Originally posted at Project Pedal...

I have to admit at the end of day 2 - I was feeling very down about our location scouting. The weather was grey and rainy, the landscape wasn't changing enough, etc.

Not to mention our being very, very limited on time... meaning we wouldn't be able to drive as far east as we hoped, which turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Instead of staying on US 50 for the next 400 hundred-some miles, like the ACA maps suggested, Amanda and I headed south on 95, after Fallon, towards Death Valley. Which proved to be the picture-perfect "loneliest road" I was looking for: a straight shot of highway for as long as the eye could see, with no traffic, dead grass and sand on both sides, high mountains in the distance.

We also passed through Goldfield, NV, an amazing ghost town - after a google-search I found that back in it's day, it was home to over 30,000 people - in 1906, when it produced 11 million in gold. The town also had one of the longest bars in history - requiring up to 80 tenders at a time to serve drinks. Now that I've read so much on it - I can't wait to go back, just passing through gave me chills. The Goldfield Hotel is still in perfect shape, and had a reputation of being the finest hotel between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific - in 1908, Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech from the main balcony.


But moving on - I'm very happy with the scouting in retrospect, we have three very different landscapes now: the ocean, the mountains, and the desert. Actually, make that five - add in: big city and one-street-towns. It should make for an interesting progression. For those who aren't caught up on the upcoming pilot episode, here's the plan:

June 5th - 8th, a small cast and crew will travel from San Gregorio, CA to San Francisco, to Fallon, NV... and from this point on we'll pretend we are continuing east, but actually we'll be heading south towards Death Valley. The four days of shooting will be editing to look like the second week of a coast-to-coast bike trip.

Tomorrow I plan on posting the loose outline for the pilot - I just have to re-type it on the computer, I've only been using the typewriter.