Busy Bees

We're pretty sure Utah is the Beehive state, and we've been busy as bees since our last post.

We left off searching for a place to stay in Cedar City, and Russ really came through by getting the parks service to let us camp on their nice green lawns. We should have been suspicious of the fact that they had living grass, but were too tired to think about it until we were woken up at 2:30 AM by the sprinkler system. We should note that this happened to be the night that Russ and Jen went without a tent fly due to the heat. We moved our soaking tents to a dry area and shivered away the remaining two hours to our wakeup. The long climb up to Cedar Break National Monument took us five hours and really tired us out, but we still had 60 miles to go. It was so beautiful at the lookout points - Utah is so unbelievable! More about this later. We enjoyed 40 miles of downhill that took us from high alpine meadows to red rock canyons, and after a nice picnic lunch on the shore of Panguitch Lake, into the town of Panguitch.

We had our usual routine of milkshakes (at a nice diner in Panguitch) before taking a two-hour nap to avoid the hottest part of the day. We met a number of nice residents of Panguitch, including the Newell family with their three children who were supportive of our ride. Then we were off, to ride the last 20 miles on a beautiful bike path through red canyons to Bryce Canyon National Park, where we had our much-needed day of rest.

After sleeping a little later the next morning, we went for a short hike in Bryce (strong work on that hike!) then met Jen's mom and stepfather, who treated us to a wonderful ALL YOU CAN EAT dinner. We would have broken about even, so we took all of the decorative fruit on our way out (the last orange was finished four days later) to make sure we got what we paid for.

The next in our string of poorly-informed assumptions was that after leaving the Great Basin and climbing over Cedar Breaks we would be out of the desert. It turns out that as you move east, Utah gets drier and hotter. We have been seeing temperatures in above 105 every afternoon, with no shade in sight. Our first day back was no exception. We started biking against a striking backdrop.After an indescribable downhill through a steep slickrock canyon (you can see Jen in the picture below), which changed to red rock (there's Sarah),we arrived at the base of our next 20+ mile climb at 1 PM, with triple-digit temperatures. We wisely decided to wait a few hours at a conveniently-placed campground before continuing onto Boulder in the evening, The road to Boulder was intense:no shoulder, and steep drops on both sides. Did we mention the ridiculous slope?

Yeah, we were going in the hard direction. We found a small oasis in Boulder - a real grocery store with lots of health foods! Dan was in heaven, and after some discussion with the owner (a very nice woman by the name of Donna) we got permission to camp in the backyard of the health food store. And let's not forget the fabulous dinner we had at the Burr Trail eatery in Boulder, with local beef for the meat-eaters and delicious entrees and dessert for all.

Despite losing a few slices of our PB and J sandwiches (Dan insists that it was the hungry black cat that was hanging around the store), our experience in Boulder was a great one.

Our ride the next day also was full of pleasant surprises. We began with a steep steep (did I say steep!) climb to an elevation above 9000 feet. After a great downhill, we coasted our way to the small town of Torrey, Utah. We asked Jen what time it was, and she exclaimed "Taco Time" - as we entered a local eatery/gas station for some mexican food and cold drinks.

The scenery of this ride was "unbelievable" as Dan would say. What began as a climb through the woods, with cattle in the middle of the road, and unfortunately placed cattle guards (which snagged on to Sarah's front tire - no injuries, thank goodness), continued with the amazing boulders, cliffs, and rocks of the Capitol Reef National Park (so beautiful - we couldn't believe we hadn't heard of it before!), and then desert everywhere, hot and dry. When we saw the first tree and patch of shaded lawn in several hours, we knew we had made it to Caineville and it was time for lunch - and another one of our afternoon naps.

We awoke from our naps slightly refreshed - that heat is a killer! and Dan's "all-natural" bug repellant was no match for the flies that went after us during the nap - and continued on to Hanksville, our destination for the day. But on the way we stopped in at an organic farm nestled on the side of the desolate road, all by itself. Sharon, a recent college graduate out of salt lake city, utah, and a self-proclaimed vegan, greeted us with a warm welcome and invited us to try some homemade whole grain bread, some freshly made goat cheese, and some cold iced tea. We were so happy to have stopped!

We found a nice campground in Hanksville to lay our heads to rest for the night. Thanks to the generosity of Elliott, a former schoolteacher from northern Utah who owns the campground, we had our campsite for free. Elliott told Russ and Dan about the time 30 years ago when he bought the property that became the campground - as he recalled it, he was drunk from a night at the bar, but luckily, the the campground turned out to be a successful venture.

We left Hanksville for a short day of riding, to our destination at the Hite Recreation Area, in the middle of nowhere, Utah. With about 15 miles left in our ride, we got a visit from the Morris folks, Robin and Joel, who greeted us on the side of the road in their rented Jeep Cherokee. They had driven down from a family wedding in Denver, and boy were we happy to see them! They brought water, french bread, hummus, grapes, and dessert for lunch - and of course a huge watermelon.

When we arrived at the Hite Recreation center, let's just say it wasn't what we were expecting out of a recreation area. For all of those LOST fans out there, imagine Dharma Initiative Station 12 - that's about what Hite looked like. No trees, no shade, no grass. A couple of picnic tables perched on a concrete slab that was hot enough to cook eggs. Luckily we found the one air conditioned mini mart to have out picnic.

After the Morris' left with most of our gear - we wanted to ride the next day with a trimmed down load, we had our usual afternoon nap - with our sleeping pads on top of the outdoor picnic tables to avoid the angry red ants on the ground - and then had a quick dinner of microwaved burritos. Our "night" of "camping" at Hite went something like this: drenched in sweat on top of our sleeping pads, we tried to soak up as many hours of sleep as possible before our wake up time of 1 am.

We were eager to leave Hite early in the morning, and began a steady climb in the dark with the stars shining overhead. With less gear we made great time, arriving in the city of Blanding Utah before 11:30 am (for all of you Jeopardy fans, it's called the "the home base for adventure"). Here we are writing from Blanding, in the lobby of the Comfort Inn, where we certainly are comfortable after showers and laundry everyone is clean and happy. Tonight we will go to dinner with Dan's parents before they say goodbye tomorrow morning.

Today is our last day in Utah - we had no idea the amazing beauty to be found in this state. We will surely miss the great views, amazing landforms, and red rocks, but certainly not the intense heat.

We promise to write soon...
Have a happy july 4th :-)

Dan, Russ, Jen, Sarah, and Alex