Holiday weekend in Northern Nevada

[keithu]

I took advantage of a long holiday weekend to ride down to Nevada to visit my Dad and help him with some chores at his house in the mountains. I left home in Oregon the morning of July 4th@and crossed the Cascades on OR-58 to US-97 and Klamath Falls. 

I diverted from my normal route and routed over to Alturas and then took NV-447 through Gerlach. This gave me an opportunity to visit the Iron Butt Memorial next to the Black Rock Desert. 

I continued south to Fernley, and then took US-50 to Six Mile Canyon and up to Virginia City. It looked like I barely snuck through VC before they closed the main street for a parade. I made it to Dad's in just under nine hours, not bad for 550 miles with an extended stop at the IBA memorial.

[keithu]

I had to pull some wire in Dad's crawlspace for a new water filter. It was like the tomb in Indiana Jones down there, except all the mummies were mice instead of Egyptians. Sorry, no pics of that.

I did enjoy some of the desert plant life around the place though, and the schnitzel ala Holstein Dad made for dinner.

[keithu]

Today I had to get home fast, so I left at 6:00am and took the most direct route with no photo stops. I did 450 miles back to Oregon in eight hours, arriving just in time for my niece's birthday party on the farm near Brownsville.

[wordsmith]

When Yamaha first launched the FJR many years ago in 2001/ 02, it was labelled as a 'Performance Tourer' - 5-speed gearbox 'n' all.

I believe that this designation now belongs to the FJ-09/ MT-09 Tracers and GTs, for as keithu's couple of impressive posts indicate, in the right hands this bike is capable of covering long distances quite rapidly and with some rider comfort, so long as not overburdened with a pillion and/ or excessive luggage.   Nicely done, keithu!

Edited July 8, 2019 by wordsmith

[koth442]

The Nevada desert has it's unique beauty...