Day 61, Silver Springs to Kit Carsons' Campground, 77 miles

Having star-gazed ourselves to sleep early, we made an early-bird start this morning (on the road for 7:30 am). We had 40 miles under our belts before making it to Carson City for breakfast; coffee and bagels which we chowed down on behind the gas station (we couldn't see any parks around.) We learned from a billboard that Carson City is the capital of Nevada, but didn't do further sight-seeing. Instead we skirted around the new highway bi-pass (that didn't feature on our maps!) Thankfully the city has invested in some fancy new bike paths, which made it fairly easy to leave Carson City.

From the urban sprawl, we descended into the valley and towards California; our ninth and final state of this journey! Where our road crossed the State border, I was underwhelmed by the signage welcoming us to California. I had expected a sign promising beaches and bikinis -instead we reached a meek post with 'California' on the farside and 'Nevada' on the other. Ah well, we still made it!

It was nice to be out of the desert (while not without its' own charm)-and into green farmland, surrounded by the Sierra Nevada mountains. Even knowing that we would have to cycle over those mountains tomorrow didn't stop us from admiring their glory.

Our game-plan was to climb some of Carsons Pass and camp in the park there, so we can tackle the remaining elevation first thing in the morning. After barren Nevada it was great to see tall trees again. The State campsite was vastly different from where we had camped the previous evening; from a warm sandy beach in the desert to a cool forested mountain. In the absence of showers, we splashed down in a very cold mountain stream; bracingly refreshing!