick changes of direction in small spaces are the name of my game. After a summer of steady biking in a straight line, I was finally getting to scratch that itch. The student with the football looked around frantically. I saw him scan all his receivers for anyone else open before settling on me. He launched the football into the air. It was coming closer and closer… I panicked. Catching a frisbee doesn’t translate quite as well to football as cutting does. Oops.
Pretty soon, it was time to start the learning festival. I’ve been helping JD with his Physics of Sound workshop, where students build speakers to learn how they work. However, we have off the first block of the schedule, so I walk around snapping pictures instead. Somehow, I have yet to observe Strawberry DNA after all this time, so I go there first. I watch and learn as Amulya explains how each of the ingredients and steps works to extract DNA from the strawberries. The detergent breaks down the cell and organelle membranes, the salt neutralizes negative charges on the DNA so it can stick together, and finally, the DNA is insoluble in rubbing alcohol, allowing us to see the strands.
After the first block, JD and I begin our first session of Physics of Sound. He designed speaker kits that allow students to build their own speakers using a 3D-printed speaker base (design courtesy of JD), a permanent magnet, copper wire, a small rectangle of paper, a square of cardstock, and some super glue. The students wrap the copper wire around a paper cylinder to create a solenoid. The solenoid fits around a permanent magnet on one end and is glued to a piece of cardstock on the other. A magnetic field is formed when current is run through the solenoid. The solenoid is either attracted to or repelled from the permanent magnet depending on the strength and direction of the current. And those movements vibrate the piece of cardstock, creating sound! Phew! After many iterations of this workshop, we’ve learned to have JD and I do most of the supergluing, lest a student glue their fingers together. Things go pretty smoothly and the students’ speakers work well! The speakers work best when attached to a larger surface that will vibrate more. This time we attach the speakers to the outside of a metal trash can. If you’re comfy sticking your head in the trash can (don’t worry, we emptied it), you get some great surround sound.
Surround sound in the trash can!!
When lunchtime comes, we join the students in the cafeteria for some sandwiches and chips Someone starts bottle flipping and soon there are more bottles in the air than on the table. I see more variations of bottle flipping than ever before: consecutive bottle flip attempts, landing on the cap, and flipping the bottle onto a root beer can. I see one student land the bottle on the can three times and I have to say, I’m thoroughly impressed.
Students attempt to flip the bottle onto the root beer can
After the learning festival ends, Rebecca drives off to Reno to get her bike fixed while the rest of us sit around and catch up on some work. I make the route for the next day, which is going to be 95 miles and 5500 ft of elevation. In the process, I discovered that Hank had Strava premium this entire time and didn’t realize it. In fact, he’s had an annual plan since February. How this happened, no one knows. Hank claims that I logged into his account and used his credit card six months ago to purchase Strava premium for him, but we all know that’s cope. Feel free to drop your conspiracies for how Hank got Strava premium in the comments.
We then have another delicious dinner prepared by Shannon. Unfortunately, we were too face full in food to take pictures, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say the pasta salad and salad with basil dressing (not pesto because Rebecca’s allergic to pine nuts!) were delicious. After dinner, Shannon comes by to drop off the laundry she had so graciously done for us. She tells us about the history of the Fallon Youth Club, the challenges she faced getting it started, and the tenacity required to overcome those barriers. One of the best parts of the trip is meeting incredible people along the way and hearing their inspiring stories. It’s something I’ve missed recently as we’ve been camping a lot in Utah and Nevada. And while I do love bumming with Spokes, it’s exciting to be able to hear someone else’s story. Thank you Shannon not only for being an incredibly generous host, but also for inspiring us with your passion and persistence in running the Fallon Youth Club!
The Fallon welcome sign calls the city “The Oasis of Nevada”. After camping 12 of the past 15 nights, often without laundry or showers, and biking along desert highways through the mountains with not a single gas station along the way, I could not agree more with that sign. The beautiful youth club, fun students, and Shannon’s kindness and generosity have truly made Fallon feel like an oasis. It seemed almost too good to be true. And indeed it was. Before she left, Shannon warned us that there was road work on the US-50 between Fallon and Silver Springs. Sections up to 5 miles in length would have one-way traffic with pilot cars, 25 mph speed limits and delays up to 30 minutes. She suggested a detour on the US-50 ALT to Fernley that avoided the road work. I immediately checked Strava. My heart dropped. The detour would add 15 miles and 500 ft of elevation, making the day 110 miles and 6000 ft of elevation, probably the hardest of any day of our trip.
I didn’t have too much time to look into other options as the nearby ice cream shop that Shannon recommended was closing soon. Should we have gone to sleep early to prepare for a big day tomorrow instead? Maybe. But when Country Creamery calls, Spokes 2024 answers. And Varsha, our resident ice cream connoisseur, says their lemon bar ice cream was the best yet on the trip.
After our short side quest, I checked the route again. Unfortunately, there aren’t many paved roads in this part of Nevada, so our only real options were to bike through the road work or take the 15-mile detour. Furthermore, we learned about the road work after the Nevada DOT phone line had closed, so we couldn’t call to ask whether we could bike through it.
Eventually, we decided to postpone the decision to the morning. We would call the Nevada DOT at 8am when they opened to get more information and decide whether to take the detour. Since the detour was at mile 9, we planned to start the ride a bit after 7am and then make the call on the road. The beginning of the ride was flat, so taking the detour would leave 100 miles and 6000 ft of elevation to do after 8am with the sun setting at 8pm. And that’s if we left on time... How much of this plan was fueled by reason versus a desperate hope that we wouldn’t need to take the detour? Let’s just say I went to bed worried.
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