I left somewhat early from Ely, and made pretty quick miles on the first gradual climb out of town on the highway. It wasn't too long that I turned off onto a parallel gravel road that must be the former highway. It was pretty fast too. Then I started what I thought would be a monster climb but it was gradual for the most part, and I didn't have too much trouble. It was very rocky and washed out near the top like those from yesterday. The next couple of smaller climbs were also not too bad. I found a nice shady spot at a cedar grove in the middle of the day, so I stopped for lunch and a break I spent the better part of an hour here eating and reading. I don't recall hearing a single man made noise, other than my own. Not even a plane. I had a steep initial descent back to another valley and went by the mining ghost town of Hamilton. It was abandoned and the remains of the buildings and equipment that were left were crumbling and falling apart. Beautiful stone work on several of the buildings, of local stone of course, there's no shortage of rocks here. Not long after that, my route had me go through a gate and onto a very untraveled road. I pedaled a bit and came to a herd of cows and a couple of troughs that actually had a water source. So I decided to filter a bottle here for good measure. I had plenty but I figured I might as well. The whole time I was getting water the cows all gathered around me and just stood there staring at me. I finished my bottle and had to get them to part the herd so I could get out from between the troughs, and again to head to the next gate. These gates are extremely cheap and are little more than cedar logs strung together with barbed wire and held taught to the fence with a couple loops of wire. I made sure to be careful not to get poked by the barbed wire in the process. I left my cowboy gloves at home. The cows followed me to the gate and we're eying me with anticipation. I decided I didn't want to risk one or all of them getting out so I just lifted the bike over and climbed the fence. I crossed another road and there was another gate that led to a lightly used track. I double checked the route and proceeded. It turned out that in this section of unmaintained two track, I was on the original route of the first coast to coast Auto route in America, the Lincoln highway. This section was used between 1913-1926. It was bypassed because it went through a mine. So since it's been so long since very much modern traffic has been on it, there was essentially no modern trash along it, but there were a lot of old rusted tin cans around. Trail food from the roaring twenties. The road itself was in surprisingly good condition, and was fairly smooth in parts. After a little gradual climb it turned downward and hardly any trucks had been on it so it had partially devolved into singletrack in places, and it was really fun descending. Looks like nobody uses it except for people riding the TAT. All the washes were smooth and it made it feel a bit like a flow trail. I had a blast here. I had read all about this road before and what part it played in getting our modern network of roads off the ground. But I had no idea I would be riding a historic, preserved stretch, and that it would be so much fun. Definitely a highlight of the trip. After I got back to modern day US 50 I had the first real route hiccup in a long time. It had me go through another gate onto a road, only to have me turn off, onto a cow path that faded into a wash. I turned around and backtracked. I took US 50 to Strawberry road, and got back on route. It was getting late ad I just wanted to camp. I decided to push to at least the base of the climb. Of course there was a storm to my west which gave me a strong headwind up the climb, and it turned out that for a long time it was all private property beside the road, unlike every other climb I've had in NV. So I pushed on and ended up finding a small group of cedars to meekly block the wind for me.