I slept wonderful and was pleasantly surprised at the cool temperatures during the night. I woke to 49.5 degrees, the coolest since Colorado. I took my time breaking camp. I waited a bit for the sun to dry out the condensation on the outside of my tent. I quickly ran across some refuge history at the Last Chance Ranch farmhouse. It and the ranch was bought in 1927 to protect the pronghorn antelope. It served as the first refuge headquarters. Half stone and half wood, with a cedar roof. Pretty cool to see such a relatively old structure being maintained way out there in the wilderness. The gravel road was laced with shiny black rocks. Like pepper in a seasoned dish. I picked one up and instantly recognized it as obsidian. A rock that is well known to hold an edge much sharper than steel. Most of the road was large grey rock, so I made an effort to avoid the black ones. The place I had camped last night was hunting territory, and not long after I began today I moved into a protected part of the refuge where hunting was prohibited. It was here that I saw three pronghorn antelope race across the road in front of me and join up with the other members of their herd. I counted 14 in total. A few more miles near the summit of Bald mountain, was the actual current headquarters. I guess anyway, as it wasn't marked. There was an old barn or workshop that was in the middle of a remodel. And a lovely house and a bunch of big water tanks behind, with lovely trees all around. No one was there, and I found the faucet and topped off my bottles. After this I descended a really twisty road that switchbacked down into the basin. This lovely gravel was far too easy for my route so I turned off onto a dirt road. I got a little confused when I went by a ranch house as my GPS line was off a bit. But I got back on course just as an ATV was approaching. He stopped to let me by as the track was pretty narrow. We got to chatting and he turned out to be cool. He was out scouting something for a local university. He warned me about the way he came, said it was deep soft powder. Called it bug dust. I thanked him and told him I would turn around to get back on the highway if it was too bad. But then we couldn't stop chatting. He shared my disdain for all the obvious overgrazing and the destruction the cows were doing to the landscape. Even gave me a good book recommendation that I can't wait to read that talks objectively about cattle grazing in the west, something I know very little about. He even offered to give me directions to his place not far away if I ran into some serious trouble. Finally we parted ways, and wished each other well. Thanks Paul, it was great to meet you and I suffered less in the powder having knowledge of what I was getting into. And he wasn't kidding. This was serious sandy dust that was just barely firm enough to plow my lone furrow through. Inexplicably, soon after it got really bad, my front tire went soft. Saddened, I calmly sat and took out the tube and attempted to find the hole. And despite my best efforts, I couldn't find one. I put it back in the tire and pumped it back up and it held air. I think it was the heat causing the glue of one of the patches to come undone a bit. I got lucky because I never had to add air the rest of the day. It must have glued itself back in place. After a couple miles of the bug dust, I heard a whining sound from the bike. I thought it was air escaping my tire. So I decided to get it over with as soon as possible and get back to gravel. So I put in a decent tempo till I was kinda surfing the dust, and it was drenching my shoes and my drivetrain. At the end I wiped and lubed my chain and pulley wheels and the whine went away. It was my drivetrain screaming in agony. Thankfully this was the last such lakebed shortcut. I did take one more shortcut over a different pass to Cedarville than the main road. And despite a warning sign that it was not maintained, it was super smooth gravel. On the other side of the pass was the state line, and pavement. California! I enjoyed a pretty fast descent and the. Fought a stiff southerly crosswind. I rode by a flowing creek at the bottom and decided to at least soak my sunsleeves as it was boiling by this time. But the water was at least 125 degrees, probably from a hot spring. So I washed off my really dirty gloves and sunsleeves here. Didn't need detergent, and it was so hot and dry they totally dried on the remaining few miles into town. In Cedarville I rode by so many loaded fruit trees in people's yards, and it was all I could do to stop myself from running up and stealing some, in my frantic hunger. I went to the grocery store, and shopped not only hungry but really thirsty too. I bought a gallon of tropical punch, from their cooler, to fill my bottles. And a Dr Pepper. While I sat on a bench just next to the tiny post office, I watched the town locals socialize as they went about their daily errands. I didn't have any service in town but the little town library was close so I decided to check the WiFi situation. Just as I did a woman walked up and asked if I was looking for a free WiFi! I asked her how she knew exactly what I was thinking! She told me that I could use her coffee shop's wifi, gave me the password right then and there. Even though it wasn't open. We chatted a bit about my trip and then she wished me well. So I finished my snacks and went over to The Vault, her Coffee shop, an old brick building which used to be a bank if the name is any indication. I downloaded a few more podcasts and met a couple of cool people walking by interested in my trip. They were in the area to set up stuff for Burning Man. Very nice folks. I said goodbye and continued on, north. The terrain through Surprise valley was flat with a few small rollers and I had and incredible tailwind. So I made good time to Fort Bidwell. Lots of cool old buildings, and an interesting hole in the wall hotel and restaurant combo. The climbing began right out of town. I had just begun and a van pulled up alongside. A concerned local wanted to make sure I had plenty of water and that I knew how much climbing was in store for me. Another genuinely nice person. I thanked her after reassuring her I was prepared, and she wished me well. I figured I had plenty of energy and time to make it to Cave Lake, a free primitive campground, but I kinda ran out of energy and camped on a side road. It's fine though as I did more than enough today to make tomorrow a very short day for a bit of a break, and hotel stay in Lakeview.