Picto Diary - 07 to 11 July 2025 - Out and About on the Duc to Hoover and Back to Park City

Above: Sinclair Station, Delle, UT. 07 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
Frederico and Pierre-Paula, Italian couple riding a Harley (see image) they rented in SLC. Duc is to the right. They are leaving the bike in Las Vegas in seven days after which they fly home to Liguria. A serendipitous meeting. I've likely passed the Delle Sinclair over one hundred times sans stopping in the last twenty-five years. This time, an old man's bladder called for the earlier stop.

Above: Chevron, West Wendover, NV. 07 July 2025
Out and about on the Duc.

Above: Terrible's Chevron. Carlin, NV. 07 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
Still life. Snack after 290 miles ride with previous stops in Delle and West Wendover. The essential Celsius. Orange and Grape are the best flavors.

Above: Winnemucca Inn. Winnemucca, NV. 07 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
The win shown here paid for my ribeye.
I have a system. Pays for the ribeye more often than not.

Above: Terrible's Chevron and Casino. Fernley, NV. 08 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
No, no. Just a gas stop and a Celsius grape drink.

Humboldt Sink
Track the mighty Humboldt to the bottom of the sink.
70 dry miles to Fernley for your Truckee River drink.
Donners made it this far but late due Utah woes.
Stymied in the Sierra cause of early winter snows.
The purring V4 Duc takes the Donner pass with ease.
Break at Auburn In 'N Out for a bite of beef and cheese.

Above: In 'N Out Burger. Auburn, CA. 08 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
Must stop in Auburn. In 'N Out burger chain is a great "only in America" success story. Mostly teen workers enthusiastic, working hard, smiling, looking you in the eye...taking pride in their work. In addition, by popular acclaim the fare is unmatchable. Auburn is near Grass Valley, CA, setting for my favorite novel: Oliver Ward and Susan Burling Ward living out their golden years at the not so golden "Angle of Repose" by Wallace Stegner.

Above: Hoover Institution, Stanford, University, Palo Alto, CA. 08 July 2025
Out and about on the Duc.
Zohar Palti. Overseers Dinner speaker. File Image

Former head of the Political-Military Bureau at Israel's Ministry of Defense. In the Q and A I asked him if he thought Iranian people were galvanized for or against the Ayatollah after the recent, claimed successful, Israeli and US attacks on Iran. His answer was inconclusive. "Hard to say," he replied. In framing my question to Palti I referenced my two weeks of overland travel throughout Iran as a nineteen-year-old in 1964. I said that there are few Iranians alive who remember those days. Most living Iranians have lived their whole lives under the Islamic Republic of Iran. I didn't say, but I was wondering if Iran would be like the Russians, who are now likely to win the war in Ukraine, because of their similar 10X population advantage over their enemy and a Russian like capacity to suck it up and suffer losses on a scale not appreciated in the impatient and attention deficit disordered West.

SDT note: In former times, victory was defined by surrender with victor occupying the country of the defeated enemy. Notwithstanding Israeli and US strikes on Iran, Iran claims to have been the victor in the recent twelve-day engagement. Who/what to believe? Proof of Iran major setback on nuke development? Nature of damage from Iran missiles launched against Israel? Whole lot of Kabuki going on...both sides? Forced to bet, I'd say Iran is humbled, certainly humiliated, but not "defeated." The Iran nuclear weapon issue is not dead IMHO. The bunker buster strike, which I supported, was impressive, but Trump talks bigly (sic) with not so big of a stick. In a state of dynamic tension with the west, the BRICS hover overhead in variable winds. Next move? Weakening the Israeli/Azerbaijan connection by Russia and Iran?

Above: Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. 09 July 2025.

Nitin Mehta took a selfie of us after finding out that we were both friends of Jerry Rao who lives in Mumbai, India. Nitin is a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist out of Silicon Valley. He's a new Overseer of the Hoover Institution.

Above: Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 10 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
File images: Condoleezza Rice, Director Hoover Institution and 66th Secretary of State.
Admiral James O. Ellis, Four Star Admiral, USN (ret) and visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution.
General H.R. McMaster, Lt. General US Army (ret); former National Security Advisor, Senior Fellow Hoover Institution.
Paul Peterson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, education specialist.

At the Hoover Overseers Meeting I was able to garner some one-on-one time with each of the above:

Condi Rice - After Condi had managed a "fireside chat" with Sriram Krishnan, Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Mary Meeker, Bond General Partner, I cornered her as she left the stage. "Here is a question I was going to ask in Q and A had there been time," I said. "In Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk there is a section where Musk and Sergei Brin of Google are discussing the future of AI. The Musk position was that humanity had an obligation to ensure that human consciousness must never be superseded by a new technology. Brin, according to the Isaacson narrative, was not concerned about this. Per Brin, if a new form of intelligence evolved out of the use of AI that subsumed human consciousness, so be it. Reaction?" Condi acknowledged my point as an important discussion item.

Admiral James O. Ellis - Admiral Ellis chairs a committee responsible overseeing certain Hoover strategic initiatives, one of which is Taiwan. I listened to his presentation and walked away with a memorable takeaway: Taiwan has closed nuke power plants a la Germany and is in the process of a transition over to "green" energy with natural gas bridging the gap. Every day Taiwan unloads a tanker and a half of natural gas. In any confrontation between China and Taiwan, Taiwan's energy supply is at serious risk due to a blockade. Later, talking to Admiral Ellis one on one, I said something to the effect, "If there is one thing the US Navy should be doing it is ensuring the accessibility of the world trade routes. Yet, in the Red Sea just yesterday at the Straits of Bab El Mandeb, two commercial ships were sunk by the Houthis. Recently, a US carrier had to turn tail to avoid a Houthi missile. The urgent carrier maneuver resulted in the loss of a US aircraft overboard. The US doesn't seem to have the deterrence capability to keep the trade sea lanes safe." I[m not going to characterize Admiral Ellis' response in detail. Let me just say that he did not make an impassioned refutation of my conclusion.

General H.R. McMaster - General McMaster took an open seat next to me at breakfast on 10 July 2025. I asked him: "The shutdown of USAID. Good thing or bad thing?" "A little of both," he replied. "There was clearly wastage on political projects of the left. But there was other funding that advanced the interests of the United States."

Paul Peterson - I was seated next to Paul at dinner on 09 July 2025. I asked him what project was top of mind for him today. "I'm working on a study which measures the educational performance of schools where professional staff are added when student numbers don't increase concomitantly. The results show that educational performance actually declines under such circumstances. The same declines in performance often occur in schools where there is a decline in student numbers without a reduction in professional staff." I told Professor Peterson that the Park City, UT school district is a shrinking district. Increased house prices have resulted in fewer families with children living in the area.

Above: Nevada Correctional Institution, Lovelock, NV. 10 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.

OJ in Lovelock Prison.
Lovelock denizens in the spotlight.
Prison management is their plight.
None said OJ was heaven sent.
Seven years stay without paying rent.
At the very end a flight to Coral Gables.
On the golf course OJ telling fables.
"I didn't do it. The glove didn't fit.
That's why the jury had to acquit."
Airplane movie star. Those were the days.
All brought down in a Nicole haze.

Above: Best Western Gold Country Inn. Winnemucca, NV. 10 July 2025
Out and about on the Duc (visible in image).

Four ride segments on today's ride:
1. Menlo Park, Dumbarton Bridge, I-880 North to Oakland, I-80 to Sacramento. 130 miles.
2. Sacramento I-80 to Reno. 120 miles. 100 degrees in Sacramento. 82 degrees at Donner Summit.
3. Reno to Lovelock. I-80. 110 miles.
4. Lovelock to Winnemucca. 100 miles.
Total miles: 460
When I tried to reserve a room on the Best Western app from Lovelock an hour and a half ago, there were no rooms available at Best Western Winnemucca.

I went there anyway. The young female hotel clerk confirmed that there were no rooms available. I gave the young lady a sob story: "Hey, I'm a platinum member yada (I was nice) no cancellations?... no unlet suites?" "Oh wait," the girl said, "we have a cancellation you can have." There was a $100 premium on the normal rate (of course) but I was very happy to get the room in this unusually busy town. The gold price is up, so there must be a lot of mining going on in this town, hence hotel usage, where the economy turns on the price of gold.
I'm now waiting a ribeye and loaded baked potato at the Winnemucca Inn, next door. Wheel of Fortune didn’t pay for the meal this time, but it did provide a $15 discount. As I said, I have a system.

Above: The Star Hotel, Elko, NV. 11 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc (visible in image).
The Star. Best Basque food this side of Woolgrowers' Restaurant, Bakersfield, CA. Must stop: for me, at least.

Above: Pilot Peak, eastern NV. 11 July 2025.
Out and about on the Duc.
Landmark for those early California bound travelers, like the Donner Party, who decided to take the Hastings Cutoff, saving three hundred miles (on paper) by crossing the Wasatch Range into the Salt Lake valley and then traversing the 70-mile waterless section of the Great Salt Lake Desert. The star crossed Donners didn't fare well in their desert crossing. The lost half their cattle and had to shed a lot of their possessions. Pilot peak, named by explorer John C. Fremont, is a visible landmark from the beginning of the Great Salt Lake Desert crossing. There are springs at the base of the mountain. I organized an off-road motorcycle event, Big Cat, based in Wendover in 2000 where riders rode the remote area north of Pilot Peak. One rider fell and broke a leg on that ride. A chopper medevac came from Elko to pick him up.

Above: West Wendover, NV. 11 July 2025.
Out and About on the Duc.
Only one hundred fifty miles to go.