Wells, NV---Last Staging Stop

Andreas Paepcke

July 4 2026

Last High Desert Stop Before Mountains

For my 25th working year some time ago, Stanford gave me an Apple watch. Great gift. Though it caused me to abandon a well liked Citizen. The alarms and other amenities of the A-Watch were just irresistible.

Happily, that watch's battery died just before the trip, affording the excuse for a new one. Got the bigger size, but with all medical doodads stripped out. That's all I need, an app that measures my daily lung capacity and blood oxygen to share and compete over with my friends, and man-in-the-middle network attackers.

Got a 99 on my oxi today, and 38,363 steps. My average, that. How 'bout you?

The watch is great, surprising me with next-turn travel directions. Also with novelty items like this after I hoisted my luggage onto the bike in Winnemucca:

I notice you have had a bad fall. Calling a helicopter.

Wait!!!!

I turned that one off real fast. Then:

Calling Daniel

No!!!!!

Shall I install the calendar app now?

Dismiss!!!!

Then, out of the blue:

Take a few moments for yourself!

Watch! I'm on a 3,500 mile motorcycle ride. By myself. Hours in the sattle with nothing but high desert around me. Earplugs in. What more do you suggest?

Flashback to Winnemucca: Basque Dinner

Many pointed out before my trip that Winnemucca was destination to many emigrants from the Basque country. They worked as laborers, and to this day, you can get Basque food there.

Off I went to the Martin's Hotel where I expected my usual two-person table. I usually get placed there, because as hostesses invariably ask:

Just one?

Whereupon I will say:

What do you mean 'Just one'?!

This time it's different: long tables, and the hostess seats me not an introvert's one-chair-between from an older couple, but right damn next to him.

Between the cement business, ranching of chickens, and empty nest discussions. Oh, and a son who blows stuff up.

Stoking my extroversion stove I do the usual

Where are you guys from?

And before long I am discussing the cement business with him, and the pangs of empty nests with her.

I have barely acclimated myself to this intimacy, when the hostess brings an entire family, and seats them to my left.

Bravely, I turn to them...

First time here in Winnemucca? What brings you here?

I take in the sturdy structure of the Dad next to me, the open faced Mom across the table, and a decidedly muscular girl of 18 next to her.

Our daughter is competing in the calf roping competition tomorrow. We're from Washington State. When we get back, she is off to college in California. They recruited her at one of her rodeos.

Wow, that is impressive! Isn't it dangerous?

Not to her, it's not. She's been on horses since she was five. Her brother works on a large rural development site where he does the explosives. They film them from drones these days when the charges go off.

Mom runs a convict rehab program, which her husband very sweetly interjects has an 80% success rate.

He is a rancher

We're down to just six cattle. We also do chicken.

Ah? I eat a lot of those. How many chickens do you have?

Around 189 thousand. Across five barns.

Clients bring the chicklets and food. He nurtures the animals till they are at six pounds. Then the clients pick them up and take them to market. He is a chicken foster home.

Meanwhile the soup comes. Not my soup. Everybody's soup. You pass it down. Then a side dish to share, and another. Then finally my giant lamb shank. That one's all mine!

Turning to my rancher:

Have you always ranched?

No, I married into it. It's in my wife's family.

And before that?

I was a wildfire fighter.

On the conversation went! No problem.