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2008 Nevada Extraterrestrial Highway & Lunar Crater Tour -
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Click on pictures to view enlargements and
captions
 I ended up leaving Las Vegas at
around 1PM, after seeing some of my family off at the Las Vegas airport.
I packed my GS in the covered garage of the Bill's Casino (formerly
Barbary Coast) and donned my riding gear before heading out into the
103-degree heat. I took I-15 north out of Las Vegas to Nevada Highway 93
north. Finally I was on a two-lane road and alone. The triple-digit
temperature actually felt very comfortable as I cruised through the wide
desert valleys amongst the sage and Joshua trees.
 At Alamo, Nevada (elevation 3,450
feet) I decided to top-off my fuel, as I really had no idea what services
lie ahead on Highway 375. I also bought extra water and food, fully
expecting the worse scenario of breaking down a hundred miles from no
where. Being that I was going to be traveling on the Extraterrestrial
Highway, I suppose there was the possibility of the even worse scenario of
being abducted by aliens and getting an anal probe. but I wasn't sure of
how to plan for that, and in the end just hoped that the probe they used would be
really, really small!
 About 15 miles north of Alamo,
Nevada I turned southwest onto Nevada Highway 375. Area 51 was just over
the mountain range south of me, but there were no tell-tale signs that
anything existed over there, with the exception of a pair of F16 fighter
jets that periodically passed overhead. Highway 375 wound its way up a
rocky pass called Hancock Summit (elevation 5,592 feet), after which the
highway veers back to the northwest through Tikaboo Valley. Tikaboo
Valley is a typical Basin and Range valley with high mountain peaks on
both sides and a flat bottom. Highway 375 is straight as an arrow through
this section as it passes through Joshua tree forests before climbing up
to Coyote Summit (elevation 5,591 feet) in the Tempiute Mountains.
Dropping down the north side of Coyote Summit, Highway 375 enters its
only town - Rachel, Nevada. They really try to work the alien theme in
Rachel, but for the five minutes that I was in town I didn't even see a single
alien. let alone a gas station. 
North of Rachel, Highway 375
climbs out of the Sand Spring Valley at Queen City Summit (elevation 5,935
feet) and then drops into Railroad Valley. Here I encountered road
construction and was stopped by a flagger. I assumed that they were
chip-sealing the highway and pulled in front of the single other stopped
car so that I didn't have to worry about following him through loose
gravel when traffic was permitted to move again. I pulled up next to the
flagger who was a heavy-set guy with a grey beard, and grayish-brown hair
sticking out beneath his construction-orange NDOT (Nevada Department of
Transportation) hard hat. I told him why I had moved ahead of the car that was
now behind me and he agreed that was a good idea, since the next 5 miles
of road were 'sanded oil'.
 I turned off my
motor since it was obvious the wait was going to be quite significant.
The flagger seemed to be pretty happy to finally have someone to talk to
since we were literally in the middle of no where. The wind was blowing
at a steady gust, so we had to almost shout to hear each other even though we
were only a few feet apart. Despite the fact that I have a GPS with off-road and
street information on it, I asked the flagger how far it was to Highway 6
just to spark conversation. He was amazed that I was heading to Salt Lake
City, and asked me if I was on the right highway. He said that he rarely
saw motorcycles
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